chris ryall

My apologies. I was merely trying to sort out your complaint about uneven spacing in what is technically (frankly, intentionally) a 'finite state' simulation. Your own layout difficulties could have been any of the issues flagged above and I was blissfully unaware of any undue time you might have put in on my prototypes. So sorry for any adverse feeling in this, paticularly if I came over as in any way patronising? Internet discussion can be like that I'm afraid. In view of your subtitle I'll .. say no more. Thanks to all who have contributed to this and please keep feedback coming, There were several quite unexpected issues wrt the concertina family and was perhaps over assured by the ease in which my old Linota was codified by Chas. 'Hayden' is now a preset (also a new record in complexity) and if others might advise as to that low F#'s appropriateness I'll do whatever is necessary for the general good. For the future there are a few minot bugs but it works on an iPad! XML rodecs are presently held up by Microsoft IE 'buggery' (to invent a new meaning for a very old word!) but is entirely feasible and works on other browsers Later in the year I'd hope to make offer an archive that drives any simulator via eg www.chrisryall.net/chords&box=EC. (which does nothing at present) Such a resource might reside here, on melodeon.net, my own server or for that matter - split. Its space requirement is tiny (<1k per layout = twice the concertina.net 'graphic') Present collection is inspectable as http://chrisryall.net/chords/library.xml for anyone thus interested.

There - typing the notes/layout took 6 minutes →→ ²E♭♭ ²F ²G ³A ³B →→ →→→ ³A♭♭ *B♭♭ *C *D *E → ¹A♭♭ ²B♭♭ ²C ²D ²E ²F♯♯ ²G♯♯ →→ ³D♭♭ ³E♭♭ ³F ³G *A *B *C♯♯ *D♯♯ ¹D♭♭ ¹E♭♭ ¹F ¹G ²A ²B ²C♯♯ ²D♯♯ →→ ²A♭ ³B♭ ³C ³D ³E ³F♯♯ ³G♯♯ → ºA♭♭ ¹B♭♭ ¹C ¹D ¹E ¹F♯♯ ¹G♯♯ →→ ²D♭♭ ²E♭♭ ²F ²G ³A ³B ³C♯♯ ³D♯♯ →→ ºF♯♯ ºF ºG ¹A ¹B ¹C♯♯ →→ →→ →→ ²B♭♭ ²C ²D ²E ²F♯♯ ²G♯♯ = To be fair 'voicing it took about 25 (and I'm used to it)! ME's samples start at low A and the Hayden actually only uses 3 of those notes. But it got there! I think your problems may be due to 2 factors - both stemming from the 'wideness' of your favoured layout 1. the buttons flow to the right screen edge ad browsers put them next line. Solution: widen your window or press [ctrl]- to 'shrink' (a standard browser command) 2. Layout was fine, but when voicing and double-flatting etc I overflowed the text input box solution is to use firefox, where the box can be re-sized (bottom right corner) This has been ME's hardest test so far and it's survived it with a bit of help A bug turned up that 'hangs' on re-edit, but not first time in - that's my problem. Will make this a pre-set. As a major US maker I think Brian Hayden deserves that.

Eek - all I did was add a '# to C/C/C above an look what happens! (mods please note)! HB's reply came as I was doing a quick repair, but I think this C.net bug is useful and certainly timely. This is a professionally coded forum, but still wheels fall off! I am an amateur and have applied the KISS 'keep it simple, stupid' principle that has made Chris's ABC such a success, moving only to 1990's UTF font because of it's benefits in conciseness. That's to say that 'rows are rows', and I preferred 2C^^ to <octave>2</octave><note>C</note><nudge>+2<nudge> which is what you'd need to code this in a full XML schema. OK - I can do your Hayden for you, but the whole idea was that the 1000 or so idiosyncratic box layouts (melodeons are the culprits in this respect) could be trwaeked in by their loving owners and then communicated in these text forums as need be - with facility to paste into the simulator. Staggered rows are a doddle - the half button tabs are all measures to the pixel! > A B C D A B C D E F > G A B C .. >> D E F G .. ..and "Robert is your father's brother" as we say in Britain Typing that took me 40 seconds. alignment should be perfect, and that Hayden doesn't have any off row buttons, so why use that facility Chris

<p>Sound is coded in .ogg format. Safari uses mp3 and it's a matter of me converting the 61 samples, Bit if the Ryanair sound works so will they (was a sort of test). You'll be please to hear that I did it all 'single reed'.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Layouts</strong> - fundamentally rodec notation maps tokens to horizonal rows avoiding complex x=1.234 y=5.568 and such. It draws from Chris Walshaw's ABC in a way, and indeed ABC input would be feasible. Only tokens matter, though you can use space for your own purposes. ie it ain't WYSIWYG (nor is ABC) - it's a markup (like the HTML markup used to code this forum, but further simplified to reduce the tags needed by about 80% <img class="bbc_emoticon" src="http://www.concertina.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png" title=":)" /> Markup basically lays out relationships as text.</p> <p> </p> <p> '>' (converst to '<span>→' </span>) is your 'move along row' tab and moves half a button</p> <p> the ^'^^/v,vv prefixes (or postfixes) move up or down 1/4 and 1/2 button</p> <p> </p> <p>So unless you need 1/4 button precision 'on-row' all is possible. I'd emphasise that the fastest way is to take something else and tweak it. In this respect the editor also convers numeric 0,1,2,3,(4,5,6) to octave pre(post)fixes avery time you click outside and eb 1Ab to '<span>¹</span><span>A</span><span>♭' </span>. It took me about 10 minutes to key in a Loomes chromatic, and about the same to 'voice' it. A 'rebuild' takes under a second here (2 year old computer). So apologies for those spaces - but you have to separate tokens with <u>something</u>! <img class="bbc_emoticon" src="http://www.concertina.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.png" title="<_<" /></p> <p> </p> <p>How about modifying a melodeon layout? <a href="http://www.concertina.com/hayden-duet/">If this is Hayden</a> then the B/C/C<span class="pln"><span class="pln">C</span></span><span class="pun"><span class="pun">♯</span></span> is its closest relative. Will get a bit wide (built 2 x 8 =16!) but basically a single tab inset on alternate rows does the job, plus a few in the middle to separate the sides.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>[edit]</strong> Now I've converted a set of MP3 samples ME works on iPad in its more respectable browsers (Safari, AtomicWeb). Sadly not in MSIE, which now fails to load. It has been mute throughout and I'll probably need to block it off to stop its present sulking. Apologies - complaints to Microsoft!</p>

Could people here eyeball the EC layout please. I'm not sure it meets the 'accs relate to adjacent button' test, but will implement whatever works for its players. Chris

As posted in 'the other place ... Apologies here for calling it 'melodeon explorer' but I needed a title and it is generic'. You know where I come from? ME does "do" concerinas Row shifting and enharmonic notation is fiixed. Please post any bugs here. Will be back 'next week'. Chris --oo00oo-- Been a while but the Gnomes of Wirral have been busy building and testing. Version 4 is now loaded http://chrisryall.net/chords/ Sound now works (ogg codec browsers only), but as ever one browser is not compliant with what the rest of the Web do and that's caused problems. Can't even get MP3 working on MSIE and 'standard' XML library loads are also blocked (I could go on..) is so I've simply ploughed on without Microsoft > It will be called 'melodeon explorer' and the similarity to to this place honestly reflects melnet's respected position in squeezebox discussion. For melodeonistas, ME4 now has facility to' split' the left end chords. While that might sound silly (you can't actually play the notes separately) .. if both notes in a T+5th pair are 'in scale' a 'crossed' chord with a different but 'in scale' bass is likely to sound cool - otherwise - "don't bother" :-\ Discussions in 'the other place' have shown that the concertina aficionado needs 'off row buttons' and regards A# and B♭ as 'different', even though these play the same enharmonic note. Rodec (qv below) allows him to tokenise these as A## and B♭♭ - not musical I know but at least it's concise and intuitive! I wanted ME to handle 'any squeezebox' (despite the name) and concertinas do basically lay out 'in rows' albeit these are not straight! This eventually led to the concept of a 'rodec' meaning a notation that describes rows. It is the same as what we started with, but with nudges 'up' and 'down' for a button's location. NB 'rodec' is merely the 'descriptor'; the actualyamount of nudge is in the implementation. I've gone for ¼ and ½ button width .. C Eꜜ G↑ Cꜛ - first button is on its row, the others up or down a bit (intuitively) Sound was basically held up by the 'voicing' issue; a web browser has no clue as to which octave the 'C's above play in, and a generic descriptor cannot safely make assumptions (eg the EC's octaves below .. rise 'upwards')! Having made my step away from 1970's ASCII, to modern character sets - rodex uses a simply numeric prefix to specify octave. Note that ME octaves run A..G♯! It reflects that note 'A'=0 internally, but also'that 'low A' was the lowest I could actually sample on my Gaillard. Hope I've I might have got the underlying model right. The rest is 'simply implementation' which has whittled a few evenings. I think it's debuggered enough for a new version and offer it to the squeezebox community for beta test. I'm off later this week for a few weeks having an 'op', and will pick up once I'm home (and able to sit straight again) :-\ I've made ME's entry box a DG 4th start melodeon but you might like to try concertina presets to see what can be done. It you want to type in your own -the 'test' button is [?] and 'build' is [‼] Here's a couple of 'rodec' descriptors. (Rodec will be public domain should it catche). Rodec for a DG 4th start melodeon (note: 'nudged' graphics pull/push) → push↓ → © ºD © ºG →→→→ →→ © ºB © ºC → ²F ¹B ¹D ¹G ²B ²D ²G ³B ³D ³G ¹A♭ ºF♯ ¹A ¹D ¹F♯ ²A ²D ²F♯ ³A ³D ³F♯ = → pull↓ → © ºA © ºD →→→→ →→ © ºE © ºC → ²E♭ ¹D ¹F♯ ²A ²C ²E ²F♯ ³A ³C ³E ²B♭ ¹A ¹C♯ ¹E ¹G ²B ²C♯ ²E ²G ³B ³C♯ English concertina rodec ³A♭♭ ³G *B↑ *B♭♭↑ →→→→ ³F♯♯ ³F *A↑ ³A♭♭↑ ³C♯♯ ³C ³E↑ ³E♭♭↑ →→→→ ³B♭♭ ³B ³D↑ ³D♯♯↑ ²F♯♯ ²F ³A↑ ²A♭♭↑ →→→→ ²E♭♭ ²E ²G↑ ²G♯♯↑ ²B♭♭ ²B ²D↑ ²E♭♭↑ →→→→ ¹A♭♭ ²A ²C↑ ²C♯♯↑ ¹E♭♭ ¹E ¹G↑ ¹A♭♭↑ →→→→ ¹E♭♭ ¹D ¹F↑ ¹F♯♯↑ ºA♭♭ ¹A ¹C↑ ¹C♯♯↑ →→→→ ºA♭♭ ¹G ¹B↑ ¹B♭♭↑ = Click the buttons to hear sound - it works in Firefox, and Chrome. Opera not tested. Safari plays ME's generic sounds but I haven't copied the notes samples into MP3 yet. MSIE (latest version) remains obstinately silent Whoops - spotted a 'wee bug' in the enharmonics - gotta go

I'd agree that 'in standard CDE notation' flattening a note doesn't change octave number. 'C♭' would be a rare cypher, though it makes sense in say an A♭ minor scale - A♭,B♭,C♭ .. But that isn't the issue. This isn't a 'simulator' really, and the notes 've I managed to cull - start and end on 'A'. While I 'could' change that .. knock on is to run out of prefix characters as UTF provides an incomplete set, and HTBL button faces don't allow <sup> tags. The art of the possible ... 'ºA♭' doesn't exist (I could make one in audacity, but ºA already reattles the floorboards)! I honestly think 5 octaves and an octave up facility might be enough. enough said anyway - things to do ... Thanks for the layout. Am presently working on moving descriptions out of the code area into a proper XML library. That will also allow a description paragraph and links (in this instance, to this site )and will much simplify maintenance. I didn't know that Crane and Sons were here in Liverpool - or the Salvation Army bit!!

Don't think total number of octaves is a major issue. I've sampled from my Gaillard Saphir in single voice mode (to exclude nobody) and that has something over 4½ octaves with a little gap near the top. Change to medium voice - was an easy 5½ and I 'tweaked' that to 6 using Audacity. Also the octaves number 0,1,2,3 - for which character codes are available and used 'n' for anything more. Does anyone know where I can find a UTF5? But never mind - that's 5 whole octaves you can voice to and as I say - the notes above this are needed to extend the chords etc into. My lowest note is A and I can confirm the foghorn quality of it. That's why the numbers go up one when you go A♭→A - it was what was to hand! So yes - and importantly - the octaves start at A - thanks for pointing out the confusion. It would help a lot if you could find time to renumber on that basis as I'm sure I'll get it wrong. You really need the instrument to hand. Find it's lowest 'A' and call that ¹A, anything below is in octave zero. Going up is easy - just change the number after every A♭ "Everything is relative" and internally the model sees ºA=0 ¹A=12 ²A=24 ³A=36 and ⁿA=48 - hence the easy 'play an octave higher' button. I just add 12 As for middle C .. probably about ²C - but it isn't an absolute scale as I say above. I feel it covers most bases as say a tenor EC could simply use the lower register and a treble in the higher. Anyway - fundamentally and philosophically it is a scale/chord finder with a note add in. If you want to play - you should use real kit! Will make the nudges you suggest and plough on - keep 'em coming. TIA Chris Step by step guide (going into the 'notes' soon) Importantly octaves run from ºA-ºG♯, ¹A -¹G♯ etc. The best way to voice an instrument is with it in your hands. 1. Find your lowest 'A' - that should be ¹A (rarely ºA if it is your lowest note) 2. Scale notes below this pitch are in octave #0 - ºE ºF ºG ºA ♭ etc 3. Notes from ¹A up run ¹B♭ ¹B ¹C ¹D♭ ... ¹A♭ 4. From then on it's ²A ²B♭ ²B ²C ²D♭ ... ²A♭ 5. etc etc working upward. This makes most efficient use of your range (unless A is lowest note) 6. If you don't like it on simulation - press the next octave up option!

Crane duet as 'nudged' (done graphically) - would this sort of thing be acceptable? .. and a wild guess at its voicing If anything like correct it would make a good testbed for me - it requires all of the new features →→ →→ →→ →→ →→ →→ →→ ²F♯♯ ꜛ³G ²A♭♭ ꜛ³A ↑³C ꜛ³B ³B♭♭ →→→→ ²C♯♯ ꜛ²D ↑³F ꜛ³E ³E♭♭ ²E♭♭ ꜛ²E ↑²G ²F ²F♯♯ →→→→ ²A♭♭ ³A ↑³C ꜛ³B ³B♭♭ ²B♭♭ ꜛ²B ↑²D ꜛ²C ²C♯♯ →→→→ ²E♭♭ ꜛ²E ↑²G ꜛ²F ²F♯♯ ¹F♯♯ ꜛ¹F ↑²A ꜛ¹G ¹A♭♭ →→→→ ²B♭♭ ꜛ²B ↑²D ꜛ²C ²C♯♯ ¹C♯♯ ꜛ¹C ↑¹E ꜛ¹D ¹E♭♭ →→→→ ¹F♯♯ ꜛ¹F ↑²A ꜛ¹G ¹A♭♭ ºA♭♭ ꜛºG ↑ºB ꜛ¹A ¹B♭♭ →→→→ ¹C♯♯ ꜛ¹C ↑¹E ꜛ¹D ¹E♭♭ ºF♯♯ →→ ↑ºF →→ →→ →→ →→ →→ →→ ↑ºB →→ ºB♭♭

Thanks for that. I think need a duet on there (aren't there a lot?) and can probably now curve your rows for you. See below TECHNICAL REPORT The gnomes of Wirral have been busy over the past week and I think I've cracked the concertina layout issue and have a unified token system that covers all squeezeboxes. It's seen me abandon 'Good Ol' ASCII' and embrace UTF-8 character encoding. However www has been using this for well over 10 years and it is the de facto standard for web pages. My testbed version uses UTF arrow character 'ꜛ,↑,ꜜ,' prefixes to specify 'nudges' of ¼-position, ½-position up and ¼-position down allowing the sort of 'curved' layouts common here (but of course, unknown to the melodeonista community)! There's also progress on the knotty sound issue. Turned out that you can't simply use musical notes as they have to be voiced into octaves. Melodeon Explorer (apologies) doesn't know whether octaves lie left to right (anglo) or down to up (EC) and I think very few of us know how a bandoneón is played! Rather than make dubious assumptions, I've again used UTF prefixes: 'º,¹,²,³' to 'voice' the notes individually. Sounds hard work, but you only do it once and it is then 'right' Actually it's pretty quick - the octaves always lie in patterns This technical change transferred the character encoding issue into its editor (UTF characters aren't keyboard typeable) But having crossed the Rubicon - all was well ME's edit box converts eg ^2Ab to ꜛ²A♭ in a jiffy. The final Good News is that I've allowed eg a simple A♭♭ and G♯♯ token to overrule the underlying 'music' model's view that these notes are the same thing. They still 'sound' the same, but display as A♭ and G♯ without any conversion. This avoids the need for any 'processor directives' - always a pain. Sorted! We seem to have a common encoding for all squeezebox layouts as per 'mission'. I've laid it out on http://squeezebox.chrisryall.net/notes.htm There is also progress on sound, as per actually 'hearing it' with sampled .ogg snippets plumbed in over 6 octaves. MSIA (as ever ) uses its own format, but sound 'sounds' on up to date Firefox, and should also work on Chrome and Opera. You can try it on the notes page, but the main 'Explorer' presets are not yet 'voiced'. Sound has to remain 'experimental' as it needs HTML5 (which officially deploys in 2016)! Thanks for your continuing input, I've learned a lot. Please don't rely on the main Explorer page for edit/builds for the next few days. The sound changes and edit will most certainly have introduced bugs. Is anyone going to Whittlesea?

Thanks for that. The way to make it look like an EC was to use style sheet effect to nudge half the buttons up half a row. As (fundamentally) this page is trying to handle *any* squeezebox that meant either messy extra tags on the notes to be elevated or a special constructor for EC. I chose the latter as it fixed the D#<>Eb issue, but either way it de-simplified editing in a big way. Present developments are a scratchbox to build up a chord or scale library ( pastable into word processor of your choice,) more modal scales such as the ones Gurdy players like, and split tonic/5th chord buttons. The last rather more useful to melodeonistas one suspects! My daughter Dolly May said the control area was a mess - it will be much simplified in release 3! Sound effects are still a twinkle in Dad's eye but won't take 40 weeks to be heard!

Thanks for the advice so far. I've cracked the staggered rows issue for the English Concertina but at the price of losing editability. I don't play it myself so the issue is please - does that matter? From what I've gathered so far the EC-48 is a very standard piece of kit - so perhaps not? Secondly - do really need a second layout for the eg Aeola and Edeophone (are there others)? My impression is yes - but web images are a bit vague as to what button does what TIA - the web 'production' version has NOT changed, and I attach screenshot of my testbed EC at home for comment and advice please Chris

Noted - yes - the 'standard' box will be more useful and will be a definite pre-set.I'll move your button across when I get home

I've attached a screenshot of "what might work" for EC below. Buttons in horizontal rows is a fairly fundamental constraint at present. It will be possible to nudge them up or down using CSS .. but that'd add a whole extra layer to the text input. Definitely a 'next year' development. Could EC members interested have a look at the shot and perhaps try it themselves - would it 'work'? After all we are never going to actually play the thing! It's just to conveniently find those note sets. Chris Current state of debate in the Other Place: http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,10996.msg138086.html#msg138086 [edit] Grr - .png images don't seem to attach here - click the image below Whoops - on melnet it displays much smaller! BTW is that top G in the right place? I ... guessed

I've (bravely perhaps) uploaded my development version 2.1 which has handles installed for several ideas come in from the two forums. Most are not yet linked to code to make them work! Sound is definitely 'greyed out' though it does now make noises in Firefox. There's a bug in appearance the sound buttons in the simulation which should be transparent (OK at home, not on web)! As sound is N/A that shouldn't matter. English concertina came in 'vertically' but I find it much more manageable with left on the left, right on right. Advice sought from its players. cc'd "The Other Place" C ______________________________________ Don - the text input is merely tokens to inform the graphic. The graphics are laid out in HORIZONTAL lines and if you lay out your keyboard thus it will line up. Trying top do it with ">>" will I'm afraid be a mugs game. Nor (I think) will it ever do curved lines of buttons. It's there to inform scale/chord play - not to simulate everyone's box. Tip: find a layout similar to your own box and modify it. That's what I do. And use the text box as it's own 'editor' - drag/drop works! Even Ctrl-Z = undo works!! [edit] Just spotted the Ab/G# issue .. the "App" fundamentally tokenises both of these as '11' and getting it to display the two differently .. depending on "which notes they were next to" would be beyond awkward. I guess I'm saying the EC isn't entirely logical in music notation (as opposed to geometric) terms? The good news is that on the graphic the G# will still be next to A

Thanks - I'll add that one to the next build. I'm really only interested in 'standard' builds as the variation in the field is massive! Once I master 'cookies', users can edit/ save/ automatically reload any more idiosyncratic layouts. Is there any 'standard' for duets? C

Thanks for those - all valid wishes and one I'd not have thought of! 1. X works on current development version as a blank button - would do for air? If not a 'O' is easy enough 2. 1960's ASCII is long (long) gone for web use! I've just completely recoded from 1990's iso-8859-1 to the present de facto standard UTF-8 to allow things ♭/♯ after specific requests in the Other Place! I suspect I might get the same from some here? To do that I installed a new (free) text editor. There are many online depending on your OS. Having said that: the characters aren't monospace. Guess I could make 'tidy' a tickbox option 3. Inconsistency noted. When your EC is ready please paste as text there and I'll make it a pre-set once I get back from Iceland. BTW Does anyone know of any folk events in Reykjavic this weekend?

Thanks for the kind words Chas, and for giving the Linota the love it deserved:) I've taken a screenshot of the Anglo pre-set to help (and of course promote)the 'App' Click should link to it .. Meanwhile - can't remember the 37 key layout. Any chance of a crib? The 31 version as 'text' is E A♭ C♯ A A♭ C♯ A A♭ C♯ F C G C E G C E G C E B D G B D PUSH G B D G B C = Wheatstone/Lachenal-31-button-anglo F B♭ E♭ G B♭ E♭ G B♭ E♭ A G B D F A B D F A B D F♯ A C E PULL F♯ A C E F♯ C

Hi everyone, thanks for the quote! Colin and Rosalie have been there most year's I've been but no longer take a stall - think the last stall was about 2000. True - this particular festival is very much about gurdy, accordéon and bagpipes .. and dancing Chris

Hello everyone, Normally I'd listen in a bit more on a new forum before posting, but I've something I hope might be useful and also am off abroad later in the week. I'm an ex Wheatstone Linota player, but nowadays am very much a 3-row melodeonista. I like to play 'in chords' and also improvise a bit and sing with the box. My Linota went to a (very) good home some 9 years ago - though I've had a Dipper on order since well before then .. might not see it? The facility that 'might' interest people here is squeezebox.chrisryall.net The page is a generic web box simulator, replicating things I did on spreadsheets a few years ago. It should find scale runs and chord handfuls on 'any' box - it works on simple layout text tokens and so isn't at all concerned with how the instrument works inside. As such it's (intentionally) as valid for concertina as melodeon. Mostly its presets are melodeon layouts at present, but I've put a Lachenal/Linota-30 on a button experimentally and it seems to work just fine. As the page matures and any bugs are exterminated I'd hope to see is used by this community as well as 'the other place', but will need some other layouts to do that - I'm thinking 'English', the larger Linota-37 and perhaps some of the commoner duets? Might even chance a bandoneón! I hope it might help find unusual chords, off piste scales like Eb, and the cooler things that get used in improvising. That's enough for now. I'll pop in here regularly to pick up ideas and will try to be sensitive to wishes or criticism expressed here and also mouse around the general forum (as occasionally quoted on melnet!) Here's a link to discussion discussions in 'the other place' - all ideas considered. Thanks Chris Ryall