Jeffries Duet Tutor

[gcoover]

The Jeffries Duet Concertina Tutor is finally here, and only 100 years too late! Published by Rollston Press, 198 pages, available through Amazon worldwide in paperback and Kindle eBook.

 

It features over 80 tunes arranged for a 50-button Jeffries Duet, from super simple to ridiculously difficult, from folk to classical to British Music Hall, including many transcribed from Michael Hebbert's landmark recording The Rampin' Cat. Michael provided much help and encouragement, as did Gavin Atkin, Hidetoshi Yamashita, Erik House, Stuart Estell, and several others graciously sent photos of their instruments, many of which are featured in the book and in color on the back cover.

 

Many of the tunes are also linked to YouTube videos and Soundcloud audio clips via QR codes, and can be found on a "Jeffries Duet" playlist on YouTube.

 

Attached is the Table of Contents plus a couple of the tunes. With luck, perhaps this notation system which uses a hybrid mix of notes and abc pitches might also work for other duet systems?  

 

Believe it or not, there really is a logical system to the Jeffries Duet that makes it just great fun to play - this book makes sense of its eccentricities and will quickly get everyone playing a wide variety of tunes.

 

Special thanks to Greg Jowaisas for suggesting this project and for being so nice and persistent about it over the years!

 

 

Cheers,

Gary

 

 

 

 

Jeffries-Duet-Tutor-TOC.pdf JDT-Auld-Donald.pdf JDT-Galopede.pdf

Edited March 7, 2020 by gcoover

[Dan Worrall]

All I can say is Wow! You're really going for the mass market now!

It's a real labor of love. Congratulations to you and to the instrument itself - for finally having a tutor.

[Jake Middleton-Metcalfe]

Very happy to see this book, it would be nice to hear some more jeffries duets, a guy turned up to one of my local sessions once and played some very developed, beautiful and complex music on one which very much impressed me.

 

Great to see the book. 

[RAc]

Hi Gary,

 

I just downloaded the Ebook. The thing that strikes me funny is that instead of real links, there are QR codes in the Ebook as well. I don't think that makes sense. Do you need two smartphones - one to read the Ebook and the other one to read the QR code off the first smartphone's screen to go to the video?

 

For the printed edition, the QR makes sense of course, but what is the idea behind the QR in the Ebook?

 

[gcoover]

Well, the Kindle edition is just a "print replica", kind of like a plain old pdf, so yes, the QR codes are a bit silly in this instance. And the blue underlined links apparently don't actually link either. Bummer. 

 

Ok, I've suspended the Kindle version for now while I try to figure out how to include real links. And if successful, will also find a way for you to get a free upgrade!

 

Thanks,

Gary

Edited March 8, 2020 by gcoover

[Alex West]

Gary

 

Just thought you might like to know that the Wheatstone built 1925 Jeffries Duet system No 30740 with 68 buttons (plus 1 air) is at auction tomorrow - 13th March  - at Gardiner Houlgate.  It was up for auction last November as well but didn't sell so here's a second chance for someone!

 

Alex West

[gcoover]

Thanks, Alex. Good folks at Gardiner-Houlgate - they were kind enough to give permission to include one of their photos of the instrument in the book.

 

Would love to hear any old recordings of Jim Harvey playing this back in the day - I've seen an old photo but that's it. Anybody know what songs were in his repertoire?

 

I played Wheatstone #29112  ("Duet NP Octo Special 61 keys", 1922) many years ago, and found the really low and really high notes on the far edges almost impossible to reach - my little finger just doesn't bend like that.

 

Hopefully someone will get this and play some amazing music on it again!

 

Gary

[Don Eakin]

Wondering whether anyone ever published a Hayden system tutor.  I haven’t come across one.

[gcoover]

Don, 

 

All I've ever seen are these articles at concertina.com:  http://www.concertina.com/hayden-duet/.

 

Just wondering, are either of the samples I posted from the JD tutor readily playable on the Hayden (or other duets)?

 

Gary

 

[Daniel Hersh]

On 3/20/2020 at 4:10 PM, Don Eakin said:

Wondering whether anyone ever published a Hayden system tutor.  I haven’t come across one.

 

There's one by Wim Wakker that comes with the Elise Hayden from Concertina Connection.

[jdms]

On 3/29/2020 at 9:55 PM, Daniel Hersh said:

 

There's one by Wim Wakker that comes with the Elise Hayden from Concertina Connection.

Judy Hawkins of the Button Box did a series of posts comprising a "harum-scarum" (her description) Hayden tutorial a few years ago--I expect a suitable search would bring them up.

[Frank Dudgeon]

Here's a pretty easy way to find all of Judy's tutorials.  Copy and paste    "Hayden Tutorial (WHEEEEEE!)"   into the search box at the upper right hand corner of this page.  The quotation marks are helpful, otherwise you'll get a ton of search results.

 

That search will give you the link to the first tutorial from 2013.  Open that link and you'll see the first tutorial, and if you click on her avatar to the left of the tutorial you'll get Judy's profile which has links to the whole series of tutorials.  

 

Good luck

 

[Daniel Hersh]

3 hours ago, Frank Dudgeon said:

Here's a pretty easy way to find all of Judy's tutorials.  Copy and paste    "Hayden Tutorial (WHEEEEEE!)"   into the search box at the upper right hand corner of this page.  The quotation marks are helpful, otherwise you'll get a ton of search results.

 

That search will give you the link to the first tutorial from 2013.  Open that link and you'll see the first tutorial, and if you click on her avatar to the left of the tutorial you'll get Judy's profile which has links to the whole series of tutorials.  

 

Good luck

 

 

Here's the first one: 

 

And the links to the others are at https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/profile/10571-judyhawkins/ .