Little John

It depends which accidentals you have on your instrument. If you have and Ab then Ab major should sound good (Ab - C - Eb), but if you haven't (which is probably the case) and have to use G# instead then it will indeed sound awful. G# major will sound awful because the third will be C instead of B#. LJ

I don't know about just temperament, but in mean tone tuning all whole tone intervals are the same as long as you don't step over the break in the circle of fifths. So in my case C# to Eb and G# to Bb would be much wider than the rest. They would probably be tolerable in a melody and they wouldn't crop up in harmony, so it's not that big a problem. Thirds and fifths are where the real problems lie. LJ

If you're really starving, you'll find quite a few of my efforts here. LJ

I play with the instrument hanging down. Straps fairly loose the same as when I'm sitting. This was originally recorded to illustrate the shape of the bellows in response to a question, but it serves equally to demonstrate the overall hold on the concertina. Much more comfortable than with forearms horizontal or upright. The only downside is that it can be hard to hear yourself if you're surrounded by melodeons! LJ

Steve - it's one of those things, feels like a really big step to take but afterwards you wonder why you didn't do it sooner. I can't really see a downside to it - only benefits. I calculated that, for playing in the "English" keys of G and D it is best to centre the tuning on A. That minimises the deviation from ET. Of course, if you habitually play in other keys than these another centre might be preferable. (If it's a C/G concertina and you play mainly in those keys then D is indeed the appropriate centre for tuning.) See my response above to Bax. My Crane is centred on A so I was able to give a true 440 Hz note to the West Gallery instruments to tune to. That said, if my calculation is correct, his A at 2 cents flat translates to only about 0.5 Hz which I doubt would be noticeable. The "beating" between a true 440 Hz A and the concertina's A would have a two second cycle.

It's about a year since I asked for others' experience with using fifth comma mean tone tuning in another thread. The answers I received were sufficiently encouraging for me to take the plunge and have my 48 key Crabb Crane duet tuned to this temperament. I haven't regretted it for a moment. A brief explanation before I detail my experience. The almost ubiquitous equal temperament (ET) tuning has been understood for centuries, but was shunned in favour of other tuning temperaments until the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. In its favour, ET eliminates the need to distinguish between, for example, F# and Gb and it makes it possible to play equally well in any key on a piano or other keyboard instrument. Against it is the fact that all keys are equally "out of tune" and, in particular, all major third intervals are sharp by about a seventh of a semitone (14 cents). Fifth comma mean tone is but one of many tuning systems ("temperaments") which aim to overcome this problem of the major thirds, but it does so at a price: only six of the twelve keys sound good, but all of them are equally good. However, for most folk musicians (and others) this is no real hardship - how many of us want to play in C# major or Eb minor, for example? So, I go to collect my newly tuned Crane from Alex Holden and play a tune. It doesn't sound any different. I deliberately play the "wolf fifth" interval G# - Eb. Doesn't sound bad really. I play a B major chord where the third has to be Eb rather than the D# it should be. Not that bad. Despite not sounding much different, the Crabb almost instantly becomes my "go to" instrument. Only gradually do I realise that my initial perception was coloured by a lifetime of accepting the nasty intervals foisted on us by ET. It's not so much that the mean tone tuning sounds sweeter as time progresses, but that going back to ET tuning becomes increasing painful. The sweetness of mean tone tuning became instantly acceptable whilst the harshness of ET became only slowly apparent. I think instinctively my ear knew this, but my brain took a few months to overcome sixty-odd years prior experience. What follows is a bit more detailed, so you might want to give up at this point! In my earlier thread I asked two specific questions: (1) what keys will I be able to play in and (2) how will it sound with other instruments? The answer to the first is down to your choice of accidentals. For most people Bb, C#, F# and G# will be obvious choices, but the Eb / D# choice is a bit more difficult. (This isn't a problem for English concertinas or larger Hayden duets which have space for both.) Since I tend to sing in flat keys I opted for Eb. This choice gives me the major keys of Bb, F, C, G, D & A plus their relative minors G, D, A, E, B & F#. This would be perfectly adequate were it not for one quirk: some forms of music like to employ the major seventh in minor keys, usually in the harmony rather than the melody (giving rise in classical music to the distinction between harmonic and melodic minor scales). So some tunes in E minor want a D#. It occurs only rarely in my playing and there are several ways round the problem when it does occur, so I really haven't found this to be an issue. As to the second question, over the past year I've played extensively in a duo with a guitar and likewise in a duo with a melodeon. I've also played in a jazz context with clarinet, trombone and guitar and spent a very pleasant day with a West Gallery band and choir including a vast assortment of instruments. I have never detected any problem with sounding out of tune; nor has anyone I've played with made any comment. One further observation. As the title of Ross Duffin's fascination book on the subject indicates, the problem with ET is that it ruins harmony. Melody is a different issue. In the jazz context I've played in Eb major and C minor, where I have to employ G# for what should be Ab, but as I've been playing only melody it hasn't been in the least bit noticeable. One further oddity, which I can't really explain. In a new tune I was learning an odd chromatic passage called for a Bb minor chord. Unfortunately the third of that chord has to be C# since I have no Db, but it sounds acceptable. The same is true of F minor with a third of G# (not that I've ever used that chord). So the flattened minor third seems to be more acceptable than the sharp major third in, for example, B major. Perhaps someone else can provide an explanation for that. One final point. My experience relates entirely to fifth comma mean tone tuning, which seems to be a common compromise: the major thirds are much sweeter than in ET but not actually "pure". In quarter comma the major thirds are pure whilst the fifths are narrower and the note pitches diverge more from ET. How much these last two factors matter I don't know. Some advocate sixth comma as less extreme than quarter or fifth; but my experience suggests fifth comma is not an any practical sense extreme. In all cases the six major and six minor keys are equally good, but perhaps in sixth comma the other keys are more acceptable. That might be an issue with, say, baroque keyboard music but not one that would trouble most folk musicians. I am tempted to try a duet tuned to quarter comma mean tone, but to be honest I'm content with fifth comma so I'll probably never get round to it. My new Alex Holden 44 button Crane (due to arrive next month) will be tuned fifth comma mean tone. LJ

Thank you Didie. Since this recording I've changed a couple of chords and added an extra bass run in the second part, but essentially it remains simple.

Please note: this is now sold and on its way to a new life in Germany. A donation will be made to this forum. A Jeffries 30 button anglo in G/D. I only realised when I opened it up to take photos that I've had this for 22 years. When I received it the bellows were torn so it was unplayable. It was fully restored by C & R Dipper. Besides the usual things the ends were re-plated and new 7-fold bellows fitted. I played it seriously for a year or two, but then gradually reverted to the Crane duet so it's rarely touched nowadays. The Dipper hand straps show signs of use, but otherwise it's still pretty much in its restored condition. I'm never going to take it up seriously again and besides, I'm waiting for my new Alex Holden Crane so I need the shelf space! It was re-tuned from A/E, as Colin indicates on the inside, but he said at the time it was actually somewhere between A/E and Ab/Eb. That seems odd, but perhaps the "F.CONCERT . OLD" stamped on one side might give a clue. It also states "No 2 . 1926". Anyway, we agreed that since it had to be re-tuned then G/D made most sense. Photographs below, but if you can get to Hampshire you're welcome to try it. I'm looking for £4,200. Buyer chooses courier and insurance at own expense or, even better, collects. Includes hard, non-fitted case. An appropriate donation will made to C.net in the event of a sale from this site. LJ

The idea is interesting, but it's perhaps worthy of note that most layouts of this type are horizontal rather than vertical. For example the CBA, Stark and Tona's layout. There's probably a good reason for that. A particular problem I see with this is forming chords on the left hand. Even for a simple triad there will always be two buttons vertically aligned, which is a fingering problem. For a major chord the first two notes are aligned and for a minor chord the second two notes are. This is pretty well avoided on the Crane and Hayden systems. Another problem is the vertical extant, particularly on the right hand. To get the minimum useful compass of two octaves requires a column of seven buttons. An English covers that range in four, whilst a Crane needs only five and a Hayden (I think) about 4 again. These could be some of the reasons why the Wheatstone Double Duet didn't take off. LJ

Thanks David. Kind of you to say so. It was actually filmed in landscape but IGTV insisted on discarding 80% of the image from the sides to produce this portrait format. I have seen a couple of IGTV postings that managed to retain the landscape format. I just couldn't see how to do so myself. It seems there are often hidden features that aren't at all obvious. With normal Instagram the default is a square image but it's easy (once someone has told you how!) to retain the original format if you wish. I was using IGTV for the first time because it doesn't have the 60 second limit of IG, which would obviously have made a sensible recording of Roslin Castle impossible. LJ

I've enjoyed listening to all these versions but decided against learning to play it myself. That is, until it kept creeping into my ear so in the end I gave up resisting! It may not add anything to all the previous renditions, but for what it's worth, here is my interpretation. LJ

Really interesting! Thanks for giving this link. LJ

How do the bellows differ? Why should there need to be different types? LJ

I have #9155 (48 button Crane) which Geoff told me was 1934. LJ