wtb Wakker W-2

[Wolf Molkentin]

18 hours ago, Little John said:

 

A slant that brought the buttons closer to the little finger would do that, but the Hayden slant does the opposite - it takes the buttons nearest the little finger furthest away.

 

Hi John, I've examined that in the meantime, in fact my rotating the (EC) instrument is distancing buttons from the "pinkies" rather than bringing them closer, but actually it's not that much about distance but angles for easier fingering.

 

Best wishes - ?

[Isel]

Interesting, Wolf!!

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

Adding my two cents to slant vs no slant question. I play on Elise (slanted) but when deciding on orientation for the instrument I'm building, I decided to go with no slant, and the reason are multiple.

 

The origin of Hayden slant is not because of ergonomics, but because slant make keys "sorted" by pitch in relation to handrest and make it possible to overlay buttons on the stave in order. But on Elise this is true only for the right hand keyboard, because slant is mirrored while note layout is not - as far as I know this is also true for H-1 and H-2. This makes it a bit awkward to play rich harmony progressions, because left hand has to be positioned slightly differently than right hand on the same chords (for example, it is far easier for me to play minor chords on the right side than on the left) and it is my common mistake to misplace my ring finger on the left side to 4th lower than intended, because my intuition seeks the button where there is none. Due to this I found that I unconsiously straighten the orientation by leaning concertina a bit forward (I use thumb straps). I have experimented with proper slant on both sides and it makes playing chords easier and more natural, but it results with instrument differing too much from both common slant implementation and no-slant Wikki orientation to retain easy instrument switching ability. 

[Isel]

Ops... I also found minor chords a bit more difficult to play than expected. But I thought It would be because my lack of enough practice (in fact, the required finger disposition - after turning the hand - is quite the same as the Re maj chord in a guitar, as example, and this is a disposition I am well familiarized with )