Jeffries Layout - Call me Confused

[fiddler2007]

Recently i ran into some problems converting wheatsone to jeffries layouts,

and got confused about the Jeffries layout versions around for a C/G (and G/D).

 

My first Anglo was a heritage Edgley i bought from Mike Rowbotham, some 2 years ago.

 

As i play by ear i never realized that the first two top row (3-1 and 3-2) were different on mine, than considered to be 'normal' for a jeffries layout.

Official layouts according a few sites i found recently are different as fitted on mine, see picture below. (From Jake Middleton's site).

 

With my Edgley the red and blue reeds were exchanged. Blue is were the red is (on the picture).

I have a copy of Mick Bramich' book where the same jeffries layout is also used ...

 

I got used to that layout, and found f.i. that playing tunes in D and A are easier with my swapped situation on a C/G. (I tried the unchanged version recently on an other 'normal' C/G jeffries.) Chording seems also a little easier ...

 

(Then i was converting an old hybrid Edgley G/D, from wheatstone to jeffries, according the 'rules' with the help of reeds bought from Jake.

A friend actually did the wood chopping and mounting job according these 'official' rules LoL. And i quickly i exchanged the two involved reeds.)

 

Now the Q: what is considered normal, as i got used to the inverted (red-blue) situation and even found the official (?) jeffries version worse than the wheatstone system for fast playing without too much bellows direction changes.

 

Edited July 24, 2021 by fiddler2007

[Little John]

I don't play anglo, and I don't know what the "official" layout is - if indeed there is one. So two points:

 

1. This seems like a change that can be made easily without any harmful effect on the instrument and also easily reversed by a subsequent owner who didn't like it.

 

2. The instrument is your servant not your master so, subject to not making any irreversible change, you should have it set up how it suits you.

[Jake Middleton-Metcalfe]

hmm, I am surprised that those two were different on your other concertina, did you get it 2nd hand? Maybe the previous owner had swapped the reeds round themselves or even asked Frank to make it that way. There are differences in what Jeffries accidentals actually were, but normally the one that has the most variation is the highest note on the accidental row, I have seen that tuned to all sorts of things. I always just make sure to show people the layout before making an instrument to be absolutely sure that is what they want. 

 

Then with 38 or 40 key instruments it gets very very different, with loads of different layouts, but that is another subject.

[fiddler2007]

On 7/25/2021 at 12:47 PM, Jake Middleton-Metcalfe said:

hmm, I am surprised that those two were different on your other concertina, did you get it 2nd hand? Maybe the previous owner had swapped the reeds round themselves or even asked Frank to make it that way. There are differences in what Jeffries accidentals actually were, but normally the one that has the most variation is the highest note on the accidental row, I have seen that tuned to all sorts of things. I always just make sure to show people the layout before making an instrument to be absolutely sure that is what they want. 

 

Then with 38 or 40 key instruments it gets very very different, with loads of different layouts, but that is another subject.

 

Hi Jake.

Mitch Bramich' uses the same layout for jeffries throughout his book. see picture.

As my heritage Edgley was configured that way i never thought there was an 'English' jeffries-style.

 

 

And then i met with another Edgley, which had your layout LoL

Edited July 26, 2021 by fiddler2007

[Roger Hare]

 

2 hours ago, fiddler2007 said:

Mitch Bramich' uses the same layout for jeffries throughout his book. see picture.

As my heritage Edgley was configured that way i never thought there was an 'English' jeffries-style.

<picture removed - see previous post>

Aah... Does that get us any forrarder? In In Between Anglo, Mick Bramich uses a different layout

diagram for a Jeffries (both style and content):

 

Buttons 1 & 2 on the Right-hand Accidentals row are reversed when compared to the diagram in the previous post. So we have the same author using two different layouts in two different books, which seem to correspond to the two different layouts described by the OP. Whether one calls the first layout 'Irish' and the second 'English' I dunno, but certainly I am confused - but I don't have a Jeffries...

Edited July 26, 2021 by lachenal74693

[Ken_Coles]

What Bramich showed in his first book was backwards (press and draw C#) from most of the Jeffries layouts I have seen. I did a review of the book for this site back in the static pages days and remember that I commented on it. As others have noted, the reality is anglo players are constantly juggling reeds...part of the obsession perhaps? Have fun, wherever your notes are.

 

Ken

[Roger Hare]

1 hour ago, Ken_Coles said:

What Bramich showed in his first book was backwards (press and draw C#) from most of the Jeffries

layouts I have seen...

Yeah. Because it's driving me nuts, I just checked my copy of The Anglo Concertina - Absolute Beginners

by Chris Sherburn and Dave Mallinson. It has different button numbering...

 

The combined Wheatstone/Jeffries layout diagram on page 5 shows the same configuration as

in MB's In Between Anglo, though the diagram is a little - well - confusing. It also has D# rather than Eb.

 

So, not only do different tutors use different button numbering systems, they also use different

layouts - sometimes...

 

What fun!

Edited July 26, 2021 by lachenal74693

[Ken_Coles]

One of many reasons the EC and Duet players say it seems to them that one must be (or at least, it helps to be) a little daft to play anglo. There's some truth in it.  😃

 

Ken

[fiddler2007]

well, seems i opened something here ...

 

[RAc]

1 hour ago, Ken_Coles said:

One of many reasons the EC and Duet players say it seems to them that one must be (or at least, it helps to be) a little daft to play anglo. There's some truth in it.  😃

 

Ken

 

Bah, humbug. As long as you're not playing melodeons...

 

<duck and cover>

 

[Alan Day]

I think you will find that a number of players have switched reeds around to suit their style of playing.

I am one of them and all my Anglo concertinas are the same layout ,so that I can pick up any of my concertinas and the finger pattern is the same. I have a CG ,GD and BpFC .

Al

[Roger Digby]

May I add a caveat?

Moving reeds from one chamber to another changes the pitch of the note! It may be scarcely noticeable or it may be excruciating. This is a fact of physics which I have had explained to me by people with great knowledge; I have none myself.

I have, however, some experience of the phenomenon. Some years ago I was able to provide a fine Jeffries to a player in Ireland. Seeing him a while later he said that two of the reeds had gone out of tune. They hadn't; he had swapped their positions. Back in their home chambers the tuning was again perfect.

If you relocate reeds you must be prepared for retuning.

Best wishes to you all,

Roger