Łukasz Martynowicz

My big box has what Alex called „low buttons” in the post above, with 3mm travel, 2:1 lift ratio and the lowest spring tension that still keeps the pads closed on the normal force push. They also have different costruction, with different button-lever interface and no button post. The result is silky smooth, absurdly responsive action, that was however absolute nightmare to set up properly. I can’t really imagine how lowering button travel would result in any significant speed increase if you lift your fingers way above the endplate when playing faster, centimeters above... What influences speed way more, is spring tension. You want buttons to resist your movement as little as possible, and it doesn’t really matter, if you play on 3mm travel concertina, or 6mm travel CBA. Personally, I’m a sworn advocate of low buttons and it’s of no surprise to me, that Alex’s clients were enthusiastic about them. They allow for very natural slides and finger substitutions, and because you rest your fingertip on large area when the button is fully depressed, 6mm buttons feel more like 15mm buttons on a CBA. The ease of slides also means, that when lifting a finger you’re already moving it sideways to the next note. Sinking flush means, that your fingertips are travel stops, so there is no need for felt dumpeners below the button, no bottoming noise and when playing fast your fingertips bounce back off the endplate, conserving energy. Normal non-flush buttons made my fingertips hurt after long practice session, low buttons never did. I can’t really think of any downside of this solution, except for increased wear of the endplate. Fingernails longer than 0mm will scratch the coating no matter what.

@hjcjones I mentioned air button/lever in one of my posts. It is invaluable tool when you need to prime the bellows before long, polyphonic legato phrase. Boxes without air control are a complete deal breaker for me.

I’m confused… The whole premise of this thread is the fact, that EC players do use the bellows differently, than Anglo players do, and have done so for the last 150 years. So the argument here can very easily be reversed - if it was as you argue, that it is teaching problem instead of instrument construction problem, no doubt different schools and techniques would emerge during that time. I started with an Anglo and then switched to Hayden after a year. I have never achieved similar enough level of bounciness on a duet, and I already had the bellows expression habits you argue EC/duet players don’t develop due to unisonority. All that with the same handstrap setup (later reinforced by additional thumbstrap for better bellows control). I agree, that bisonoric instruments force you to use bellows reversals from the get go, but it is not simply the case of „and unisonoric instruments don’t”. You have to achieve way higher levels of finger-wrist-hand coordination to pull off bounciness on unisonoric instrument. EC not only has a flawed handling interface, it also require more awkward and more varied hand positions for basic play. Cross row Anglo style is considered an advanced skill, but it is an entry requirement on a Hayden. Concertina types vary greatly in their core principles and ergonomics, and in consequence, the resulting sound.

While I agree with the overal sentiment, I have to object to the notion, that the thumb in the strap is just a single point of contact - it is an axis of contact. Single axis and a single point is enough to define a plane, hence it is enough to ensure stability. That is however "in ideal mathematical conditions". The problem with traditional English handling design is that the thumbstrap has to be flexible to some extent, so you loose a well defined axis, and than pinky rest is an ergonomic nightmare, relying on your weakest finger to act against forces of the lower side of the bellows. This is why you're basically forced to use the bellows in a fan-like motion, hold the concertina pointing upwards or play seated and utilise lap friction. All of those problems can be solved with highly non-traditional solutions like my antlers, but those are not to everyone's liking. Most people are into concertinas for trad music after all. Moreover, most of ergonomy improving solutions require some degree of alteration to the box, risking destroying a valuable antique.

Another two cents: the larger the Anglo is, the more it is possible to play in both bouncy and legato style, but due to the size increase, you loose some of the bounciness. Also, it requires more and more mastery to achieve this level of universality. The ultimate case is the largest „Anglo” of them all - the bandonion. Now back to Englishes. I get an impression, that this discussion focuses very much not on the Anglo vs English, but on the 30b anglo vs 48b treble English… I can’t imagine playing with any kind of dramatic bellows expression on a large, 60b+ concertina of any system without hand/wrist strap equivalent. You would inevitably end up with thumb injury. Even with a proper handling system, you will more probably invest your practice time in a proper snappy staccatto, than bellows pumping. Unless your repertoire is full of triplets, snappy button expression is more universal, than bellows pumping.

I would only like to note, that objectively, due to the nature of bisonoric instrument, you can’t play legato on an Anglo if notes in the sequence require bellows reversal. No amount of practice can overcome free reed physics. Proper legato has to have tiny overlap of note duration. No matter how fast your bellows change is, you always introduce a pause, new note attack, and valve and action noises. This is why even on Englishes and duets bellows management is as important, as it is on the Anglo. I have a huge air supply on my big box, but nevertheless have to plan ahead before long legato polyphonic phrases. This is the reason why I have long and very accessible air lever instead of a simple air button.

The finger locking principle of those antlers does not work if at least one of the sides is not axially immobilised - the concertina simply rotates outward on your thumb trying to fall off. But it doesn't have to be the lap that supports it, the same can be achieved with neck/shoulder strap that will counteract the forward roll. I used such strap for my "single serving" travel 45b. You simply have to attach the strap a bit to the front of the "thimble", the top edge screw was enough for this purpose. In this case the strap attachment point becomes a fulcrum, and your hand's weight pressing the thimble down locks the antler. Also, only a single side has to be strapped, I used only a LH shoulder loop, RH was unrestricted. As for this big box from the video above - it is way too heavy for me to play standing, as I have some serious problems with my cervical and thoracic spine.

Just for completeness sake, my post from another thread showcasing my antlers design.

@Don Taylor @David Barnert Indeed, the video is loooong overdue. Let me rectify this problem right here, right now There are four parts. First two are in musical context, both chosen because they would be either very hard or straight up impossible to play with a hand strap. Since by the nature of concertinas it is hard to show what buttons are pressed, both examples are played only on the side shown, so at least you'll be able to hear what is going on. In the RH demo, there is a wrap around phrase starting with Bb octave and then jumps right down, since my box has no Ab's. As you can see, playing top and bottom of the array in a single phrase is perfectly possible, and how natural the use of pinky finger is. The LH demo starts with a button slide and into A2+A4 octaves on a third note and then follows two line polyphony (it's from a tune I'm working on for this year's WCD, so it's not yet polished. RH for this piece is a three line polyphony, so it's quite challenging with all that asynhronous finger slides, holds, jumps etc... for up to five lines). Again, there is a lot of pinky use with those bottom parallel octaves and slides. Then there is an ad hoc demo of the freedom of reach with those antlers. I tried to finger here in as clearly visible manner as possible. Notice how minor triads can be comfortably played all over the place with the exact same fingering, and how I can use my pinky comfortably as high up, as the highest C (Bb requires some effort), and my index as far down as the lowest D#. Finally, there is some bellows control demo. As long as one side is supported, the other side can be operated with full, hand-strap like freedom and tightness. In my case the LH is always static. In the LH demo part earlier you can see the lap support attachment in action.

I really liked to sing in my childhood, and since my older sister was a dedicated sailor, I soon was hooked on shanties. It was at one of the concerts she took me to, when I first saw a concertina and fell in love with the concept of a small, light squeezebox. It was in early '90s and I was 11 at the time, and that particular concertina was the only one in Poland back then When I went hunting for one couple of years later, nobody, and I trully mean nobody, in various music shops, knew what concertina even was. So I gave up. 19 years later, at a very low point in my life, I decided to do something from my "bucket list" to lift myself up, and bought the cheapest DDR Anglo on Ebay. I knew nothing about concertinas and didn't even know that Anglo is bisonoric. But it clicked enough to get me hooked. I started reading everything I could find on the web about concertinas, discovered this forum and the existence of Englishes and duets. Hayden concertinas made the most sense for me - not only an instrument I could play accordion music on, but also that I instantly could make sense of. I first built a MIDI one to test the logic of the layout and then bought Elise.

The reason for this is the biggest flaw of Brian’s design - the slant, which makes using pinky on the RH unnecessary awkward by increasing the distance. It would be way better, if the RH slant was the same as on the LH (in relation to fingers, not pitches). IIRC Ed’s box has no slant, so it will be easier, however… The problem of stability vs reach is a fundamental problem of a duet. This is exactly why I invented my handles. One way to increase the stability of Elise is to use the upper part of the hand strap as a makeshift thumbstrap. If you try this, add some padding on the endplate to create a bit of an offset for more ergonomic hand position and better bellows control. You can then have the hand loop of the strap very loose, because the thumb and index finger create a sort of a „joystick” connection with the concertina. This is not an ideal solution, but this is why the original Ed’s design had both thumbstrap and handstrap. BTW, which version of Ed’s box you’re waiting for?

Shortcomings of the Elise are way more frustrating if you aren’t on Ed Jays waiting list It’s an ok „first contact” Hayden, but I’m sure you will outgrow it right in time for Ed’s box to arrive.

My levels of concentration are really low recently… I copied, but forgot to paste. It’s on my soundcloud, here: https://m.soundcloud.com/martynowi-cz/roslin-castle-wip-1 Version on YT is played as low, as I could fit it on my big box.

Here is my very old and way too fast rendition of Roslin Castle on Elise. The substitute note does of course sound a bit out of place, but I got used to it.

Maybe not exactly, but very close, yes. There is this fundamental set of common finger phrases, that you’ll find in many tunes. And unlike on a piano, because of Hayden’s isomorphism, those are common across all keys, so stand out more prominently. Some of them are simply arpeggios on a chord, some are scale fragments used as bridges between chords, some are patterns of joining common chord progressions, octave switches etc. You can think about those a bit like using whole syllables/words instead of individual letters. Where my approach differs is the emphasis of deliberately learning those first, instead of gradually „collecting” them one by one as you learn melodies „the usual way”. When learning a piano, there are two sets of basic excercises. First are scales, second are arpeggios - of all shapes and sizes. They not only educate you on the layout and rhythm patterns, but also train endurance and hand coordination. Learning scales on a Hayden is pretty much instant, but I think arpeggio excercises on a Hayden are very valuable and at the same time very underrated.

Harmonies first, melodies second when "campfiring"/improvising, but I can do the other way around, since as I wrote above, on a Hayden a melody is simply a flow between chord shapes. It is as much about music as it is about geometry flow. You can only fit certain triads in a scale shape without the members of the triad sticking out, and it will always sound ok if you back a piece of melody with a chord it travels through or to at the moment. With sheet music I play "to the letter", so it doesn't matter, and all of the difficulty for me lies in combining hands.

It is not about the exact recipes, it's about flexibility. In those examples it is easier to finger each with the other scale fingering. And since you'll inevitably encounter all sorts of this kind of awkward passages, it is way better to not have a rigid scale, and rigid row even more so. But, all and every melodic passage is, by nature, a form of an "exploded" chord progression. So my method is based on chord arpeggios. Basic fingering is 1-3-2 for major and 2-1-3 for minor, same for sus chords, but can differ for 7th chord, etc, but the essence here is to have the shape of a chord imprinted very, very deeply in your fingers, so when bridging two chords together or filling a chord, it becomes irrelevant which finger follows the shape - only the shape is important and my fingers will find buttons even if an appropriate basic finger is unnavailable. So, in my examples above, first one, C-D-G-C-F is sus2 to sus4, which are both fingered as basic major and minor triads, just closer together, so it will be either 1-3-2-1-2(crossed) or 1-3-2-2(slipped)-1, depending on what follows, so what shape my fingers need to be at the end of this phrase, but sometimes it will be 3-4-3-2-1 if it's not exactly C-D... but the same shape on the sharps side of the keyboard and I need my 1 and 2 to do some heavy lifting before/after. In the second example, D-E-B-E-A, it's a melody arriving at sus4 chord, and again, my fingering depends on what follows and where I'm coming from - if it's 7sus4, then the proper fingering is 2-3-4-3-2, so 1 is available to continue the pattern above. If however, the melody then follows to e.g. Amaj chord, then the proper fingering is 1-2-3-2-1. Of course, those are ideal circumstances, when I have all fingers freely available at the beginning of the phrase. When I improvise in a "campfire guitar" style, it is pretty much a given, that I'll play the first repetition of a given chord's arpeggio with non-basic fingering and then my fingers will default to the standard the second time around. And I probably use 1-3-4 fingering for the first row of a major scale more often, than either 1-2-3 or 2-3-4, because fingers 1 and 3 are more independent from eachother, than 1 and 2, and 4-1 is more comfortable for the minor second interval in the melody than 3-1 is, and frees 2 and 3 for what follows. So, as you can see, my system is the exact opposite of fixed rows - everything is flexible and fluid. Heck, with my handles I even rotate my hand, so e.g I play a 5 chord or an octave with all possible finger combinations, including inversions (so e.g. when using fingers 2 and 3 for an octave, it will sometimes be 2 low, 3 high and sometimes the other way around, depending on the chord they are in, but I have one tune, when I play an octave with 1 closer and 2 two(!) octaves above, because 3 and 4 are required immediately after this and the tune is played legato). I also use my pinky as high, as the highest C on the RH (it's not a typo, I mean C, not C#), in a passage that arrives at it after a Bb-Bb' octave then stays on the flat side.

My two cents - forget about fixed scales fingering altogether, unless all you want to play are straightforward, strictly diatonic, single line melodies in central keys, with sparce accompaniment. The only rigid part of fingering is your LH oom-pah rhythms, because you don’t really have options there. If you desperately need to have some form of rigid fingering system to anchor yourself to, then build one on rigid chord arpeggios instead of scales. Hayden is so chord shapes focussed system, that if you learn it from the harmony and chord progressions perspective, then melodies become a sequence of naturally bridged chords and your fingers fill follow the pattern not only for the melody, but also for accompaniment. And if you decide not to use your pinky, you are severily limiting yourself. I can’t imagine playing in wrapped keys or chromatic pieces with three fingers only. Imho fixed row fingering is the worst approach, because you’ll end up with more exceptions than compliant cases and you’re throwing away Hayden’s biggest advantage of isomorphism. Because of how shape for minor chord looks like, you’ll often have to play with your middle finger on a closer row than your other fingers and you will very often have to play a single note with multiple fingers within a single tune, especially when proper legato is required. The simplest cases - how will you finger a C-D-G-C-F melody with 123-1234 fixed row or scale fingering? And D-E-B-E-A with 234-1234 fixed fingering? You’ll either have to play stacatto, or slip between buttons, do awkward crossovers and still end up with your hand shifted up or down a button. Or how do you play an octave interval legato? Hayden is not an Anglo, there is no „in row/cross row” distinction, it is fundamentally 2D system and it’s best to accept that from the very beginning.

It’s only „biodegradable” in an industrial process, it won’t spontantaneously fall apart or react badly to moisture in the air. However, PLA has two unfortunate qualities. Firstly, it has very low temperature resistance, around 45 deg.C, so beware direct sun exposure or even more a car trunk on a sunny day, otherwise it will irreversibly deform. Secondly, it is very stiff and has „just ok” layer adhesion, so be careful not to drop it/hit it too hard, or it may crack/delaminate. However, this concerns the outer shell only, as Ed prints all internal parts with carbon fiber infused PLA, which is highly durable. But the temperature concern stays the same.

Great rendition! I’m really surprised it fit on an Anglo - it’s impossible to play it on a Hayden smaller than 64b. Interestingly, my box also misses the „low D”, but an octave lower, so there is a rhythmic gap every time it’s supposed to be there. It sounds better this way, since it’s always in the middle of a phrase.

A very brief occurence in S01E8 of HBO's "Warrior" series, played. Seems to me like one of the octagonal Wakker Anglos.

Buy some cheap, crafts EVA foam (2mm thick) and stuff it into fretwork in an almost airtight manner. Leave only couple of square mm of gaps. The concertina should be 15-20dB quieter and this whole procedure us entirely reversible due to push-fit nature of it. If there is enough room under the fretwork you my simply glue a foam cutout under the entire fretwork (you have to have a glue seam all around though, including around buttons) and then poke some holes in it until reeds start speaking freely.

I’ve once built a MIDI Hayden for exact same reasons. With bellows and some bells and whistles like selectable pressure response curve, alternative piano mode, where bellows controlled velocity instead of volume, and both Hayden and (only partially working) Anglo modes. You only need a differential pressure sensor hooked to an analog input and link it to volume channel. The main problem is not in pressure sensitivity, it’s in buttons. You really need levers for Hayden MIDI, as there is no way to fit durable and responsive off the shelf switches. So all the typical concertina innards except for reedpan and reeds.

It is possible to lower the volume of a concertina with baffles. My Elise has been toned down from peak 105dB to peak 90dB, and my current box is set at comfortable peak 80dB. But not with felt. With EVA foam or solid baffles. In order to lower the volume the open area of the fretwork must be reduced, and it has to be reduced substantially. Original Elise „fretwork” had to be closed almost entirely - the area left open, so that the reeds could speak freely, was measured in square milimeters. My current concertina has two layers of fretwork. Outer, aesthetic wood one is very open and as a result piercingly bright and loud. The final tone is shaped by a second layer of 3D printed hard baffle, which both mellows the tone and decreases volume. The overal volume can also be lowered significantly by decreasing chamber holes aperture, and is typically used to balance relative reeds volumes. This can be done in a reversible way by ring inserts and can lower the volume by 10-20dB, but has a serious impact on response and pitch stability of lower notes. Other than that, I can indeed confirm, that a closet with a lot of clothes on hangers is a great practice and recording space. I have one just like that and it can dampen clarinet, concertina, loud city noises and mobile air conditioning unit. Mine has about 10sq meters aperture of open hangers and shelves, which easily translates to dozens if not low hundreds sq meters of total sound dampening surface area. Combined, my reduced volume boxes played in said closet are silent enough to not dominate over typical household sounds, normal music/movie/gaming volume etc.

Mostly because bellows is less affected by fingering. On light instruments I always have this feeling, that endplates try to escape from under my fingers. On a heavy instrument much less so. Rotation is way more related to button array and handrail/handstrap positions than weight. First iteration of Ed’s Hayden, with a central array and a handrail very far to the back is very wobbly. That is why there is the rectangular version now with more proper array/handrest positions.