PortableOrgan

Does any one know of a US distributor who stocks this title?

Can you elaborate on this a bit? Are you playing 2 notes simultaneously, or in succession? If the former, are you playing power chords (root & 5th), octaves, or something else entirely?

Oh, you're right -- I misread your post. Thanks for the clarification!

David- Would you be willing to briefly elaborate on why you start your scales with 2-3-4, rather than 1-2-3? I believe there was an old thread on this topic involving you, Rich Morse, and a few other stalwarts, but I don’t remember what the rationale was for the 2-3-4 approach. Thanks!

+1 for treble/bass. But then, the motto in my family's coat of arms is: "Fewa Ledga, Mo Betta"...

FWIW, here's one vote for grand staff. But two treble staves would be fine, as well.

Can anyone recommend a good teacher for duet concertina? I would prefer someone who plays the Hayden keyboard layout, but Crane and McCann could also work. I suspect that I could learn a lot even from a teacher of English concertina, as long as they played in a fairly polyphonic style. I just picked up a duet concertina (“DC”) last year, and have been having a lot of fun teaching myself the rudiments. But I’m getting to the point where I want to make sure that I don’t ingrain any bad habits. I have prior experience messing around with a few other instruments (banjo, recorder, tin whistle), but the DC is my first experience with playing a polyphonic instrument (like a piano). It’s also my first experience with a free-reed instrument. So far, I’m mostly working on basic hand independence, playing simple chordal accompaniments on the LH while I play the melody on the RH, but my ultimate goal is to be able to play truly polyphonic pieces in two (or even four?) voices. I’d also like to get to the point where I can sight-read simple piano pieces off the grand staff. While those are stretch goals, in the near term I could really benefit from an an objective third party helping me to avoid bad habits in the following areas: * Hand independence (especially tempo issues when playing a treble line that is syncopated wrt the bass) * Bellows control * Posture and general ergonomics (I have a history of RSI issues with other instruments) Does anybody know of a gifted DC teacher who might be willing to work with a motivated but not particularly talented beginner? I’m in the Boston area, but my schedule is pretty flexible, and I could probably work with anyone from GMT+2 (eg, Poland) to GMT-5 (eg, California). I spend my whole work-day on Zoom, so I’m pretty comfortable with video-conferencing. Thanks in advance for any leads!

Thanks Don! That's very helpful...

[Apologies in advance if this seems like a thread hijack. I’m new to both C.net and the concertina, so I welcome any etiquette corrections if I should be posting this elsewhere] My question is for the Duet players out there: Do any of you use any kind of tablature, or is this just an Anglo thing? I’ve just started teaching myself Hayden DC (Elise) over the past month. While I’m not yet dealing with anything at all complicated, so far it seems like the simplest approach is to just use sheet music notation, with only the occasional fingering indication [using arabic numerals 1-4 — like piano sheet music, but 1= index finger, rather than thumb] when the “normal” Hayden fingering is unavailable. For example, on the RH of a Hayden, when in the key of C, both D and G are played by finger 2 — so a leap from D to G (or back again) requires some kind of non-standard fingering. So far, I don’t have a universal heuristic for addressing these “double” fingerings — I either use a non-standard fingering before or after the double fingering, depending upon what’s going on in the melody. The fingering indication can be useful for remembering the least-bad workaround I’ve come up with. Although my hand independence still sucks (I don’t have any prior experience with piano or other “multi-voice” instruments), it seems like the best way for a beginner to notate a chordal (homophonic) accompaniment is using fakebook notation [eg, Amin, Dsus4, etc.]. I suspect that as I get more comfortable with the transposing nature of the Hayden, it may be more parsimonious to just switch to roman numeral notation. Even farther over the horizon lies true polyphonic arranging, but it seems like the optimal notation for that will be standard grand staff notation [although the compass of the LH on the Elise straddles the bass and treble clef in a rather awkward way]. Since I’m figuring this all out on my own, I want to make sure that I’m not going down some kind of pedagogic cul-de-sac. If there’s a standard tab system that DC players use in lieu of “dots”, I’d really appreciate being pointed in the right direction by those of you who have already walked this path.