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DaveRo

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Posts posted by DaveRo

  1. I had asked @vpo whether he was concerned about the weight of the Bandotina:

    • Edward Jay's 74 button Haydon concertina - 2.3kg
    • Edward Jay's 74 button Bandotina - 2.8kg

    Those weights are from Edward's website.

     

    By contrast:

    • 42 button Peacock - 1.2kg
    • 46 button Stagi Haydon - 1.8kg
    • 52 button Beaumont - 1.4kg

    I bought a Peacock partly because I found the Stagi too heavy. I'd like a Beaumont if I could get hold of one!

     

    The extra reeds must account for much of the Jays' weight. Is a 'plastic' concertina like the Jays likely to be heavier or lighter than a hybrid wooden one, such as my Peacock, with the same number of buttons?

  2. I assume we're referring to the 'apostrophe' in a title, or lyrics, not the one which changes the pitch of a note?

     

    I bet 'curly quotes' -  'right single apostrophes' - on sites like the Session often originated in Windows' programs like Word which substitutes them. This often resulted  in undisplayable characters on  websites which did not specify Unicode, though it's less of a problem these days. Some people may prefer ABC to be in ASCII for compatibilty with ancient software.

     

    This piece argues that you should - sometimes - use the Unicode 'modified letter aposthophe' instead.

    https://tedclancy.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/which-unicode-character-should-represent-the-english-apostrophe-and-why-the-unicode-committee-is-very-wrong/

     

    If I were you, Michael, I'd leave them alone!.

     

     

     

  3. I started on a Stagi 46, which has a slant (each end different, neither as Brian Hayden specified) and now have a Peacock - no slant, not mirrored. The changeover didn't make much difference, absolute beginner as I was, but if I bought another - e.g. from Lukasz - I'd want it the same. And hopefully with a similar button spacing. I know that CC will make a mirrored layout - but does anybody actually play one?

     

    I've briefly handled a Wheatstone 46 - with slant - but at the time I wasn't proficient enough to play it. It was remarkably small and light compared to my Stagi! But they are rare.

     

    I'm on Kent/E. Sussex border. If you want to try my Peacock, PM me.

  4. 2 hours ago, vpo said:

    will consider anything with at least 36 keys but preferably more

    Concertina Connection sell the 36-key Troubadour - Wim Wakker introduced it in this thread

    He also mentioned the proposed Peacock XL in that thresd - but he hasn't mentioned it since.

     

    Where in the world are you? I think most Beaumonts are in the US - but I'm guessing. Does anybody know how many were made?

     

    1 hour ago, Łukasz Martynowicz said:

    If you're not in too much hurry, I may be releasing 40-50b 3D printed Hayden later this year

    Is it a Hayden or Wicki layout - or haven't you decided

  5. 38 minutes ago, Łukasz Martynowicz said:

    If you’re just beginning learning dots you may want to look at a specific alternative notation system...

    I did - right at the start! I read your posts and looked at your examples. I was certainly attracted to the concept.

     

    But I concluded that I needed to know the old system to find stuff to play. And once I start learning that I might as well live with it.

    • Like 1
  6. 37 minutes ago, Łukasz Martynowicz said:

    Why exactly you need any written transposition to transpose on a Hayden?

     

    Having bought a concertina in my 70s, having never played an instrument (apart from a bit of piano before I was 10) I decided that learning a bare minimum of dots, and then playing those dots, was a way forward. So far it works for me - ish. I'm finding that I'm beginning to relate the dots on the staff to the button layout. But if I look at a dot, I don't readily recall the name of the note A,B,C...

     

    Perhaps in ten or twenty years I'll be able to do what you describe.

     

    By contrast, having 50 years experience of computers, I find transposing ABC or sheet music a doddle. My choice of a Hayden was predictable: I'm an engineer not a musician.

  7. I mean 2-voice - in ABC terminology. Whether it's 2-part sounds like a musical question, so I'll evade it.

     

    Here's one of my sources:

    http://www.rudemex.co.uk/library/RM_arrangements/01tunelib_RMarr.php

    I'm been learning A-Bruxa. There's an Am and a Bm version there, but I found that Dm fits the Peacock best: the accompaniment is not off the bottom, but ISTR I had to alter the melody a bit at the top which spoils it slightly.

  8. I often transpose a tune to fit within the compass of my 42-button Peacock duet. These are usually 2-part tunes. Sometimes I have to choose between the accompaniment going off the bottom or the melody going off the top. If I can find the music in ABC it's easy, as several people have said. I change the bass clef to treble-8 at the same time.

     

    If I only have staff notation I use an Android app - Music Scanner by David Zemsky - to convert it to MusicXML, which Easy ABC can import, and then transpose it. The app will work from a pdf, a screenshot from a website, or by photographing sheet music. And it will play it - which is a feature I often come back to when trying to learn it!

  9. 2 hours ago, Little John said:

    A well set-up duet (or any other concertina, but it seems to be more critical on a duet) will have all the reeds start to speak at the same air pressure. When they don't it could be the set of the reed tongues within the frame or the wrong sort of valve leather.

    The CC Peacock is a hybrid. Does that affect the likelihood that the reeds will speak at the same pressure, or the difficulty of adjusting them?

  10. 10 hours ago, a4naught said:

    He demonstrated the air-tightness check. How important is that...?

    I've wondered that. My secondhand Peacock duet (6-fold), if I hold one end, falls open in 10-15 seconds. I've had the offending end off - to fix something else - and the cause is not obvious.

     

    9 hours ago, Richard Mellish said:

    If it makes a significant difference to how many notes you can play before you run out of air...

    I'd have to fix it to find that out. I do find the the highest reeds on the right sometimes don't sound if there is a simultaneous low note on the left - as there often is.

  11. @genepinefieldUseful pictures.  During the 9 months I had a Stagi Hayden (from new) I didn't take it apart - nothing went wrong with it. I was tempted to just to find out what causes the different slope of the buttons between  left and right.

     

    While the 'parallel levers' design has obviously stayed the same over the years I wonder whether the materials or details of the buttons or valves have changed much?

     

    (I used Google Tranlate  - behaviour will vary according to your Google settings. Here it requests a popup which is actually a new tab.

    https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=websites )

  12. 6 hours ago, David Barnert said:

    I’m assuming it doesn’t extend beyond the range of a 46

    It might be beyond the range of your bellows!

     

    I've been inspired by Didie's playing - especially Roslin Castle. When I got my Peacock Hayden he kindly sent me the score to The Water is Wide. It has long slurred phrases and I keep running out of air from my merely 6-fold bellows.

  13.  

    4 hours ago, David Barnert said:

    you could “comment out” the unwanted voices

     

    Commenting out a section would make it disappear from the staff notation, and I want to play the bass line, say, while seeing how that relates to the melody line above it. The transpose trick works nicely (I've built an alpha version of an addon) but I need to be sure I'm not hitting the server too hard. AFAICS I'm not - it seems to fetch each note once and then remember it doesn't exist. But it still generates a console log warning for each note 'played'.

     

    Sorry for hi-jacking your thread Michael.

  14. I added a caveat to my earlier post:

     

    On 2/22/2023 at 12:53 PM, DaveRo said:

    %%MIDI transpose 60

     

    Edited again to add: Although that works it does generate some network activity - 404s - when it tries to fetch these high notes. Also a ton of warnings. So use sparingly, and preferably don't program it into a tool for release!

     

    I'll look for a better way.

  15. On 2/18/2023 at 4:17 AM, eskin said:

    My ABC tool doesn't have the ability to play the tunes.

    For now, I suggest you use the following site to play your ABC files:

    https://editor.drawthedots.com/

    That site looks useful. When I find a tune that I might be able to play or arrange (I use the word loosely) for my 42 button Hayden I start by playing it. I often use David Zemsky's Music Scanner app on Android. If I have the ABC I can use EasyABC on a desktop, but I'd like to do it on my Android tablet.

     

    I'd like to be able to play one voice, or maybe 2 voices out of three. For example, with this tune (which I just randomly selected because it has three voices) how does the melody alone go? How does it sound with melody plus voice 2, or plus voice 3? Maybe I can mash 2 and 3 together - but I always want to hear just the melody first.

    http://www.rudemex.co.uk/library/RM_arrangements/Albert Farmer's Bonfire Tune (3-pt).pdf

     

     

    Here's the ABC (it's on the same site)

    %Rude Mechanicals tune library: www.rudemex.co.uk
    %Chords and arrangements by the Rude Mechanicals unless otherwise acknowledged
    X:1
    T: Albert Farmer's Bonfire Tune
    M:4/4     %Meter
    L:1/8     %
    K:D
    V:1
    "D"f2 dB AG F2 |"G"G2 GF G4 |"A"edcA B2 c2 |"D"defd A2 de |"D"f2 d2 A2 F2 |"Em"G2 GF G4 |
    "A"edcA B2 c2 ||1"D"d4 d4 :|2"D"d4- d2 e2 |:"D"f2 fd f2 df |"Em"gefd e4 |"A"gfed cABc |
    "D"defd A4 |"Bm"f2 dB AG F2 |"Em"G2 GF G4 |"A"edcA B2 c2 ||1"D"d4 e4 :|2"D"d2 z2 [F4d4] |]
    V:2
    d2 AG FE D2 |DCB,A, B,DCB, |A,2 GF G2 E2 |F2 D2 F2 A2 |ABAF D2 A,2 |B,EGB e2 B2 |
    c2 A2 G2 A2 ||1A2 g2 f2 e2 :|2A2 F2 DEFG |:A2 DF Adfa |EGBA GABG |EDCB, A,2 G2 |
    F4 D2 A,2 |B,2 B2 d2 B2 |G2 B2 d2 ef |gfec d2 e2 ||1dAFA GABG :|2fdAF [A,4D4] |]
    V:3
    D2 F4 D2 |B,2 B4 D2 |C2 E4 A,2 |D2 A,2 D2 A2 |d2 A2 F2 D2 |E2 B,2 E2 D2 |
    A,2 E2 D2 G2 ||1F2 A,2 B,2 C2 :|2F2 A2 A,2 C2 |:D4 A4 |E4 G2 E2 |A,3 G E2 C2 |
    A,2 D2 F4 |D2 F4 D2 |B,2 E4 B,2 |A,2 G2 E2 G2 ||1F4 A,4 :|2A2 F2 [D4A4] |]
         %End of file

     

    I can add midi commands into the ABC, such as

    %%MIDI program 23

    %%MIDI gchordoff (after a V:n)

     

    But - and finally the question - I can't find a way of suppressing a voice, short of excising the whole voice section. Does anyone know a command I can add to do it. There isn't a midi program for 'silent' AFAICS.

     

    My idea is to add buttons to it using an addon which edits the ABC. (That's easier than interfering with its javascript which is all obfuscated.) I can cut sections of ABC out if necessary, and reinsert them, but just adding lines in would be simpler.

     

    And I could add a button to send the result to Michael's abc tool for transposition.

     

    Edited: I discovered a solution. The player has a limited range, so can add, e.g.

    %%MIDI transpose 60

    which it cannot play.

     

    Edited again to add: Although that works it does generate some network activity - 404s - when it tries to fetch these high notes. Also a ton of warnings. So use sparingly, and preferably don't program it into a tool for release.

    • Like 1
  16. If it mostly works I wouldn't risk updating it. Can you can install both in Windows?

     

    I updated recently from 1.3.7 because it wouldn't play a highlighted section of a tune. I had to edit the code in the end, as I described here

    https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC/issues/64

    That feature works now, but doesn't work well on two-stave duet tunes.

     

    The playing notes are red on mine fwiw.

    Edit: Actually, they're orange.

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