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Concertina System Identification Help


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Have this concertina good biuld hohner reeds unisonic.Only information I have." It was made by my late step father Peter Mattingley and has never been used, just kept in it's box." He made a couple a year and may have run a club in north London. It does not appear to be an English or a duet system? . Posting two pictures of the lay out it seems as random as you can get.Lay out is Low to high from left to right. The air buttons are notes.It may be a Querty type system were the notes are easy placed as to use? Any help advice appreciated no good for me but am intrigued.

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Have this concertina good biuld hohner reeds unisonic.Only information I have." It was made by my late step father Peter Mattingley and has never been used, just kept in it's box." He made a couple a year and may have run a club in north London. It does not appear to be an English or a duet system? . Posting two pictures of the lay out it seems as random as you can get.Lay out is Low to high from left to right. The air buttons are notes.It may be a Querty type system were the notes are easy placed as to use? Any help advice appreciated no good for me but am intrigued.

 

Any chance of redoing those layouts with the relative octaves indicated? I'm not sure that would make it seem any more sensible, but maybe worth a try. I assume from your diagrams that each button plays the same note on both push and pull.

 

I must admit that to me, it certainly does look quite random... so much so that I wonder whether the reed plates (I'm assuming that "hohner reeds" indicates individual plates) came loose at some point and someone with no clue of the original (or any) layout just put them back in without attempting any "pattern", except for same note on both push and pull.

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Hi as stated unisonic. Made as is, well constructed, biulder knew what they were doing.Does the name Peter Mattingley possible north London club or band leader ring any bells. I did see a resemblance of a group of six notes to a Jefferies duet system but only if you turned the layout through 90 degrees and mirror imaged it.!!!!He made a couple a year so there must be others. I have a maybe false memory of a post of a similar self biuld in a forum some time ago.

 

I have number the scale ,Pic right hand, starting C second row start down third row to D down fourth row up/ to E one button back F jump to top row G etc with numbers 1 -15 over the two octave progression finish 15 C end minus one second row if that helps.

kind regards

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Still no luck but I have a lead from melodeon.net.

 

I guess the maker/inventor must be Peter Guy Mattingley (1931-2010), whose obituary (it seems) appears on page 20 of Concertina World;2011, Issue 448, June 6, 2011 - but I don't have access to it..

 

Any one got a copy please.

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I'm pretty sure that's the system that Peter designed himself. He brought it to Midlands Concertina Group a couple of times. I saw him with it at least once. It was his personal attempt at designing the perfect keyboard layout.

 

Concertina keyboard layout is one of those man things that prompts lengthy debate and inspires people to invent.

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Thanks do you have a take on the idea behind it. The notes are close but no repeating patterns.Is it related to any duet systems.And what keys is it best for.Did Peter play a regular concertina.It is very well biult so was it a one off. Kind regards

No idea, but here's a question for you. You have said that it is "low to high from left to right" which is conventional. My question is, are the right and left hand overlapping/contiguous/in the same range?

 

If they are overlapping then it is designed to be played something like a duet. That is, melody on the right, with a full accompaniment on the left, rather like a piano. (My guess is that this is most likely.)

 

If they are contiguous (right hand starts where the left hand finishes) then it is designed to be played something like an Anglo. (Melody mainly on the right, accompaniment if any mainly on the left.)

 

If they are in the same range then it is designed to be played something like an English. (Sequences of notes alternate between the two hands.)

 

Without knowing which notes are in which octave, we can only speculate. I have spent a few minutes looking for patterns. Some individual chords are readily available,but I can't find any repeating pattern.

 

I did not know Peter well. I do know that anyone who puts that effort into designing a new instrument probably had very strong ideas about how music worked, and probably had a particular style of music in mind. You may discover, for example, that the chords make more sense if you look into what keys and chords are most common for hymns, or something like that.

 

This instrument deserves to be understood and preserved. There may be no market for it (no one in the world can play it - yet) but it will be of interest to a collector or a concertina museum.

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Anyone know if there are extant recordings of Peter’s playing? I just plugged his name into YouTube and came up dry.

Almost certainly Alan Davies who is one of the organisers of Midlands Concertina Group will have some recordings. I believe he records every group meeting on a mini disc player. I have a lesson with him in a fortnight or so. I'll try to remember to ask him. However, Alan is not very tech savvy so he may not have the equipment or the know how to be able to transfer the recordings.

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Hi Thanks. I am not really up in music theory and play Anglo.I started on English and got nowhere from zero.It would be interesting to return with some musical knowledge now.I would say that there is an overlap that makes it feel duet, this unisonic world is still quite new to me. I cant make sense of it with a side to side approach. The CDAB are in the same range on the thumb ends.I can see not pattern repeat at all. I assume it is like the qwerty keyboard ,needs to be memorised as a whole and the notes are place to be ergonomical friendly.I have given it a try and will try to practice to at least get some tunes but I dont think that will last. It would be very helpfull to know what key and music style it is ment for. I was tempted to convert it but I do agree its a shame as someone has put a lot of work into creating it. It would also be quite hard as the buttons run in an anglo direction rather than a duet and new reeds would be needed . Should I try it in Buy and sell? I can see its not going to be worth a fortune,would be happy for money and costs back.I hoped it was diatonic and thought it would at least be a regular system if english.Is there anyone out there who would like a swap for a square concertina or Bandonica?Diatonic.

 

Merry christmas and a happy new year to all.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have PMed Folklorist Mark in more detail.

 

For those of you with a wider interest: I have found out that Peter Mattingley learned on a modified Jeffries duet system that his father played before him. He then developed some further modifications of his own. He built at least three boxes incorporating his modifications.

 

His preferred style of playing involved rich, full chords, pedal points and "lots going on" and I am told that he could make the instrument sound like a fairground organ. I only met him a couple of times in his declining years, but before that he was a very skilled musician indeed. He taught one friend some tunes on this modified system but, if I have understood correctly, they eventually decided that they preferred one of the conventional systems.

 

Alan Davies has some recordings on mini disc and can arrange for these to be transferred to CD. He is not very tech savvy and does not use email, so it is not a project he would undertake lightly, but if anyone is genuinely interested, please PM me and I will speak to him at my next monthly lesson.

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Anyone know if there are extant recordings of Peter’s playing?

Alan Davies has some recordings on mini disc and can arrange for these to be transferred to CD. He is not very tech savvy and does not use email, so it is not a project he would undertake lightly, but if anyone is genuinely interested, please PM me and I will speak to him at my next monthly lesson.

 

Since I’m the one who asked, I guess I’d have to say that I’m curious, but not “genuinely interested.” I’d hate for someone to have to do something they’re not comfortable doing just to satisfy my curiosity. But on the other hand, I’d be glad if enough other folks were interested to make it clear that the effort would be worthwhile.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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