MatthewVanitas

Again, this isn't mine, just something interesting I saw on eBay, so you'd have to contact the seller for those.

Saw this listing and thought folks might want to know. I gave a shot last year at becoming a 20b Anglo guy (to buck the 30b trend, plus save money), but ended up just never warming to Anglo and sticking with Duet. But if I had gotten serious into 20b with my vintage Jones, I'd be looking awfully hard at this listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Wheatstone-20-Key-Metal-Ended-Anglo-Concertina-Accordian-/131213770325?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e8cf33e55

Now we just need to find evidence of someone in the Civil War playing a Duet concertina, and we're set! The Wheatstone "Duett" proto-Maccann model came out around 1850 or so, so it's not at all impossible one would show up in the US Civil War (1861-1865).

Huh, Hayden Duet concertina up in Ward 1; I had no idea there was any other Duet player in DC. I still feel a bit guilty, musically, that I was dating a girl who was really interested in learning Duet (as in had heard of them and was considering it before even meeting me), but things didn't work out and I feel a bit bad that I missed my chance to convert another Duet player.

I don't think he's wearing ladies low pumps, but rather he's wearing men's high dress shoes, but with spats over the tops:

You'll see pretty much (maybe identical) designs sold under the names "Bastari", "Stagi", "Silvertone", and other house-brand names. Generally all Italian-made, post-WWII and made in largely this design up to the present. I've bought them blind as low as $40 (though occasionally got stuck with a lemon), and agree they're worth vaguely $100ish in decent playing shape. EDIT: In contrast with Coles, of the dozen-or so such instruments I've owned, only one of turned out to be double-reeded, the rest all single-reed. The distinction is whether a given note has two little vibrating reeds singing together per note, or just one. You can tell the double-reed ones because the reeds are tuned just slightly apart, giving a bit of a warbly chorus sort of effect. From my limited experience I don't recall any external visual indication as to whether mine was single or double-reeded. I actually accidentally sent my one double-reed to a friend who wanted a single-reed because I visually confused them when boxing them up. Do you play any other musical instruments? If you want to see how in-tune your concertina is, you can use any electronic tuner, including ones that cost 99c or so that operate on your smartphone. That'd be an easy way to see how the reed are doing. That aside, a very common issue with these over time is that the hinging of where each button joins its arm (which raises a pad, allowing air to flow to a reed) were made of rubber as a simplifying measure, and this rubber gets old/stiff/cracked over time and stops working, causing the buttons to come loose. Fortunately this is easily fixed with 30 minutes or less of very low-skill work and $3 or so in materials. We have an article here about it: http://www.concertina.net/gs_stagirepair.html . And we have other threads in the Repair section which update and build on the article (many with better photos of how to do the fix). If the reeds are in-tune and sounding smoothly, and the buttons are operating smoothly (before or after replacing the rubber), there's not much left to worry about other than making sure there are no air-leaks, either from damage to the bellows or leaks in the joint between ends and bellows (either from missing padding, or from screwing the ends back on wrong/tilted leaving a gap for air to leak out). That's largely it for condition, though I have had a few old ones where the leather hand-straps were dried out and stiff. Are you interested in learning to play the Anglo concertina, or just grabbed this for kicks? The 20b Anglo is pretty intuitive and easy to learn, great for accompanying folk-songs and the like, and in certain traditions great for playing dance-tunes. A lot of modern Anglo stuff (especially Irish music) is arranged for the 30-button Anglo currently trendy, but the 20 has its simplicity. One of our members here just compiled a full book of American Civil War tunes for the 20-button Anglo: http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Concertina-Gary-Coover/dp/1499128053

[minor segue] Oh hey, another DC concertinist; not many of us in such a small patch of ground, though a decent small scattering in the MD and VA suburbs.

I don't find going from slanted to straight at all problematic. It takes me a few seconds of flexing my fingers and running them down the keys to adjust, but I don't find it a huge problem at all. I think before there'd been some vague talk of having Haydens with adjustable angle of the handrest itself (leaving the keys in the same place); I think that came up re the proposed 64b MIDI a few of us are pondering. I considered getting the TAMs on my Beaumont thinking they'd be "more deluxe", but folks explained to me that they aren't necessarily "better" per se, just "different". And since TAMS have a "brighter" sound, I stuck with the regular reeds since I prefer a darker/dronier/organ-like sound. Though in fairness on both of the above, I'm a bit off the normal Duet demographic since I have little interest in classical, not huge interest in complex key changes, etc. I upgraded almost entirely to get better quality/handling rather than the huge increase in buttons, though I do find the increased number of buttons helpful for playing along with non-folky friends who play a wider variety of keys. And due to the magic of the Hayden layout, playing in Amaj is just as easy as playing in Cmaj, and so on for most keys excepting the very few keys on the far edge of the board (F#maj is a little annoying since some of its notes are on the opposite end of the board). I never noticed the missing A on the Elise, and probably wouldn't have noticed it on the Peacock had I gotten that. I'm dimly aware that serious Duet player get a lot of use of the overlap between hands, but for whatever reason my playing style makes little use of those, and I would've rather just had extra low bass notes instead of much/any overlap...

This is more or less the sound I took up Duet Concertina to emulate, just I wanted something in a more compact package and with a less traditional and more intuitive keyboard layout.

Rod, shot you a PM a few days ago, have you seen it yet? Interested in talking shop.

While we're reviving threads from 8yrs ago (don't get me wrong, I'm okay with it), the other instruments in this album cover: The item Ringo has appears to be an Egyptian simsimiyya. What Paul has looks like a Central Asian rubab. Just an FYI for these interesting props.

Wow, that's a fascinating take on instrument material sourcing! Puts me in mind of Julian Goodacre, makes medieval bagpipes up in Peebles; he takes pride in using wood so local that he generally is familiar with the specific trees invovled. He did a large number of smallpipes based off (iirc) a plum tree outside a local pub that was killed by lightning strike, which he corded and aged for a number of years and then lathed into pipes.

I play Hayden Duet, and I've been working on transferring over some of the Irish tunes I know from tinwhistle, mandolin, etc. Arguably, Duet isn't the optimal concertina for Irish (compared to Anglo or English) since technically it's not as melodically fast, and Irish music places far less emphasis on harmony than many other genres. That said, the demo video clip by Aaron Marcus on the Buttonbox's Beaumont page (http://www.buttonbox.com/morse-beaumont.html and hit the "Videos" tab, last clip on the page) seems a neat example of playing a tune at moderate pace on the right while doing some sparse accompaniment on the left. Maybe a bit influenced by uilleann regulators? Is his left playing solely the chord progression such as you'd strum on a guitar, or is he tossing in anything more complex than that? I'm trying to conceptualize, broadly, how this style works so I can replicate it for any other Irish tunes I play. It appears he's mainly playing It appears he's mainly playing open chords, and mostly the root chord of the melody rather than any frequent chord changes. Is there any particular way to categorize when he's choosing to tap the chord, or is it just an instinctive thing? Same for when he decides to do a longer chord, vice just tap. Marcus clip aside, if anyone has just general advice on making Irish tunes sound good on Duet, I'm all ears. It's too easy to get monotonous holding chords too long on the left, particularly since a lot of tunes have only two or three chords.

Just bought your album; funnily enough the band Earth was what jumped to mind too as I heard it, so makes sense that's an influence of yours. I keep meaning to make a thread asking about accompanying concertina with electronica tracks, though such a thread would be 90% asking you for advice since it seems like you're the main guy doing such things. Years ago when I was living in Quebec, I saw a great act where a guy played a duduk (Armenian primitive oboe) on stage while his laptop played pre-arranged loops of drones/bass/drumbeat. He had a remote lapel mike on, so would just wander around the stage and floor riffing over the track, then wander back to click the button for the next loop. I would definitely like to figure out how to do something like that; I particularly like how he kept the duduk straight/unmodified, so you had a pure acoustic (albeit mic'ed) instrument against a digital track. EDIT: here's a vaguely similar track, with duduk, guitarist, and a guy with a laptop setting up the electronica: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1MTiwunj_w

Hello Karl, I'm by no means an expert, but I've played Hayden for a couple years, for personal enjoyment and in a local pub band. So far as similarity to the Anglo, I kind of think of Duet as halfway between an Anglo and an English: you get the "left hand bass, right hand high" of an Anglo, but the "same note push/pull" of the English. I've messed with Anglo but don't personally find it intuitive, but the forum seems pretty varied with some folks having no trouble crossing between systems, and others only comfortable in one. So far as Crane vs. Hayden vs. Maccann layouts for Duet: I play Hayden because that's the only layout that newly-manufactured and inexpensive duet hybrid concertinas are available in. Also I find the Hayden layout really instinctive, and really like how it removes a lot of the complexity of knowing notes/keys and reduces it down to just pure music theory. That said, there is the very valid issue that traditionally-reeded Haydens are rare and expensive, but there are plenty of refurbished vintage trad-reeded Maccann and Crane duets around for as low as £500-700. If you really want to play a traditionally-reeded instrument (vice a modern one made with accordion reeds, which are "not necessarily worse, but sound somewhat different), then you'll want a Crane or Maccann. If you really like the Hayden system, you can get a clunky but playable hybrid Hayden for £400 or so, and a well-made hybrid Hayden (CC Peacock or Morse Beaumont) for US$2500 or US$3800. A traditionally-reeded Hayden costs around US$6000 and has several years' waitlist. I have not tried Crane and Maccann out, though I have heard the overall argument that the systems are much of a muchness in the long run once you get used to any of the lot. Looking at the market, you see more Maccanns floating around used, so there would be some utility to learning that system, but if you don't plan to be frequently trading instruments around, there are plenty of Crane players out there, and though less-common they're not terribly difficult to find used. On a sidenote I'll point out that though there isn't a lot in the way of instruction materials for Duets in general, such materials are pretty cross-applicable regardless of system.

Honestly, this sounds pretty intriguing. If it had been modified by just some guy in the last few decades I could see wanting to convert it back, but if this is a pre-1970s proto-Hayden by a recognized performer, I'd say it's a valid historical item in its own right. While 65b Maccanns aren't dirt cheap, they're not exactly dinosaur eggs either, and what you have might be almost unique. Are you expert on the Maccann system already, or would you be equally happy learning this unusual (but possibly quite intuitive) system? If you're strongly leaning towards modifying it, I'd suggest asking around first to see if any collector would value it over the cost of a similar bone-stock Wheatstone, so you could just swap and the historical experiment could be left un-tampered. And in either case, you may find it very useful to document the provenance of this instrument, if you can get any signed statement from the seller, or Cheeseman's descendants, etc. That way future owners would have a clearly documented record of this squeezebox's story.

Give me a couple of days; I just played a gig last Tuesday on Duet concertina as part of an indie-rock trio, in the overall drone/psych-pop genre. We also threw in a Beatles' cover, "Norwegian Wood", with the concertina subbing for a harmonium subbing for sitar. A buddy recorded some snippets of the gig on her cellphone, and after a week of not seeing her I ran across her at the local pub's trivia competition, and she mentioned that she'd got some decent footage and would upload it to YouTube for me. On the more professional side, though it was with a Chemnitzer concertina, the Americana rock band 16 Horsepower had some great concertina bits on songs like "American Wheeze": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THlgU-8dMYg ...a bit more tangential, but in the context of non-intuitive instruments being used in such genres, there's a NYC band called The Spines that does some great work on autoharp, here covering the Velvet Underground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9plWSiQ_aN8 EDIT: here's a 2010 Cnet thread on a related issue: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10094

Some great additions; I've added Böhmer's track to my YouTube playlist for "voice and solo concertina". Also another member pointed out this track in the other thread about (American) Civil War-era songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDud8Q377zE . "Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still" is one of my favorite songs of that era, and it sounds great on concertina.

One of the my favorite pieces of this time, and sounds great on concertina: Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still, published in 1865 in Richmond, apparently a "Top 40" hit of the day. I can't find anyone playing it on concertina on YouTube, but here's Bryan Bowers doing it on autoharp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyxL5KTsIwQ I played it on 20b a lot when I was trying out Anglo, and it wasn't at all hard to arrange. There's an arrangement in the 1879 Howe's Western German Concertina School on page 9. A really emotive wartime ballad that's not explicitly partisan; if I could recommend only one tune/song, it'd be this one.

I had an Elise Hayden Duet shipped out to me in Afghanistan and taught myself to play it there, and then played it sporadically for jam sessions and the like for a few years. Then in 2013 I made friends with a couple that held a lot of parties, and half the pair played guitar, so he and I would do guitar-concertina duets as the night calmed down and people wanted chill music. It got to the point I was playing parties every other week, and practicing almost every day. Previously I'd found the Elise plenty good for my purposes (both in quality and in limited keys), and figured I'd never get good enough to need/notice an upgrade, but after just 4-5 months of playing regularly I put in an order for a Morse Beaumont. I've been playing the Beaumont since January (including a recent pub gig), play it every other day of the week or better, and already have a deposit for a Wakker 46b trad-reeded Hayden Duet. So in my case it's mostly been a step-by-step upgrade in quality. I'm keeping the Elise as a beater/backup to the Beaumont, but once I get the Wakker I may make the Beaumont the backup and sell/pass my Elise to a beginner. For a third concertina, I'm looking into the possibility of getting a small travel-size Duet (or if lucky, having one built in Hayden settup with limited range/keys). All the above is discounting stuff I don't really play seriously, like the 18b Stagi English I had when I was a teenager, or the 12+ different cheap Italian Anglos (and one good vintage British Anglo, and one good modern Hybrid) I've had pass through my hands. But none of those I play even a fraction as good as the Hayden (and I'm only okay on that )

I asked him to keep an eye out for a month back or so, though he had none currently. Apparently they're models he doesn't tend to deal in as much due to low demand; I know we have members here who own Barleycorn 35/39k Duets, but at least some of those are because Algar got them parceled in larger trades and had them sitting about. If he finds one for me, great, but I thought I'd glance around here until such point.

I kind of want one of the little Cranes, so that I can have a vintage Duet without spending too much money, and I'm totally fine with its limited capabilities since I do folk stuff vice fancier classical, so I'm accustomed to limited range. I wouldn't be totally opposed to a 42b Crane or 39b Maccann if someone has one handy, either a basic inexpensive one, or if you have a really good quality one but at a decent price due to being the smaller size. Thanks! UPDATE: To quote the famous Duet Concertinas: Choosing a System: A 39-key Maccann or 35-key Crane is seriously limiting, and they are likely to be frustrating learning instruments; they could be of more interest to experienced musicians who want to play a small instrument and delight in coping with its limitations. I figure I'm experienced enough, and I do tend to delight in things...

Have you studied the note layouts to see if 26 (or an even lower number) might meet your needs just as well? If the "missing" notes aren't vital to your style of play, you could cash in on the price advantage, as well as the "cachet" of being the guy with a slightly different instrument. I'm not an Anglo player, but iirc some folks on The Session have past discussed the minimum number of buttons to play Irish without hassle, and I believe it was 26 or even several lower than that.

Not at all an apt comparison: when you fly a flight simulator rather than an aeroplane, you don't find yourself actually arriving at Chicago O'Hare airport. When you play "Flight of the Bumblebee" on a MIDI concertina, your audience actually hears "Flight of the Bumblebee". This is about as silly as arguing that an oboe is a "poor imitation" of a flute since it artificially introduces a reed to make the noise instead of a embouchure hole. MIDI instruments are musical instruments, and ones which use a concertina-based interface both allow concertinists to experiment with the possibilities of MIDI, as well as show MIDI players the ergonomic and layout benefits of the concertina.

Just one man's opinion, but there's appears to be a great supply of Chemnitzers and Karlsfelders floating around without a huge demand. I bought a great hybrid one in the US for about $300, almost fully in tune. This one (since sold): http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=morbidoni+concertina&sm=3 I've seen almost nothing of folks playing them other than polka bands in the US, and a few oddities like the band 16 Horsepower using one of a few tracks. If you don't need your concertina to be tiny (though some Karlsfelders aren't much bigger than an Anglo), the "big square German accordions" might be a neat thing to try.