A Question About Identifying The Musical Key Of An Instrument!

[agranderandonnee]

hello concertina.net

 

so I seem to have acquired an anglo... I'm not very musical - no tunes yet but practising! As its now in my care I'd like to know it better. I was wondering if I might beg the collective wisdom and ask a basic question - can anybody help identify what key this is in? I can't seem to match it up with the fingering layouts I've found on google images. I've attached a photograph of the notes I could identify below.

 

Thank you very much to any passers-by who might stop to share a little knowledge.

 

 

[agranderandonnee]

apologies - perhaps I should have posted in the teaching & learning section

[Theo]

It's F/A#. Usually described asF/Bflat.

[agranderandonnee]

thank you Theo, you're most kind!

[Don Taylor]

Theo: Why is this not labelled a Bb/F? A tone down from a C/G.

 

To the OP: Diatonic scales cannot have duplicate letters for notes, so if you have an A then you have to label the next note up as some sort of B, in this case Bb. You also cannot have a D and a D# in the same scale. The D# must be labelled as Eb. It is the same sound, but technically not the same note. If you go through your chart with this in mind then it will probably make more sense.

[Sean Minnie]

There is something very peculiar about the position of the air button on your diagram. It is generally played with the RH thumb. Are you sure you have it the right way around? The highest notes should be under your RH pinkie and the lowest notes should be under your LH pinkie

Edited December 8, 2016 by Sean Minnie

[Theo]

Sorry Don, yes it should be Bflat/F. I have a diatonic accordion that is F/Bflat and had my mind thinking in that mode.

[adrian brown]

There is something very peculiar about the position of the air button on your diagram. It is generally played with the RH thumb. Are you sure you have it the right way around? The highest notes should be under your RH pinkie and the lowest notes should be under your LH pinkie

I was wondering about this too Sean, but the RH and LH charts seem to follow the normal (Wheatstone ) pattern. I think there's a mistake on the LH outer row, pinky end. The button with the arrow pointing to it marked "little finger" should normally have a D push and an Eb pull. I'd be surprised if it was really tuned as indicated.

 

I think it's worth my mentioning to agranderandonnee that the instrument is tuned a whole tone lower than the most common anglos, which are in CG. If you want to learn to play this instrument, I would suggest you think of it nominally as a CG anglo and accept that it simply sounds a tone lower. Technically, this means you would consider it a transposing instrument, but unless you want to play with other people, or suffer from the affliction commonly known as "perfect pitch", it shouldn't really bother you.

 

Adrian

[agranderandonnee]

thanks for all the responses!

well spotted sean! my bad - so when truing to add the air hole to the diagram I think I must have picked it up the wrong way round… oops! sorry!

air hole is right thumb - highest note right hand pinky

aybee - i've gone back to the keyboard to have another listen. If we're looking at the same key (left hand pinky with the arrow pointing to it on my diagram) its definitely a low D (octave below middle c) on the push and a step up to the B♭ just below middle c on the pull)

i'm liking the idea its a tone lower - If I want to hum along to myself, baritone who struggles with the high notes!

thank you everyone, will amend my diagram with Don's advice re duplicate notes to have a somewhat more working note map!

am I right in thinking that the first key of the left hand middle row tells us the tuning for the instrument? (sorry this is definitely day 1 teaching & learning stuff!)

[Stephen Chambers]

am I right in thinking that the first key of the left hand middle row tells us the tuning for the instrument?

 

When it comes to Anglo concertinas, and their diatonic accordion / melodeon cousins, it is normal to describe the tuning in terms of the keys of the two rows, with a forward slash in between them. The lowest key should always be given first.

 

It can be very confusing if the keys are given in the wrong order, since Anglos are tuned in fifths (e.g. low Bb and high F), whilst button accordions are tuned in fourths (e.g. low F and high Bb). So your Anglo is Bb/F, but Theo's melodeon is F/Bb...

 

On the other hand, Irish players tend to think of a C/G Anglo (the commonest system) as being a "concert pitch" instrument - their name for its "third key" (played across the rows) of D - and might think of your Bb/F as being a C concertina.