Finger Chart

[NewB]

Hi, I am new! I have a lovely old Wheatstone and I can’t seem to find the right fingering chart to play the notes. I have attached pictures of both sides. It doesn’t look like any of the charts I can find anywhere. Could someone help me out, point me in the right direction or even do a drawing for me? Thank you so much!

Diane

[Myrtle's cook]

The Mayfair range were produced by Wheatstone to a specific price point and in doing so they cut out many of the things that those starting out on concertina were considered unlikely to require. Consequently gone are many of the sharps/flats (the black keys) and some of the (white) higher notes.

 

If you look at a standard treble concertina fingering chart your lowest 'white' note on the right hand side is going to be G3, on the left it's A. The two rows of white buttons on either side will then correspond to a standard fingering chart (e.g. http://www.concertina.com/fingering/images/english48-W842H736.gif) until you run out of buttons where the Mayfair range is truncates the range. You should also be able to use this as points from which to identify which sharps/flats you have got.

 

If you then want to tie in your buttons to musical notation, this should help: https://www.concertina.info/tina.faq/images/finger6.htm

 

Hope this helps!

[NewB]

Thank you for your help. The charts are printed out and I will make sense of it all. 

 

Have I made a mistake with this Wheatstone Mayfair? It cost a fair penny, but I am realizing you cannot get quality without spending. Some of the instruments I saw were icky plastic and the buttons were like a toy. But, when I saw the name Wheatstone on this one I figured I was doing OK, and the action felt very nice.  What do you think?

Diane

[cohen]

I would say that you've made a very good choice with the Mayfair as a first instrument. Yes they are somewhat limited in range and there are certainly better instruments out there, but they are as far as I've seen the best thing in their price range by a country mile. As you say some of the mass produced Chinese plastic instruments are just one step above toys. I'm an anglo player and my first year of playing was spent struggling on a series of very cheap modern instruments, in my second year of playing I was loaned a Mayfair anglo which brought my playing on a huge amount, so it's great that you've started out with a similar instrument. 

[NewB]

Oh gosh! That’s great, I feel quite a bit better now. Do you still have yours? I was hoping, somehow, for a picture with the notes written in. I have printed the charts the other gentleman advised and it is still a little bit heavy weather for me. But I will persevere!

Diane

[Takayuki YAGI]

Just for your reference, there is 1950's brochure of May Fair including finger chart.

[NewB]

Thank you so much!! It is exactly what I was looking for. I am so appreciative to you and the others who have helped!

Diane

[chris rowe]

If all else fails thrre is a very good free phone app PANOTUNER, I have used it for tuning guitars and ukuleles, it displays the note being played ie. B# plus the frequency.

[David Barnert]

5 hours ago, chris rowe said:

it displays the note being played ie. B# plus the frequency.

 

It calls the note most of us think of as C “B#”? That’s not likely to be much help.

[Anglo-Irishman]

😄

That's a new one on me! Though beginners on stringed instruments sometimes get confused when their tuner calls the note we all think of as Bb, "A#". There's usually a setting that detemrines whether all the enharmonics are expressed as sharps, or all as flats. Most of us, I think, would want a tuner to indicate F#, C#, G#, but Bb, Eb, Ab. Db.

We Autoharpers are an exception: on a chromatic Autoharp, the enharmonics are all labelled as sharps! So calling a note A# is OK with us - even though the chord that it's the root of is labelled Bb! 😝

Cheers,

John

[chris rowe]

Quite right ......that was an "OOPS" typo, I should re-read before I press send !

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