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Converting Duets: Maccann To Hayden?


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Łukasz, you raise an interesting point re the arpeggios. The feature of the above layout that most concerns me is that the fifths are directly above the roots, which might impeded a I-V jump. One idea that comes to mind is to shift the "F" row over one notch to the right, making a C to G a diagonal-up-right shift vice a straight vertical, allowing an index finger to hit C and a middle finger to hit G. That would have the downside of swapping the awkwardness to the fourth, but that's slightly less-bad than the fifth being awkward.

 

Is it the opinion of those gathered that there's no comfortable way to convert a Maccann simply by moving reeds around, that any viable Hayden conversion must entail making new ends and changing up some of the keywork and reedpan?

 

Even if it sacrifices some comfort, I see much more appeal/convenience/affordability/reversability in simply moving reeds about with no changes to keyword or fretwork. Is that not what the Cheeseman system did, preserving all basic structures while largely moving solely the reeds about?

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The feature of the above layout that most concerns me is that the fifths are directly above the roots, which might impeded a I-V jump. One idea that comes to mind is to shift the "F" row over one notch to the right, making a C to G a diagonal-up-right shift vice a straight vertical, allowing an index finger to hit C and a middle finger to hit G.

 

 

No they aren't. C to G is, G to D is already diagonal-up-right. So moving F one button to the right will only flip this awkwardness to G-D fifth.

 

If you want to retain the isomorphism of a Hayden layout, you have to do one of the following: make vertical lines on the diagram as the fifths progression, so CGDAEB in one column, then start the next one on D and so on. Effectively, short diagonal lines will become whole step series and the layout will "rotate" around 60 degrees to the original Hayden. You can also treat long diagonal lines as fifths progressions, resulting in a very close transposition of a Hayden layout over a wavy button pattern. Both options result in a rather strange edge boundaries, but one of them makes a room for 5-6-6-6-6 keyboard, unfortunatelly wandering towards flat notes in higher octaves. Ideally, you should flip the Maccan 90 degrees and make the straight, horizontal lines whole step series and short up&right diagonals fifths, but unfortunatelly you'll end up in a completely unballanced box with a handle on its edge.

 

[sIDENOTE]: without rotating the keyboard, it would be more logical to convert a Maccan to a different isomorphic layout. One of the CBA 5-row systems should probably fit it quite ergonomically. But there will always be the problem of the available keyboard boundaries...

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To Matthew about a 39 button Maccann.
RHS has 20 buttons g' to d"' (chromatic). The top d"' is the same as the top note of the standard 46 button Hayden. It has the same (25 tone chamber) reedpan as a 46 button Maccann, with 5 of these empty at the top. If you can live with a Cheesemanesque array and no notes below the g' on the right hand side, it would be just a case of moving those reeds round, with some small adjustments.
LHS has 19 buttons detached tenor c then e to g' (chromatic) then a',b',c". The reedpan has 21 tone chambers. There is one small one at the top; and I was amazed to find one large empty chamber at the bottom lefthand side, perfectly placed to take that missing low d !!
Well worth adding even if it looked slightly odd in the fretwork. You can buy plug cutters and matching forstner bits from any good tool shop (such as Axminster Power Tools} to make a neat job of this. This would mean adding only a couple of reeds and an action and button to the instrument.
Personally I think it would be well worthwhile to add the c',d',e',f' & f#' to the right hand, and a g#' to the left hand using all the spare spaces. And reroute the action and recut the frets, to take it up to the standard Hayden layout; but that would require a lot of specialist work.

Inventor.

Edited by inventor
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I have looked again at a 39 button Maccann and realise I have made a mistake with that inviting spare large tone chamber on the left hand side. In fact the 39B doesn't have a low e as well as the low d. so you will need an extra pair of low Es as well as the extra Ds.
What threw me was that somewhat quirky placement of the D#s on the Maccann. The spare tone chamber is intended for the low e on a 46B.
If you do go ahead with the 39B I would suggest you either ditch the left hand d'# and put a low e there and use the other tone chamber for the low d. Alternatively, somewhat more difficult: move the actions in collumn 4 so that each of the buttons conects to the next highest tone chamber, of that collumn; with the top button going to the high c" tone chamber, and ditch the high c".

Inventor

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[[[i am interested in the idea of the Hayden with 2 right sides, whether a custom or a rebuilt MacCann. It could be effective for trad music from Ireland once one figures out how to allocate buttons for rolls and other embellishments. Would you want the two sides to be mirror images of each other or reversals? (ie. would middle C be under the index finger on both sides or would it be always on the right side of each respective array?)]]]

 

exploration of this fascinating byway has been given its own topic in this thread:

 

 

http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=16950

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