David Barnert

OK, so some advice, please. I have a 1980s Dickinson/Wheatstone concertina (a 46-key Hayden). My house is heated with radiators in each room. In response to this thread, I went out and bought a hygrometer. Right now it is measuring the humidity in the room where I keep the concertina as 38%. I keep the instrument in an airtight Pelican Storm Case. Any suggestions? Should I leave well enough alone? Should I humidify the room and leave the case open when I’m not using it? Should I humidify the case and keep it closed?

The limit will be variable, depending on what the user tolerates. The larger the instrument, the more moving parts and longer levers, ie., the more potential things that can go wrong. How often is one willing to have it fail?

Can you take a picture of it (or several pictures) and post it here? If you tell us what part of the world you’re in, someone here might be able to direct you to someone reasonably nearby who can appraise it or help you sell it.

...And the speed at which they do so is inversely proportional to the height of the beer in the mug.

Wow. I just looked through Jim’s YouTube channel. Nice playing, Jim, and David C, there’s a lot of stuff there I think you’ll be interested in.

As you’ve already discovered, this is not an ideal solution.

Much more than just baroque music. Every concerto for soloist and orchestra from the mid 18th century all the way through the 19th has a big 6/4 chord before the cadenza, and the cadenza ends in a trill on the dominant (5/3) chord, resolving the 6/4 that’s been hanging unresolved since the beginning of the cadenza. But you pretty much never hear them in modern popular or folk music, except (as you say) as a passing chord when a stepwise moving bass line requires it.

Indeed, three differences that I can think of: Wicky conceived (and built) his instrument as a large cube (like a bandoneon or a chemnitzer). Hayden’s is a smaller polygonal concertina. The rows of keys on a Wicky are parallel with the edges. Hayden’s specification calls for “[t]he rows to slope down at an angle of 10.5 degrees towards the thumbs.” The left-hand sides of the two systems are mirror images of each other: Wicky’s system has the lower notes closer to the thumbs on both sides, while Hayden’s has the lower notes closer to the left edges of both sides. Wicky (apologies for the out-of-focus of the images. I did not take these pictures): Hayden (I did take this picture):

See this topic:

Jim has (or at least “had”) a Bastari 46-key Hayden when I met him at an early Squeeze-In many years ago. I remember him playing a neat arrangement of “Georgy Girl” on it.

How about leaving the c out of the “pah” and either just playing the A in the 2nd half of that beat or the A and the higher F (or Eb, if you can get away with it)? Edited to add: I wouldn’t present the F chord with the C in the bass. Yes, it’s a thing (it’s called a 6/4 chord, because it has intervals of a 6th (A) and a 4th (F) above the bass note). But 6/4 chords are considered unstable, dissonant even, because of the 4th above the bass. 6/4 chords generally want to resolve to 5/3 chords (CFA -> CEG).

This looks to be about the same size. It’s a (Dickinson) Wheatstone Hayden with 82 keys that I encountered at NESI (NorthEast Squeeze-In) in 2006. The 48 keys on the right side contain the entire range of a standard treble English. The left keys are an octave lower (but there are only 34 of them) and include a low F and F# below the G. The instrument is fully chromatic from the bottom to the top of its range. Notes that are repeated as enharmonic equivalents on the same side (D#/Eb, for instance) are represented as two pairs of reeds and two complete lever/pad assemblies, rather than linked keys. Jim Bayless, of Texas, bought it.

I think I’ve been to all of them since 1992. Speaks for itself.

Good to hear from you, Jim. Are you saying you use the wire and dowels on the Bastari’s buttons? On mine they’d fall right over unless I was actively supporting each button with the props at the same time. I don’t think there’s any workable alternative than to use gravity and lower the buttons upside-down into the holes. The wire/dowels approach would seem to work with the Wheatstone, whose buttons are more likely to stay where you put them unless you knock into them while trying to straighten another button. 😖

Well, of course! We’re both named David.