RAc

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. In any case, I never meant this to be a permanent solution, only a troubleshooting technique to narrow down the problem It's certainly a good idea to swap the reeds back after the test is completed.

yes, of course. F,G and C is what I meant to write. The soft keyboard on my tablet yields unpredictable output. Sorry for that and thanks for pointing it out! Poor Roger obviously followed me in falling down the trap door...

Interesting! Obviously, the question arises why the sharps are ommitted from the F,G and A names? Is that deliberate?

yes and no... there is nothing incorrect about what you write; however, the important (semantic?) difference between text and music (the "contents" of what is being written) is that texts are for the ear (through listening) AND for the eyes (through reading), whereas music is exclusively for the ear*. Thus, any musical notation is a crutch that attempts to "freeze music on another medium for later playback." I believe that there is no inherent advantage of one crutch over the other; they are all targetted a different aspects of the playback process (for example, all of the "standard notations" and their variations bear a visual relationship between pitch and position on the staff which - I postulate - make it inherently easier to visualize music within the mind's eye. On the other hand, MIDI and abc - which is sort of twins separated at birth - make it much easier to render music electronically, transport it, transpose it and so on.) Possibly within one or two more generations, standard musical notation will be but an exhibition piece in the museum of cultural history, with digital storage being the state of the art. That would very likely yield neither better than worse music than the last several hundred years, but certainly a very different way to approach music and musical learning. *(Of course, a nicely and diligently laid out score (in any notation) also has an inherent aesthetical value, but I darestate that this value does in no way relate to the value of the original piece of art and its reception.)

Sean, a fairly straightforward test on a unisonoric instrument is to swap the push and pull reeds in the offending chamber. If the problem stays on the same direction, look at a valve issue. If the problem switches directions with the swap, it is a reed issue.

My nephew decided to learn Piano Accordeon at the age of five. I decided to learn the concertina at close to fifty, in parts because I had hauled his Weltmeister from A to B one too many times... But I had tried myself at the guitar for about 30 years prior to that, and I guess my nephew and I picked our first respective instruments for the same basic reason: We had heard someone play it somewhere and liked the sound. Thus the formula appears simple: The more popular an instrument is, the more young followers it will attract. Of course, there are other effects. My father had dediced to learn the piano at a young age also for the same reason, and it would have been natural for me to get started on the piano as well when I was a kid. Yet it seemed uncool at that time; the guitar seemed so much cooler (and was rather rebell-ish back then which made it even cooler).

I believe I mentioned that already, but for my projects, I'm using FluidSynth on a Windows machine to render the input coming in over USB MIDI. I haven't exactly stress tested that yet, but I can't say the results were unsatisfactory. Worth a try in any case.

Couldn't agree more - it is apparent that a lot of heart blood has found its way into the organization of rhat remarkable WCD. Thanks so much to everyone involved!

Actually, I was able to find the original sound file that Alan posted in 2011 (it seems to have disappeared from the older thread). I uploaded it here: https://soundcloud.com/rac-13/march-of-concertinas As far as I can tell, this is his original playing, ie before I started destroying it with my beginner's slab on it (which is still accessible in that thread). I currently don't have easy access to recording equipment, so I probably won't be able to contribute this time. It's worth noting, though, that this is at least the third attempt on this collaboration (in the older thread, Alan mentions that there had been an even earlier attempt a few years prior). I think it is great that finally - fittingly for WCD 2022 - this wonderful piece gets the attention and life it deserves! This is sort of TOTM revived? Hoping for more such collabs!

Here are some more recordings... unfortunately a good share f them got lost in the internet's dementia. Mabe I can recover a few of those, let me dig... Thanks again, Al!

Another example where this occurred is Alex's Muller conversion#2: A Second Müller Conversion – Holden Concertinas If I recall correctly, Alex posted a sound comparison between the original wooden and the modified metal end plates on Instagram and also came to the conclusion that the difference is hardly audible. That caused me to abandon the idea to ask him for a second set of end plates on #4 (I had originally toyed with the idea of having both a metal and a wooden set on the instrument).

I had/have the same problem even though I had 30+ years experience as a fingerstyle guitarist, thus, hand/ finger indepence to my was not news at all when I started on the duet. The solution, as always, is drill - a child learning to walk fill fall down a bazillion times before staggering, eventually walking, then possibly dancing. It takes whichever time it takes, but the magical moment when it finally works is well worth it. Vary your exercises. For example, practice left hand only at times, then throw odd melody notes in instead of desperately clinging to the tunes you really really want to play. The only important thing to remember is this: Make sure to get it right. Your Oohm-Pa rhythm must be stable as a rock, that is not negotiable. If you settle on being satisfied when it sort of half way works, neither you nor your listeners will be happy campers. Thus, once you have managed a certain degree of left/right hand independence, do introduce your ears ro a metronome. It will be frustrating at first but will bring you miles forward. Your goal is to constantly move out of your comfort zone until you are in a new one which you can then break out of.

... Hello and welcome to this Form, Dashy! This may or may not be useful (apologies if not), but you may want to also look at this project: https://www.koopinstruments.com/legacy-projects/harmonicade-prototype-1

I'm surprised you neglected to list the fifth element: Money... SCNR

Stephen: There is reason to believe that Mike (the user with the nick ragtimer) passed away a few months ago: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/catonsville-md/michael-knudsen-10091483 Let's hope I am wrong... All the best, RAc