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soloduet

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Posts posted by soloduet

  1. Here is a first recording with a new instrument designed and made by Harry Geuns in Belgium. It's an hybridation between the reeds system of a bandoneon and the Wicki concertina keyboard, so I called it a bandotin. This prototype has 89 buttons (46 on the right and 43 on the left) which is maybe a little too much but for this first experience I wanted to have the same range than a traditional Argentinean bandoneon, almost fully chromatic, and some double notes for the most distant altered notes (which is a condition to make this system work at his best). I hope that some other musicians will be interested to play this kind of instruments:

    https://youtu.be/7Lqd_ZqzSGU

     

    • Like 5
  2. On 9/4/2021 at 11:39 AM, David Barnert said:

    ’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding what you mean by “front,” “back,” and “bottom.” Do they refer to the keyboard oriented the way you play it with the rows vertical or the way concertinas are usually pictured, with the hand strap (if there was one) at the bottom and the rows horizontal? And is the “front” closer to or further from the player?

    Yes, with this setting the left keyboard becomes mirrored and you can use the same fingerings than on the right side, but it's a full flip with the lower notes where we use to have the higher ones and the higher notes where we use to have the lower ones...

  3. I've just noticed another setting that could interest David and all the Hayden/Wicky players about the question of mirrored or non mirrored left hand keyboard: on the Striso duet there is a "flip layout" setting in order to make the left hand keyboard mirrored. It's not so useful for me because I'm familiar with the non mirrored position but it's nice to compare both positions. For now the problem is that it's a complete flip, which means that the low notes are on the front rows and the higher notes on the back rows. I will ask Piers if he could make the flip setting with the low notes at the bottom of the keyboard... Lukasz your handle seems to be very interesting and I'd like to try it!

  4. Thank you David and Don! The technical topics are always a little difficult for me and even more difficult as it's always written in English, but I intend to explore little by little all the potential of the instrument.

    To switch between both instruments is another difficulty but I think that it's possible to memorize both, like between violin and viola or cello. Actually I feel that the spacing and diameter of the buttons is a little more comfortable on the striso (about 14 mm between the centers of the buttons and about 1 cm for the diameter), so I wonder if it would be possible to make duet concertinas with a little larger buttons and spacing between the buttons even if I don't have very big fingers.

    With the striso duet you loose the expressivity of the bellows but you win the freedom of the hand on the keyboard without any hand straps...

  5. Yes, I didn't explore those possibilities yet because at first I want to concentrate on the holding position and the sound settings but it seems to be possible to switch to different tuning systems: meantone, pythagore, and I don't know what it is but it's written 5TET, 7TET, 12TET, 19TET, and 31TET.

    When I will have time to check that I will try to record the same tune and post here.

    Another interesting point is that you can use 2 more fingers to play because the thumbs are free...

  6. It's maybe not really a concertina because made without any reeds but yesterday I received my Striso duet prototype. The Striso board is a new instrument invented by Piers Titus van der Torren. As it is made with the same Wicky (or Hayden) keyboard than my duet concertina I asked Piers to build this duet version with 2 Striso boards. Here is the first prototype and a first try to play with it the tune Peder Gyes from Harald Haugaard. Recorded on an iPhone without any settings.

    striso.org

     

     

     

    • Like 10
  7. Here are 2 compositions by american musicians interested in silence:

    The first one searched for a possibility to express silence in music without using any rest (caution: risk to fall asleep):

     

    The second one wanted to express the impossibility of silence and the possible musicality of our environment (concertina sighting at 3'04):

     

     

    • Like 1
  8. Playing concertina, or any musical instrument, is a nice way to travel in a pandemic time. 

    Here is an Icelandic hymn discovered on C.net (thanks Gregor!):

    https://youtu.be/m8GniD2WMH0

     

    And here is a song from Okinawa "The Voice of the Sea", usually played on the sanshin, a traditional 3 strings lute. On this drawing one can also see the nice concertina bag used by concertina players in Okinawa:

     

    • Like 6
  9. Hi Clive, no I didn't get any problem after changing my technique to manage the bellows more like bandoneon players. I understand that there are many factors which have an incidence on the air volume and not only the size of the bellows, so it could be interesting if duet concertina makers pursue their researches on those multiple factors because I think that we need more air with duet concertinas when we want to play different styles of music. 

    And thank you also Richard and Little John, now I don't know how many folds have my bellows and maybe it's better like that...

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