Łukasz Martynowicz

Indeed, it looks like we might have a winner already

Terry: those switches you've pictured have almost no travel at all and require quite a force to switch. Don: you could fit your keyboard switches onto two layers of circutboard (with button holes in upper one) and make some sort of spring-buttons to increase travel distance (by spring-button I mean a simple tube on a post, similiar to what electronic switches incorporate already). But from what you said earlier, your keyboard switches should fit into Anglo you're building. Using reed switches etc.. is a great solution when making a conversion, but a pain really when trying to do a cheap midi controller, easily doubling the time and cost of the instrument.

Your question is quite hard really - especially because of what exactly do you call punk and indie rock? You could look at something called gypsy punk - try bands like Gogol Bordello, Kozak System or Haydamaky, plenty of their songs on YT. Then there is nordic folk-metal: Korpiklaani for example. In more indie areas, there are bands like Dansbanan, Beirut or Tesco Value. Another area: Irish folk-punk bands like Dropkick Murphys. And many, many more... But unfortunately, all of this is accordion. I have never heard (or heard about) any band with such concertina use. And only a small number of people on concertinas trying to play covers of such songs on YT.

Here is my another WIP recording, this time with harmony - mostly drone/chord, with added rhytmic fifths, but my next step will be to add some more audible rhytm on the left hand as this is somehow dull and obscures the lively nature of this tune a bit. https://soundcloud.com/martynowi-cz/zelda-wip-with-harmony

I've just found it, so here's a still fresh&hot link to an unusally pro-looking video on YT of a solo singer with a Maccan Duet: "Musik Böhmer and his Concertina from Hell" performing a blues classic "Dust my Broom". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Asf1a7VEE

Have you considered using tailoring glues? They are made specifically for joining fabrics together, so they definately do not alter or discolor anything and are strong enough to use in clothing.

It is one person and throws money on them - I could live with that

Chris, if you construct and tune your concertina with a magnet affecting the reed for an unbended note, then you will have an upward pitch bend by removing the magnet.

I didn't knew this was Sigur Ros. @Wolf: about one verse, and probably all hearable music comes from some sort of harmonium. But obviously the producers thought that the concertina is such an exotic instrument, that it can be included in such a fantasy setting. On the plus side, no one gets killed with this concertina, which is a great succes in this TV series

There is a concertina held by one of the wedding feist musicians in newest episode of Game of Thrones.

My first was the cheapest I could find on ebay - 20b German Anglo. Bought soon after 30 birthday, just to check if I realy could learn anything (I had no prior musical training, only a childhood dream of playing concertina). I had no knowledge on various systems then, this was really a blind purchase. A year later I decided to give a Hayden layout a go and I've built a 64b MIDI concertina - it was the cheapest option to experiment with layouts and to have a large Hayden. After another year of playing only an electronic instrument and missing all the joy of playing an acoustic concertina, I have bought Elise. And now, after 2,5 years, I'm again building an instrument - an acoustic 66b Hayden, because Elise range has reached it's limits for me.

Thanks Wolf!

Thanks Geoff and Greg! It is still a long way before I put in the reeds because I can only spare a little time each week on this project, but yes, I'm getting really excited - is it going to sound/act terrible or will it prove at least acceptable

After more than 70 hours of work later it's finally time for another update. So, here it is - my brand new bellows. It's probably not the best bellows out there and is quite stiff for now, but I'm quite happy how it came out. Papers will come later, I must yet design them and print somewhere...

One possible reason is because it is too complicated - it is easier to put two mass produced reeds in a single chamber than make a complicated two-way chamber (in Wheatstone patent the reed is placed in a chamber-dividing wall and there are with lots of valves involved). And acoustics of such obscured reed probably weren't satisfactory - too much sound bouncing, so probably they had muffled or at least very mellow tone.

All of it is great, but the last part is simply stunning. You're setting the highest standards in playing duets, as always.

Perfect as always

Indeed the second part doesn't work well with treble, sounds a bit chaotic - but the third part is great and gives an idea of what you had in mind for the second part. Hope you'll find a baritone and play a trio, can't wait to hear it happen

I like your A part very much Jim, it has a nice Early Music feel to it.

Dave: we on c.net forum don't struggle with limited resources/forum space available. This thread doesn't occupy any "broadcast time" or in any way forces anyone to follow it, so I really don't see what your point is. This thread is about (MIDI) concertina construction and is disscussed by concertina players interested in playing concertinas, whether traditional, hybrid or electronic. And I cannot agree, that MIDI instruments are mere simulators - a huge deal of modern music is done purely on electronic keyboards or with some use of them. Most piano players don't have real pianos, but they often have dozens of "simulators" which they use to great extent on such non-simulated events like open air festivals for tens of thousands of people. In Poland we have two terms for people playing piano keyboard instruments on professional level: one is 'pianista' and refers to acoustic piano players with degree from music school, and the second is "klawiszowiec" which translates to "keyboard player" - a person who can play piano (often perfectly and often a pianista with diploma) but also have a wide knowlege on sound production, electronic music, composition and simply can use modern electronic keyboards with all their capabilities. I bet, that if we had a large supply of cheap but powerfull MIDI concertinas available, a lot of concertinists would have a MIDI box for practicing and experimenting. As Paul said - if it can be played as any other concertina then it is a concertina.

After a long, long absence from TOTM I simply couldn't resist to find some time and learn Zelda - such an energetic tune. So, for starters, here is my melody-only WIP: https://soundcloud.com/martynowi-cz/totm-april-zelda-wip-melody I play the first bar differently, with e-c and not e-A, because I will add A in the accompaniment for this part. Also not too many variations for now, only one major in the second repetition of B part.

Here is the thread by Jordan himself: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=16415 mbe2 is soon to became obsolete as Jordan had already made something signifficantly better.

What you say is at least partially true - we are indeed vastly outnumbered and this indeed affects exposure. You are slightly missing my point though - as we may indeed have similiar ratios as melodeonists (not sure if I can agree on ratios of accordionists being the same) in terms of avant-garde, experimental or exploratory players - I was talking about different genre-coverage among average players. But I realise, that everything I say in this thread is more applicable to duets than to Anglos, which's natural point of reference is a melodeon or diatonic accordion and not CBA or PA. And that is a niche of a niche, with total number of duet players estimated at order of magnitude at least two digits smaller than Anglo players. So maybe I'll better leave this thread to Anglo players ***Side note on square concertinas and prices: I'm in the process of building my eight sided concertina (Tedrow's photo-essay is indeed a great source of knowledge) and from where I'm standing, the most time consuming process in building a hybrid - and greatly dependand on number of sides - is the traditional bellows. The woodwork is just two cuts difference between 4 and 6 sides, the fretwork could be lasercut or kept simple (there are fretless concertinas), but the bellows is a real pain. So I don't realy think that any mass produced cheap concertina will ever have a traditional bellows. But I agree, that we might need fully chromatic Elises (or cheap chineese 46 button Haydens), standard size Jackies/Jacks and Rochelles with bushed action. From those three only Rochelle isn't a significantly handicapped cousin of its kind. When I was at the designing stage of by DIY project, I did considered a square box for a moment. And the reason why I have chosen octagon is that my playing style and habits realy do not support square box. I would have to have the buttons and handles at a strange angle (relative to sides) or I would have to play with the box balancing on the edge. Someone in the MIDI DIY thread pointed out, that he plays his 8-sided concertina turned one edge forward, to get desired angle of his keyboard. So IMHO a square concertinas didn't got atention because of ergonomics, not because of a "rut".

You can approach this in many different ways. As Geoff said, playing in octaves synchronizes your hands perfectly (even to perfectly) and is the simplest form of using your duet. From there, you can start to skip some notes on the left side, keeping others longer and accenting right hand passages this way, gradually building a form of simple countermelody. If you learn something from fake sheets, you can play LH accompaniment with single note drones instead of rhytmic chords - again, this is simple and sounds like a simple countermelody. When you're comfortable with single note accompaniments, you can add some rhytm to it, some fifths or full triads. And then you can try one of those two approaches on full hand-independent rhytmic accompaniment (basically the same, but starting from a different hand): 1. (it's best for tunes you have a recording available): teach your fingers a few of those http://idiotsguides.com/static/quickguides/musicperformingarts/common-chord-progressions.html playing full triads in some basic rhytms. Once you have a natural ability to follow most common transitions, you can try to play a chordal accompaniment with your desired tune playing from the recording. If Elises allows it, play both hands together (chords in octaves): at first keep it simple, playing full chords only. Then add rhytm. When you finally can play LH only to tempo and without thinking about it, then you're ready to focus on RH side, your LH will do rhytm and chords automatically. You will see, that in many, many cases RH melody is just some added movement to the same basic chordal pattern. The added bonus of this approach is that you're learning to be your own metronome 2. learn a melody to a point, when it is perfectly smooth. Then practice your accompaniment (without melody) for a short time, playing it as rich as possible. Then slow down to a note-by-note tempo, and build your phrases with both hands together, simplifying accompaniment when it's too complicated or too heavy. This is especially usefull if accompaniment doesn't follow melody exactly (more like a countermelody than playing in octaves). When you can play it slowly without mistakes, gradually increase the tempo. You will probably use a mix of those techniques depending on what exactly you're playing. And finally - don't give up Hands independence practice takes awfully lot of time. After getting my first Hayden it took me an evening to learn my first LH om-pah acoompaniment, couple of hours to play a melody without mistakes but about a year of playing couple of hours a week to be able to play them both together smoothly. Playing simple drones or countermelodies is a lot easier and takes days or weeks only. But it gets easier with every new tune you try. One last advice - you have chosen a system great for improvisation (scales form closed groups of buttons) and jaming (chords look the same in any key), so practice it. Even a 5 minutes of chord vamping to a tune on YT gets you more familiar with your keyboard. Play a lot of chord progressions without any particular tune in mind, trying different rhytms and arpeggio patterns - this trains your fingers to play common phrases faster and smoother. Playing long, fast sessions on a concertina is in fact hell of a workout for your forearm (comparable to some light climbing) so you won't be able to do so without proper training

Well, since the flood of cheap chineese instruments on ebay and introduction of Rochelle, Jackie/Jack and Elise the cost of at least trying our instrument has dropped significantly and people are trying it without prior interest in folk music. At least some are. And about accordion fame in central and easter europe: it had a very negative public image for the last 50 years, being associated mostly with annoying gypsy buskers and wedding party music, but it is changing rapidly. CBA accordionist Marcin Wyrostek has won the "Mam talent" show (polish edition of "Britain's got talent") in 2009, there are many new bands playing a folkrock or indie music incorporating accordions, brass sections and other not-so popular instruments. There are many great bands in Ukrain and Belarus, pushing accordions and fiddles to something called gypsy-punk, a mix of rock, punk, gypsy, klezmer and balkan folk and many of their arrangements are far from simple rhytmic accompaniment. One of my favourite tunes of Gogol Bordello https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mymLWGvvDu8 (there is even an accordion solo at 5:15) And Gogol Bordello is an internationally recognized main-stream band, playing on the biggest open air festivals and is hardly the only one. There is a huge movement also in scandinavian folkmetal to incorporate CBAs (try Korpiklaani for example) with a huge base of young fans starting their jurney with CBA because they like the power of such music. And CBAs are becoming very cool. We have nothing of that. There is a lot going on with 'squeezed' music in many popular genres, but concertina misses this almost entirely by being, well, stuck in a rut of reconstructory folk, dance hall accompaniment and other traditional applications. We even have some problems in recognizing duets as true concertinas, as they have no well defined traditional repertoire. And again - I'm not trying to change anyone's musical joices or interests. Just trying to put a concertina in a wider scope than Anglo vs Melodeon. Nobody should feel offended by my point of view, as I really enjoy good folk and I'am trully inspired by some of folks here on c.net playing solely folk music on Anglos and Englishes. For me, the term "being stuck in a rut" has no negative value to it. This thread is more of an academic debate for me, than personal finger-pointing.