Wanted: Hayden Duet

[Ende]

Hi VPO, 

If you are still interested, I would sell my Wakker Hayden Peacock, one like this: https://www.concertinaconnection.com/clover_anglo.htm.

The instrument is located in Vienna, Austria. 

[vpo]

41 minutes ago, Ende said:

Hi VPO, 

If you are still interested, I would sell my Wakker Hayden Peacock, one like this: https://www.concertinaconnection.com/clover_anglo.htm.

The instrument is located in Vienna, Austria. 

Thank you Ende. I think I would like to explore the possibilities here in UK first.. but thanks… I will bear it in mind.

[Ende]

Allright, VPO, all the best!

[vpo]

Visited Edward Jay today, tried out and agreed to place an order for his Hayden Bandotina, hopefully extended down to F as Lucasz mentioned. Now have to contain my excitement for a few months! So thanks to everyone for all the information.. so useful.

Edited June 14, 2023 by vpo
Addition

[vpo]

DaveRo posed me some interesting questions about why I chose to commit to one of Ed Jay’s Bandotinas rather than a Concertina. That led me to sit down and assess what I’m doing. So I thought it might be of interest to post my thoughts here as a kind of footnote, having visited with Ed to see a concertina he was just about to post to a customer.

 

So yes, why Bandotina over Hayden concertina, which is what I tried out at Ed’s, especially bearing in mind that although I’d place myself in the intermediate ability range on the English, I’ll be a total novice at least for a year, to the Hayden system.
 

I guess a lot of it comes down to what sort of music one likes/aspires to play. I still play some ‘folk’ and generally my little Pinhole Aeola English is fine for melody and very basic chords. It’s quick and has a lovely mellow tone which is important to me. But I play it less nowadays as I aspired to play jazz ballads… and more lately, Latin/American and classical pieces.
 

Since the first pandemic lockdown, I’ve put down ‘arrangements’ for 100 jazz ballads using my Baritone/Treble English. ( It started as a way to keep sane during lockdown and became a bit of an obsession!) As a very amateur player, I find it really hard to improvise on the English, hence the wish to master Hayden system  because of its regularity etc,  but my Baritone Treble has 56 keys ( I previously said 64 here but that was a typo ) and have probably used them all, especially in the lower range to F2. Admittedly some are duplicated, as they are on Ed’s Hayden instruments. The chords I make, routinely use 4 or 5 keys at a time, sometimes more especially to finish a piece with what in my ignorance I call  a ‘Yummy’ chord! ( I couldn’t usually tell you what that chord is but it sounds nice to my ear! ).
 

On my English, the lower notes can buzz a bit. I had thought that must be down to hardened valves and in fact am going to get it re valved, serviced and tuned later in the year. But Ed pointed out to me that the lower notes need larger reed chambers ( as on Bandoneon ) to avoid the buzz.. (Traditional concertina reed chambers are pretty small due to constraints of the instrument size). So to extend the Hayden Concertina to F2 would physically be a challenge due to size. The Bandotina reed pan is slightly larger, as is the bellows size, which would make it easier to physically fit in more notes which will require larger chambers.

 

All of which requires Air and plenty of it.. especially to be able to play those bigger chords smoothly without needing to reverse the bellows, which I know from my experience on the Baritone Treble can be inconvenient if one hasn’t thought ahead.. Ed’s Bandotina bellows are essentially 2 concertina bellows joined together and are physically a little larger. And if I understood Ed correctly, the size of the reed pan and bellows as well as chamber size, all contribute to the mellow tone of the instrument. So bearing in mind that I’m unlikely to be in a position to buy another instrument, I thought the relatively small extra cost of the Bandotina vs Concertina would enable an instrument more likely to meet my future aspirations.

 

Finally, weight. I’m not much bothered by weight as I always play seated and with the concertina on one knee. I don’t know what it weighs but my Baritone Treble is a pretty large, relatively heavy instrument. The Bandotina will of course require use of both knees to control the bellows, but may even be a bit lighter due to the use of carbon fibre and PLA. 
 

I’ve really been bowled over by Ed’s ( and Lucasz’s ) use of these new materials which with the contribution of first class hand made set of reeds and bellows, can produce a really nice tone and ‘feel’ at a cost that ordinary people can aspire to. Who knows, they may make the instrument more accessible and attractive to younger players and thus reinvigorate the ‘scene’. I hope so. Apologies to Ed if I’ve misunderstood or misquoted him on anything!

 

I didn’t intend this answer to be so long!.. but I hope may be of interest.

Thanks to everyone for advice. I’ve learnt so much this last week or two.

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by vpo

[DaveRo]

I had asked @vpo whether he was concerned about the weight of the Bandotina:

• Edward Jay's 74 button Haydon concertina - 2.3kg
• Edward Jay's 74 button Bandotina - 2.8kg

Those weights are from Edward's website.

 

By contrast:

• 42 button Peacock - 1.2kg
• 46 button Stagi Haydon - 1.8kg
• 52 button Beaumont - 1.4kg

I bought a Peacock partly because I found the Stagi too heavy. I'd like a Beaumont if I could get hold of one!

 

The extra reeds must account for much of the Jays' weight. Is a 'plastic' concertina like the Jays likely to be heavier or lighter than a hybrid wooden one, such as my Peacock, with the same number of buttons?

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

4 hours ago, DaveRo said:

I had asked @vpo whether he was concerned about the weight of the Bandotina:

• Edward Jay's 74 button Haydon concertina - 2.3kg
• Edward Jay's 74 button Bandotina - 2.8kg

Those weights are from Edward's website.

 

By contrast:

• 42 button Peacock - 1.2kg
• 46 button Stagi Haydon - 1.8kg
• 52 button Beaumont - 1.4kg

I bought a Peacock partly because I found the Stagi too heavy. I'd like a Beaumont if I could get hold of one!

 

The extra reeds must account for much of the Jays' weight. Is a 'plastic' concertina like the Jays likely to be heavier or lighter than a hybrid wooden one, such as my Peacock, with the same number of buttons?

My wooden 66b with brass shoed reeds, which are heavier than aluminum ones, weights 2.4kg. IIRC more than half of this weight comes from the reeds, with a significant contribution from brass action and a bit too thick button caps. My 3D printed 45b with oversized aluminum reeds and repurposed Elise bellows that has huge wooden frames weights 1.4kg. Here, most of this weight comes from the reeds and IIRC all plastic parts were about half of spool, so not more than 0,5kg. 

 

As to plastic vs wood - 3D printed parts have 1-1.5 mm thick walls and typically 85% of the part’s volume is just air, making prints of anything, not just concertinas, lighter than those same parts made traditionally from other materials bar some lightest woods. In a lot of cases parts actually have to be additionally weighted with steel inserts.

 

Now about the weight of duets overall - both me and Didie actually prefer heavier instruments (outside of traveling purposes) and Didie contemplated adding weights to his Beaumont. This is because playing accompaniment on a heavy and thus more stable box is way easier. You also most probably play such instrument seated, so there is no shoulder fatigue problem, and you do not work the bellows in bisonoric style, so there is no innertia problem.

[vpo]

By comparison, I’ve just weighed my 56 key (with 7 folds in the bellows) Wheatstone Baritone Treble with Aluminium Reed shoes at 1.75 kg. A surprise to me as I thought it’d be more than that. I didn’t notice any real difference between that and Ed’s Haydn Concertina, though to be fair, I didn’t have my instrument with me. It struck me that the bellows on the Hayden concertina seemed more flexible than the usually quite rigid English Wheatstone bellows. That would, (and will on Bandotina)  I think make more of a difference to me than weight in terms of control. But I suspect one just adapts fairly quickly as I seemed to ( in a very basic way), never having picked up a Hayden before. And when learning, I expect to just use smaller amounts of bellows anyway.. that’s the trap novice Accordion students can fall into.. (using large amounts of bellows).

Edited June 17, 2023 by vpo

[DaveRo]

14 hours ago, Łukasz Martynowicz said:

...both me and Didie actually prefer heavier instruments ... This is because playing accompaniment on a heavy and thus more stable box is way easier.

Can you expand on what you mean by 'more stable'. Do you mean the end is less likely to rotate - e.g. about the vertical axis - when you reach for a button far from the centre? I'd have thought you'd have to add a lot of weight to make a difference.

 

This rotation, or twisting, is what knackered my wrists with the Stagi 46 - plus poor technique as a novice no doubt. As well as being lighter, the Peacock's buttons are all closer to the centre. It's why I'm a bit obsessed with weight and the size of the button field.

[vpo]

Just a thought here.. and fully understanding I know nothing of moving around the Hayden fingerboard but sometimes a fresh look doesn’t hurt…so….
When I got my first English, I noticed that nearly everyone had their thumb stuck fairly deep in the Thumb support. I found this really uncomfortable and found I couldn’t move my wrist adequately to play comfortably and it also strained my thumbs. Now I play with my thumbs barely in the thumb support, hands/wrists free to move.. much more comfortable, instrument supported mostly by my knee and a bit by the pressure of other fingers playing notes, as well as a little by the pinky.

 

When I got the bigger instrument it came with wrist straps. I tried them, felt constrained, immediately removed and never felt the need of them.

 

From a Newbies point of view… When I tried Ed’s Hayden last week, I slipped my hands through the straps, likewise felt very constrained, wrist not really free to move when I tried to play a scale and some simple chords, so loosened them and found it much easier. Ed said Didier had explained to him that the instrument can be controlled by the tension on the strap between the base of the thumb and the soft tissue at the base of the forefinger, ( kind of gripped between the two if you know what I mean). I thought also this combined with the tension of the strap over the back of the hand.. so could perhaps be able to play with strap loosened as long as there is tension there. And perhaps less of a need to twist the instrument out of the vertical plane in order to reach notes. Worth a try perhaps. Maybe you’ve tried before. Apologies if I speak in ignorance.

Edited June 18, 2023 by vpo

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

5 hours ago, vpo said:

Just a thought here.. and fully understanding I know nothing of moving around the Hayden fingerboard but sometimes a fresh look doesn’t hurt…so….
When I got my first English, I noticed that nearly everyone had their thumb stuck fairly deep in the Thumb support. I found this really uncomfortable and found I couldn’t move my wrist adequately to play comfortably and it also strained my thumbs. Now I play with my thumbs barely in the thumb support, hands/wrists free to move.. much more comfortable, instrument supported mostly by my knee and a bit by the pressure of other fingers playing notes, as well as a little by the pinky.

 

When I got the bigger instrument it came with wrist straps. I tried them, felt constrained, immediately removed and never felt the need of them.

 

From a Newbies point of view… When I tried Ed’s Hayden last week, I slipped my hands through the straps, likewise felt very constrained, wrist not really free to move when I tried to play a scale and some simple chords, so loosened them and found it much easier. Ed said Didier had explained to him that the instrument can be controlled by the tension on the strap between the base of the thumb and the soft tissue at the base of the forefinger, ( kind of gripped between the two if you know what I mean). I thought also this combined with the tension of the strap over the back of the hand.. so could perhaps be able to play with strap loosened as long as there is tension there. And perhaps less of a need to twist the instrument out of the vertical plane in order to reach notes. Worth a try perhaps. Maybe you’ve tried before. Apologies if I speak in ignorance.

Exactly why I designed those:

 

 

The thumb is only inserted as deep as the first joint, like in a thimble, and the antler-anvil combination immobilise the thumb only along the bellows axis, leaving all other degrees of freedom unaffected. This works similarly to what Didie explained, but in a completely passive manner.

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

9 hours ago, DaveRo said:

Can you expand on what you mean by 'more stable'. Do you mean the end is less likely to rotate - e.g. about the vertical axis - when you reach for a button far from the centre? I'd have thought you'd have to add a lot of weight to make a difference.

 

This rotation, or twisting, is what knackered my wrists with the Stagi 46 - plus poor technique as a novice no doubt. As well as being lighter, the Peacock's buttons are all closer to the centre. It's why I'm a bit obsessed with weight and the size of the button field.

Mostly because bellows is less affected by fingering. On light instruments I always have this feeling, that endplates try to escape from under my fingers. On a heavy instrument much less so. Rotation is way more related to button array and handrail/handstrap positions than weight. First iteration of Ed’s Hayden, with a central array and a handrail very far to the back is very wobbly. That is why there is the rectangular version now with more proper array/handrest positions.

[vpo]

On 6/18/2023 at 5:50 PM, Łukasz Martynowicz said:

Exactly why I designed those:

 

 

The thumb is only inserted as deep as the first joint, like in a thimble, and the antler-anvil combination immobilise the thumb only along the bellows axis, leaving all other degrees of freedom unaffected. This works similarly to what Didie explained, but in a completely passive manner.

That’s a really interesting thought process, design and thread Lucasz. Thanks for the link to that.

Edited June 20, 2023 by vpo

[vpo]

And I love the finish on that concertina as well.