dabbler

As a Beaumont player I'll add a few thoughts. I've had previous experience with guitar and, long ago, saxophone. I found the non-mirrored Beaumont to be intuitive, and never once thought that the asymmetry was frustrating. I'd think that the relative difficulty of Maccann to Hayden would dwarf any trouble related to a non-mirrored versus mirrored layout. To me (and at least a few others) Maccann looks completely nonintuitive yet I've heard some really great Maccann playing. If you think you'll ever sell your instrument the mirrored layout may be a harder sell. Finally, on guitar people visualise chord shapes. I find myself doing the same on the Hayden. It's a helpful mnemonic when I'm playing a tune by memory. The chord shapes concept wouldn't work as well on a mirrored layout. Good luck! -George

The idea of busking during the holiday season and spreading Christmas cheer helped inspire me to pursue this instrument. Of the Christmas tunes I've learned my wife likes this one the best. Shchedryk (Carol of the Bells) Here's a link to the sheet music. Happy holidays to all. -George

Congratulations on your decision to get a Beaumont. It's a great instrument. I was in your situation several months ago and went with the Durall reeds. Never have I thought that the reeds lack any brightness. Recently I baffled the left side with thin cardboard and am enjoying the warmer tone and improved balance. -George

I seem to recall, maybe from his instagram, @alex_holden building an instrument with long-scale reeds. Is this the one? -George

Very impressive. I wonder what type of reed was used. -George

I had been wondering if Bach's inventions could sound satisfactory on the instrument given its limited range. Sounds wonderful!

I have been using the octave treble clef because it suits the range of the 52-button Hayden. I'd be interested in hearing what other duet players prefer. Maybe we could post a poll. -George

Great tune, Didie, and excellent performance! Looking forward to any sheet music you're able to share. Do you use the bass clef for the bottom staff or the octave treble clef? -George

Thanks for these. I have learned a few instruments over the years and consider myself reasonbly good at self-teaching but still need these reminders. Sounds like a great book. I will check it out. A mindset that helps me is to relish the struggle, because learning something challenging is a way to relive an aspect of childhood. -George

Excellent. Thanks for sharing. -George

Thanks, Didie. And thanks for posting your superb renditions. They helped persuade me to give the instrument a try. Adapting to the Beaumont was not too difficult. As you may know David played a 67-button Maccann which spans a few notes lower than our instrument, down to G. Hence a few notes had to be raised an octave. I used MuseScore for notation. It has a playback feature that let me decide if the adaptation sounded acceptable before I invested practice time. I also used Don Taylor's soundfont (see here). I do hope to post more videos and do my humble part to spread the word of this underappreciated instrument. -George

I'm late to this party but thought I'd demonstrate how David Cornell's arrangement can be adapted to a 52-button Hayden. I much prefer Dirge's rendition but hope to add more feel to my playing with time (started 5 months ago). -George

Hello all. I too am a new duet player and am looking forward to whatever comes of this. Earlier in the thread there was an effort to collect links to existing duet recordings. I searched through the forum and couldn't find mention of this excellent collection from Lesley Henniker performing David Cornell arrangements: https://soundcloud.com/user-655309308 -George

Not everyone does. Morse concertinas from the Button Box use cherry plywood ends. I own one of their Beaumont models and am quite pleased with it. That said, I wouldn't be too concerned about solid ends since the instrument won't experience the same humidity extremes that a breath instrument would. -George

The fretwork appears similar to that in the thread below. So, Nickolds probably? -George