psmooze

Well I try to limit Anglo to the Irish stuff and that works quite well. I also play in a couple of folk combos and there the problem is songs with 2 flats (or god forbid even more) -- i've a 30 key C/G. Also fast passages require planning ahead and I find it not so easy to sightread on the anglo. English seems to be come quite easily but I don't have many opportunities to play it at the moment. I should play it in the folk combo's but I'm seated next to 1 or 2 bagpipers and I feel I need my Kensington to cut through -- which it does! Immanuel

Reason for selling: * I already play the piano rather and I can do there now what is impossible on the Hayden. * The logical layout attracted me, but this instrument is too small to benefit from that. Even a fminor chord requires stretching requires uncommon positions. * I missed the low accidentals on the right hand side. * There is a problem with balance in that the low reeds easily drown out the higher ones. * I have a short pinky and I guess scales require 4 fingers to play fluently. That's of course pretty negative, it's a fine instrument, but I just didn't wanna stick with it since I'm also playing anglo and attempting the english. I also wanted to play more modern things on it and just didn't have the time/energy to put in the effort.

Well if someone else is interested in skipping the crosspond shipping and taxes I have Peacock with wakker bellows for sale too -- I'm in Belgium.

I upgraded for the original sum without a problem -- after inspection by Chris. Just providing this as a datapoint, since I have no knowledge what his actual policy is. Immanuel

Thanks for that! p

Also a Haydn with only six buttons accross will not be a very regular beast chordwise try an f minor chord in the left hand

Yeah, but a four row one? and each row having 14 keys? I'm just wondering what the layout/rationale of such a thing would be. p

Has anybody any idea what kind of beast this is: http://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/gardiner-houlgate/catalogue-id-2896795/lot-23626884?searchitem=true Regards, p

Both very good points in relation to the playing by Podzol. A more fun, interesting and musical way of working on timing is playing with other people (try to start and finish at approximately the same time). This can also be done with a tool like transcribe (www.seventhstring.org). Allows you to slow down the music, nudge the pitch a bit if it's not in standard tuning and allows you to focus on real playing. Metronome study often tends to lead to too much focus on the technical aspect of playing -- getting so many notes out before the bloody thing says click again.

Hear, hear!

If you want to be able to play fluently in most keys the english would be a good choice. I've a 30-key anglo myself and when people come up with something in Bflat or worse I'm in hell. That's one of the reasons I'm thinking of switching. I tried the duet for a while but I can't say that was a great success either. One of the things you might do is check the internet for people playing the various kinds of concertinas and see what you like best -- you'll find a lot of material, I can give you some pointers if you like.

You might wanna make up your mind first about the type of concertina you want to play. http://www.concertina.info/tina.faq/conc-typ.htm

I'm also interested in this concertina and I only live a stone's throw away (medium sized stone, damn good thrower). I sent you a message p

"I've been told that this instrument could be worth £3/4 million, but I suppose that could be taken with a pinch of salt!"

Bought from Chris Algar in 2012 but we never really got along. I'm doing the Haydn dance now so this one is just sitting here on the shelf. In Chris' words: "It is a Wheatstone 55 key Crane No 35123. It has raised ebonised ends, metal buttons, steel reeds and 6 fold bellows plus the case that is pictured. It has just had a complete restoration with new pads, valves, straps and the woodwork .." I"m looking for 1600 euro, which is less than what I paid for it. Appropriate gift to concertina.net when sold through here. Pictures available on request -- couldn't attach them. As skype or gmail call can be set up with interested parties. p

Several people have brought up interesting points, unfortunately I wont have the time to formulate a reply till after 26/05. Regards, p

May I inquire as to how long you guys have been playing crane? I have slight suspicion that the "comfortabilty" of Crane vs Haydn is mainly due to familiarity. I've been thinking about this a lot -- relative advantages of the different systems -- and I think it is possible to define some quantitative measures that define the strengths of the different systems. 1) average distance of whole steps and half steps (half steps are bad on Haydn) i.e. does note proximity relate to proximity of the keys playing those notes. 2) How many different fingerings do the major scales require -- regularity. Transposition should require the least possible mental effort. 3) Density of the notes on a given area. Some regular layouts have duplicate notes. I've been meaning to write something up on it, I hope to have some time before August. Since these measures partly dependent on the layout but also on the piece you're playing (c e d c e d c e d all the time will work very well on the crane) it should be possible to write a program that reads a standard midi file and outputs a score for the different layouts. Oh and the 180 keys is correct if you don't add the extra button to the (that's the one you have no place for after 3 octaves -- so it should be every 35 keys an extra one on the side).

But the good news for the crane layout is that you should see repetition after 180 keys. So once you know these you're set.

Can't really see this point. In fact the completely illogical layout of the crane made me drop it after a relatively short period. For the "white" notes the layout doesn't repeat until you've skipped 2 octaves. The accidentals are another mess since you have to fit in 5 "black" notes on the sides of the 7 white ones. So when you've allocated 3 octaves and the pattern of the white notes start repeating you seen 7 rows with place for 14 black notes on the side -- but you need 15 black notes so the black note pattern now shifts up (or you get another extra key on the side). Drove me crazy. I got a Peacock to try it out and that is just wonderfull. After a week I was playing jazz tunes with quite complex voicings and my hands quite instinctively found the patterns on the key. I do have a 55 key steel reeded wheatstone crane for sale though should anyone be interested :-)

May I inquire why you think it should cost 25% more than a new one straight from the source? I might be interested in investing in concertina's too

Vintage guitar guide shows 30% average price drop since 2008. Vintage solidbody electrics are worth 44% less than they were worth five years ago. Seems music markets are under pressure everywhere. I follow that market a bit and one of the things to realize is that most of the "Buy now" prices or advertised prices have little to do with actual selling prices. You can get 70's silverface champ for 800$ on ebay but the last one actually sold on an auction was 270$. These inflated prices have impact on pricing by private sellers, who should not expect to get as much as reputable delears anyway, but use comparable pricing. My take is that we haven't seen the worst of it yet. The music industry as a whole has lost its economic footing, and prices will start to drop when people who are now seeing their gear as a secure investment become scared of getting stuck with almost unsallable instruments.

So close! They could do a much better job, considering the quality of the rest of their reeds. I pretend I don't see the [unmentionable] at the tip... /Henrik Come to think of it: it doesn't really fit with Czech mechanical engineering - the rest of the stuff on the site looks fine, and the Czechs have a good reputation for high quality. So this is puzzling. /Henrik I'm looking for a decent camera to post some new highres pictures but meanwhile I do not see that artefact on most of the other reeds. I do see it on some though. I'll also post some more info about where I got them and what I paid for them. Cheers, i

Here's 2 pictures of the reeds I received. 2 sets of 30 reeds. Now just need to find the time to do something with them

I'm waiting on a response back from Harmonikas right now to see if they will only sell one set. They hadn't mentioned any limits when I first emailed them so we'll see what they say when they reply back. I'd really like to get a set of their DIX reeds if they are willing to work with me. I'll have to check out Ciccarelli too just in case Harmonikas doesn't pan out. I have ordered reeds from http://www.harmonikas.cz/ I had to wait a while for a production run but for 200 euro they sent me a number of single sets (I wanted to try them all). They do have a special concertina set which looks like concertina reeds. I must admit that I haven't done anything with them yet. I had to wait a few months though for the delivery, probably production run. Regards, p