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Little John

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Everything posted by Little John

  1. I can only assume that the first "partial" stop (50ml/s at 1ms) is when the reed is passing into the frame (so the reed and the airflow are in the same direction and therefore the airflow isn't reduced entirely to zero); whereas the total stop (0ml/s at 2ms) is when the reed it coming out of the frame (so the movement is opposing the airflow and hence the stop is complete). The smaller hump (at 70ml/s) is halfway between these which would correspond to the maximum deflection of the reed within the frame and hence maximum airflow (in that half of the cycle); after that dropping as the reed movement reverses and opposes the airflow.
  2. I think you'll find loads of harmonics with any concertina. What I've never been able to understand is how they are generated. The string or wind column vibration analogy just doesn't apply.
  3. Useful, though I disagree with the description (top of page 3) "48 button Tenor". It has treble fingering extended down to tenor range. It's exactly the same as the "56 button Tenor-Treble" below it apart from lacking the top row, so it's a 48 button Tenor-Treble. I'm sure not everyone will agree, but to me a true tenor has F3 where your C4 is shown (and thus C4 where your G4 is shown). John.
  4. I agree. I was just sticking with convention in using "tenor-treble". That's spot on, provided C3 was positioned exactly where C4 (middle C) would be on a treble.
  5. The extra 8 buttons would give you an additional fifth below, not an octave. That being so, I agree with It a tenor-treble with an extended top end; so "tenor-extended treble" is a clear and accurate description. Inventing your own terminology helps no-one.
  6. Haha! And I said my Wheatstone bass sounds like a bassoon - until I played it sitting next to one!
  7. Likewise. I confess that when I ordered raised end on the metal instrument (the wooden one is flat) it was for purely aesthetic reasons. Sound quality never entered my head, either then or when I wrote my previous reply. I had thought the material might make some difference; but it seems probably not, and if so then certainly not in the way one would expect.
  8. For another comparison, I have two very similar instruments made by Alex. The biggest difference in the ends - wooden on one and metal on the other. There is a small difference in tone, though it's hard describe. Hard, too, to attribute it to the ends: contrary to conventional wisdom the wooden one is the brighter.
  9. I think most of us would agree that the difference would be negligible. In fact, zero in some cases. The raised metal ends shown by @alex_holden in an earlier post were beaten from a flat sheet; so flat or raised would have been the same weight unless it caused the fretwork to be cut differently, which seems unlikely. In this case Alex raised the ends first then cut the fretwork. On an earlier instrument the did the reverse. The tiny amount of wood saved on the action box sides is countered by the taller hand rests. All pretty negligible.
  10. That's not my experience. I once had two duets of very similar size and note-range. One weighed 2 3/4 lbs and the other 4 1/4 lbs - more than a 50% increase. The difference was very noticeable. The lighter one I could play standing up with ease; the heavier one barely at all. Does it matter? It might be worth noting that the Crabb family were both makers and players of concertinas. They made their instruments light by the use of aluminium reed frames, end plates and action. Why would they depart from the standard brass/nickel silver unless they saw some advantage? Another observation: John Kirkpatrick is noted for playing his concertina standing up and even swinging it around. It's a very lightweight Crabb. Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne plays resting his instrument on his knee, even when standing. His is a heavy Jeffries.
  11. It is interesting that on his website Wakker makes no reference to the effect on sound of raised ends. He offers five of his six anglo design with optional raised ends. He gives a comparison chart of the six instruments for loudness, brightness and evenness; he differentiates wooden ends from metal ends but no mention of raised ends. Amongst his English concertinas only the Aeola copy has raised ends, and again no discussion of why or what the effect is. His top-of-the-range Parnassus has flat ends. It all leaves the impression he considered raised ends as cosmetic.
  12. Not a correction, but an observation to put the conclusion in perspective. If raised ends are just for aesthetic reasons it shouldn't be a cause for surprise; so much about a concertina's design and construction is. Take the ends for example. A few drilled holes would serve acoustically just as well as the wide variety of fancy fretwork we see. Pure aesthetics. And the action box sides, which generally have a second groove scored to mirror the split which allows it to be taken apart. The score serves no purpose other than aesthetics. Decorative bellows papers, gold plated buttons, amboyna veneer, ...
  13. The quote I gave and to which my comment related was specifically for metal raised ends.
  14. The effect of this on raised ends is that the inside becomes almost flat. So if there is intended to be an acoustic effect (which I doubt) it would suggest the aim of raising metal ends is to compensate for the bushing board and produce a flat internal surface. Personally I think it's all cosmetic. And what's wrong with that?
  15. Ah, thank you for this David! I had been under the misapprehension that Pythagorean was just another name for pure. Interesting that it's effectively another mean tone tuning, and one that makes the major third actually worse the equal temperament.
  16. This is a curious assertion. In my experience "overtone", "partial" and "harmonic" are virtually interchangeable (with some slight differences in usage between the scientific and musical communities). I've never come across "harmonics" as being reserved for the overtones at octave intervals. Also they are not the most common. If F is the fundamental frequency of a note its harmonics are at 2F, 3F, 4F, 5F etc. The ones at octave intervals are 2F, 4F, 8F, 16F etc. So "most" harmonics/overtones/partials are not at octave intervals: 3F, 5F, 6F, 7F, 9F, 10F, 11F, 12F, 13F etc. It is from these "non-octave" harmonics that we derive the intervals and notes of the natural scale we use: 3F gives us the fifth note, 5F gives us the (major) third note for example. [These are the pure, natural or Pythagorean intervals, which differ slightly from the intervals derived from adding 100, 200 etc. cents to the pitch, but that's a discussion for a different place!]
  17. That's exactly what I've done for years with my Crane duets. Using fairly loose straps it allows me to slide my right hand forward to reach the higher accidentals with my little finger. If you use Instagram there are loads of videos of me playing. @craneduet
  18. I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. A treble English and a C/G anglo have similar usable ranges. The lowest note on an English is G3 and it is fully chromatic down to that note. The anglo goes lower to C3, but with some notes missing below G3. I have absolutely no idea what you mean by this! Not really. A duet of similar size to the two I mentioned above will go no lower than C3. [A Crane duet will be chromatic down to that, a Hayden duet will have a couple a accidentals missing, while a Maccann duet will not go quite as low and will have gaps.] Alex points out that the English and anglo exist in deeper versions. There are English concertinas going down to C3, G2, F2, C2 and G1 for example; whilst baritone and bass anglos go down to C2 and C1 (but with gaps). Big (and very big) duets might go down to G2 or C2. But all these instruments are relatively rare. Unless you know someone who owns one of these instruments and is happy to collaborate with you on the composition, you would be well advised to stick to the range of a treble English.
  19. At a time when concertinas cost half of what brass instruments cost there were a lot of concertina bands. They frequently played from brass band scores. The treble and baritone instruments played the Bb parts (but as written so sounding a tone higher than brass) and the F-tenor and F-bass instruments would play the Eb parts; again sounding a tone higher. So thinking in terms of brass writing would work well for the English concertina too.
  20. This is probably the best advice. I was going to say almost the same. Quite honestly, you need to understand the characteristics of an instrument when you are writing for it. Since you don't seem to know much about the different systems your best bet is to write in a violin sort of style and find a good English concertina player to critique it before you set it in stone. Just one example: playing in octaves is weak-sounding on the violin but very powerful on the concertina. The (treble) English was designed to play violin music and so has the same range - 3 1/2 octaves from G3 - so you won't go too far wrong in writing as if for a violin. It's fully chromatic in that range, but fingering could become awkward if you stray beyond three flats or four sharps.
  21. It's an iPhone 13 mini. "mics", in fact, since it records in stereo. I don't know if earlier models do this. It's an option when recording video, but I seem to recall it is the default option.
  22. Interesting. Note also that both players had their thumbs right through the straps. (Alistair Anderson does this too.) Also interesting is that they seem to play entirely in thirds (or very nearly so).
  23. I've played English with thumb straps and both Crane duet and Anglo with hand straps. One advantage of the thumb straps is that when playing standing up, supporting the instrument entirely with the hands, thumb straps give you more stability than hand straps. But to answer your first question: which follows on from the observation: It's true that a full 48 button instrument has both D# and Eb (and G# and Ab), but these are not really 'alternatives'. Any basic scale is played with notes alternating between the hands. So playing in E major you would play the D#, playing in Eb major you would use the Eb button. In theory you could play the D# in an Eb tune and the Eb in an E tune, but you would break the alternating hand pattern of the scale and it would become more awkward. In fact in the 19th century D# and Eb were tuned differently (1/4 comma mean tone tuning was common if not universal) so playing an Eb where it should be a D# (and vice versa) would sound pretty bad too.
  24. Yes, and for good reason. This tune isn't in D (major), it's in E dorian. The C# rather than C natural is what distinguishes the dorian mode from the bog standard minor (aeolian mode). So if you lose the C sharps you lose part of the essential character of the melody.
  25. Late to the topic but I am a Crane player with small hands, which isn't entirely a disadvantage. In one video I played the top Eb on the LHS (row 4). An anglo player remarked that I seemed to struggle to reach it. I wasn't conscious of it at the time, but on watching it he was right. I had learnt long ago what Kurt has just said: So I slide my hand through further when I need to reach high notes with my little finger. This isn't possible when standing up to play but sitting, with one end resting on my thigh, it's easy. Standing I struggle to reach F# on the RHS, often hitting the C# too; sitting I can manage the top Bb. Don't give up on the little finger, or on the Kurt's idea of inner and outer positions. Both make playing so much easier. My standard position is the outer one, but there will often be a short passage of, say, 3 to 8 notes, where a change to the inner position makes the fingering much simpler and hence the music flow more smoothly. One example: for B4 E5 D5 C5 on the RHS I would use index, middle, ring and little fingers. The last three notes are therefore in Kurt's 'inner' position. Second example: for D4 G4 A4 B4 on the RHS I would use little, ring, middle and index fingers. This is really all outer position with the little finger crossing to the fourth column. If you've got short fingers they may also be not too wide. This is useful for fingering fourths like the BE and DG in the two examples.
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