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Wheatstone Custom Key Layout


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Hello

 

I’m new to this so I fear this may be a dumb question but in any case...

 

Does anyone know why some of the key positions on my Wheatstone Duet (serial 26008) were changed? I’ve attached a drawing showing the changes vs. the standard keyboard lay out shown for a 56 key Wheatstone in Ernest Rutterford’s Tutor for the Duet...

 

1) the C# and C on the left hand 1st and 2nd columns, bottom row are switched

 

2) the B flat and G# on the right hand, 1st and 4th columns, top row are switched.

 

3) the left hand D# has been moved from the bottom of column 3 to column 4 and

 

4) an extra F was added to the right hand bottom of column 5 along with a Whistle key near the air key.

 

Would all these changes have been ordered to accommodate the buyer’s personal preference to make it easier to play a particular type of music, or am I using the wrong chart?

 

For quite a while I kept thinking I hadn’t found the right keyboard chart but after reading Jim Lucas’ posting on October 24, 2014 about the Macann Duet keyboards I’m now wondering if the placement wasn’t customized.

 

My thanks for any help you can give me.

 

- Wes

filename-1-3.pdf

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If it were only switching a couple of C-C# pairs, I might suspect that someone took it apart and then put it back wrong, with no one playing it since. After all, why only those two pairs and not all the C's? And the same could be true of the Bb-G# combination, if the reed frames were the same size.

 

But moving the D# and adding the F requires new holes and levers (a new path for the D#, an entirely new lever for the extra F). Whether original or added later, they have to have been specially ordered by whoever was playing the instrument. (Is there any evidence that the D# was originally in the normal position? I.e., does it look like there was a hole in that position that was filled in?)

 

So it could be that all those differences were by special request, though the inconsistency among C-C# pairs is bizarre enough that what you're seeing could be a combination of custom work and accident.

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Thanks for the quick reply.

 

There is no apparent abandoned hole repair for the D# so I am guessing that both it and the new F are original along with the whistle key. I have always suspected that the C/C# and the B flat/G# levers were reversed at some point in its long past but am reluctant to open it up. I have two reeds that are - shall we say "reluctant" - so at some point I will need to find a doctor and will ask about putting things back to standard then.

 

Thanks again.

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