Erich

Really a wonderful work, nice to look at and to read. And sooo helpful. Thanks. Erich

As far as I understand was the idea from Smitbaas to use a MIDI concertina to bring tunes played on the instrument to a software e.g. Cakewalk or something and print out the notes. Just to have the notes printed on a sheet without writing them down from what you hear. Could save a lot of work. With a pitch-to-midi converter this will not work, because it takes only single notes and no chords. And even the single note is not always the right one - the pitch of C is about a C but maybe a D, and thats what you see in your MIDI program on the computer. These converters are not very exact and takes sometimes any you noisy your make (bellow) as a note and gives it a certain pitch. The product you get can be very funny but not very usefull The only way will be, that the instrument puts out a specific MIDI note-number as soon as you push the button. In an older message on concertina.net I found an article from Paul Everet about his "MIDI Gadget" - a toy but from the basic idea not so bad. You should find it at http://home.stny.rr.com/Peverett/gadget.html. And there was Jim Plamondon asking in concertina.net for beta-tester for his "The Thummer" - a MIDI concertina, not so long ago. Both use the Hayden Duet layout for their ideas. Greetings from Vienna, Austria Erich

Going to Croatia (formerly Yugoslavia) for longer holydays and would like to know if concertina in this aeria was used and known. In Vienna we just had and have a sensational festival of international accordeon players from all over at least Europe (e.g. one player from finnland was extraordinary) and even if concertina was not seen so often, the reed/squees-scene was topic in an very unusual new way and just phantastic. I guess that in in eastern countries of Europe there might be some other roots of this sort of instruments like concertina. Does anybody know more about this? And how about Italy? Thanks Erich

Hi, all professional sequenzer-programs can do this - but most of them are overloaded with other stuff which is fine if you need it. For just printing midi into notes you should look for older versions of programs like Cubasis, Finale Printmusic or Cakewalk Homestudio 5, which are often as freeware on CD of computer-magazines or in the internet. Erich

Hello, I`m new in this forum and I`m a beginner with concertina. About fifty years ago I learnd the accordeon. But even in this young age I shortly started to squeezed more then just a polka out of this instument. "Very strange music" my mother said (and I still playing this way - as a beginner). The last 25 years I was fascinated by electronic and computer music. And also of atonal tunes and free-style. And I still stick to it. Beside I love to make RocknRoll and Oldies with friends and I like Irish and other Folk-Songs very much. Last year at my 60th birthday I got a concertina (as far as you will call it so - a Stagi W15). I still do my lessions from the books of Roger Watson und Pauline de Snoo and hope the best. On the other side I could not help to use the hint of Howard Jones and placed two microphones into my instrument. And now, beside taking the concertina with me when traveling or joining parties and playing (or try to do so) "strait" concertina-music, I plugged the micros into my huge amount of electronic stuff I have collected in my home-studio and found a great synthesizer-like squeeze-instrument. My wife said "It not sounds like a concertina anymore". Shure not. Frankly speaking, in the beginning I thought, that the whole concertina-family is a bit conservative and sticks to its roots (sorry). In the meantime I found out (especially through Concertina.net) that a lot of "freaks" like me are out there - from building electronic concertinas (you should look at Don Buchlas inventions for this idea) till your recent discussion about John Cage etc. and transforming Jazz or Velvet Underground to concertina. My question now is: how far can we go and still speak about concertina music? Sorry for being so long right from the beginning. Erich (Vienna, Austria) skrleta@chello.at