crane Wanted Crane/Triumph Duet

[Jerry Bix]

Hello, I am looking for a Crane Duet concertina specifically to accompany sea shanties and other songs, especially in less popular keys.  I don't have a huge amount of money but I will consider anything as I realise they are rather scarce.

 

Thanks

 

Jerry

[Mick Reeve]

Hi Jerry. I have a 55 key Wheatstone Crane for sale. It is in excellent condition as recently refurbished by Barleycorn. I want  £3000 for it though and think you will find they are worth that sort of cash, Mick

[RAc]

The price is reasonable; I have an almost identical Wheatstone and would ask about the same if I were to sell it.

 

Yet for Sea Shanties, I would argue that a high end instrument like that is an overkill; one does not necessarily  need 55 keys for that (David Coffin appears to have a rather high range concertina, but he is also a big guy and has a high range voice). 48 keys (possibly even fewer) serve the purpose of song accompaniment sufficiently well AND are much easier to handle AND can be carried around guiltlessier on rough environments such as boats. 😉

 

Finally, in between my Wheatstone and Lachenal, I would prefer the latter for volume; the Wheatstone has a clearer, sweeter and more defined sound, but less volume (note that neither qualifies as "better," they are just different). 

To Jerry: Cranes are fully chromatic, but that does not mean that all keys can be played on it equally well. Its layout assume "home keys" (roughly Gmaj, Cmaj and Dmaj and their respective modal siblings), and the further one moves away from them in the circle of fifths, the more awkward the playing becomes. One real bummer about the layout is that there are exactly 2 Power chords which can not be fingered by flattening a finger - Bb and B). If you need to access other keys frequently, a Hayden may be a better choice from what I know about the system.

Edited November 2, 2023 by RAc

[Jerry Bix]

1 hour ago, Mick Reeve said:

Hi Jerry. I have a 55 key Wheatstone Crane for sale. It is in excellent condition as recently refurbished by Barleycorn. I want  £3000 for it though and think you will find they are worth that sort of cash, Mick

 

[Jerry Bix]

Hello Mick

Thank you for your very quick response - I am afraid that this is outside my budget - I am sure that is a good price but not one I can afford,

Thank you

Jerry

[Jerry Bix]

Hello RAc,

Thank you for your reply and wealth of information and experience.Over the last few years I have been lent an English and a McCann Duet and then I went to a workshop using the Crane system for song accompaniment and it seemed to fit better with my experience of playing guitar for 60 years.  I don't want an instrument that is too large or heavy (older wrists) and sadly my budget is limited so probably a 48 key Lachenal in playable condition is the best I can hope for.

[RAc]

Interesting, I have a similar background, but only 30 years of guitar experience, so you are well ahead of me... 😉 I certainly agree that the Crane system (probably the Hayden as well, I am not familiar enough with other duet systems) bears a natural transition path for a guitarist. @Anglo-Irishman pointed this out me when I was shopping for concertinas (thanks again!). I was just referring to out-of-the-ordinary keys which can be cumbersome on the Crane.

 

Best of luck!

[Don Taylor]

Jerry

 

There is this available at Barleycorn:

 

https://concertina.co.uk/stock-selection/duet-concertinas/lachenal-48-key-crane-duet-8275/

 

Barleycorn is a very reputable dealer and you can visit them by appointment.  They are near Crewe.

 

 

[Jerry Bix]

Thank you Don for the sign posting to Barleycorn, and thank you RAc for your support and advice. - The adventure continues . . .

Jerry

[Little John]

5 hours ago, RAc said:

Yet for Sea Shanties, I would argue that a high end instrument like that is an overkill; one does not necessarily  need 55 keys for that ... 48 keys (possibly even fewer) serve the purpose of song accompaniment sufficiently well AND are much easier to handle AND can be carried around ...

 

I entirely agree! My first instrument was a 35 button Crabb Crane, and there's really quite a lot you can do with one. It lacks the two highest notes (A5 and B5) which are frequently required for dance tunes, but that wouldn't matter at all for songs. I might suggest a small modification (like having the lowest C# tuned down to Bb - great for songs in F and Dm) but that would apply equally to 48 or 55 button instruments.

[Little John]

I missed this final paragraph in RAC's reply earlier, so a couple of extra comments.

 

9 hours ago, RAc said:

To Jerry: Cranes are fully chromatic, but that does not mean that all keys can be played on it equally well. Its layout assume "home keys" (roughly Gmaj, Cmaj and Dmaj and their respective modal siblings), and the further one moves away from them in the circle of fifths, the more awkward the playing becomes.

 

I agree, though I would definitely add in Fmaj (and its modal siblings) which I find particularly useful for singing.

 

9 hours ago, RAc said:

If you need to access other keys frequently, a Hayden may be a better choice from what I know about the system.

 

The Hayden system has limitations of its own, but different from the Crane, so it's not necessarily a better choice.

 

9 hours ago, RAc said:

One real bummer about the [Crane] layout is that there are exactly 2 Power chords which can not be fingered by flattening a finger - Bb and B).

 

For you a power chord is a fourth, so you can usually play the two buttons with one finger. For me a power chord is the inversion of that - a fifth - thus always played with two fingers; so B and Bb are not a problem.

 

Incidentally, earlier I said there's a lot you can do with a 35 button instrument. However the standard 35 button Crane layout isn't optimal. A couple of years ago I designed a better 35 button layout for Paul Harvey of Flying Duck Concertinas. It overcame the main limitations of the standard layout so that one could play most Morris and country dance tunes without compromise; albeit without some of the luxuries a slightly larger instrument would bring. Now the duck has flown it would be nice if someone else could produce an affordable Crane.

[Mick Reeve]

Jerry, Fair enough. Agree with a lot of the posts. Interestingly I'm selling the Wheatstone cos I have a 67 button Crabbe Crane and find the Wheatstone lacking in buttons for tunes and songs. Coming from an accordion I am programmed to play tune on one side and chords on the other and find the Crabbe has lower buttons on the treble side. In addition the button spacing and layout is different between the two and I find the Crabbe easier with small hands.

[RAc]

On 11/2/2023 at 10:50 PM, Little John said:

For you a power chord is a fourth, so you can usually play the two buttons with one finger. For me a power chord is the inversion of that - a fifth - thus always played with two fingers; so B and Bb are not a problem.

 

To me a power chord can be viewed as either a fourth or a fifth, depending on whether you look at it ascending or descending from the root.

 

For me, the most important "use case" of "inverted" power chords on the Crane is adding groove options. For example, a standard "oohm pa" on G for me would be something like (left hand; columns are counted beginning outermost, rows lowest)

 

G (Col4, row2) - Oohm

D (Col3, row3) - pa

D (Col4, row1) - Oohm

D (Col3, row 3) - pa

 

Now if you double the pa by flattening the finger such that you add the G on Col3, row4, you strengthen the off beat; likewise, for a stronger on beat, you can flatten the finger on Col4 during the Oohm. That works for all chords except B and Bb. Of course there are always options to finger the chord differently, but keeping that steady groove is awkward for those two chords.

 

There are also a few cases where the flattened power chord saves your fingers awkward stretching patters, eg on an F# or Eb power chord - admittedly, those do not come up too frequently, but sometimes they do, and I admit to taking the cheap way out there mostly by fingering those chords flat.

 

Sorry for maintaing this OT in this thread, if there are more remarks regarding this, we should probably have this moved to another thread...

 

[Don Taylor]

1 hour ago, RAc said:

For me, the most important "use case" of "inverted" power chords on the Crane is adding groove options. For example, a standard "oohm pa" on G for me would be something like (left hand; columns are counted beginning outermost, rows lowest)

 

G (Col4, row2) - Oohm

D (Col3, row3) - pa

D (Col4, row1) - Oohm

D (Col3, row 3) - pa

 

Now if you double the pa by flattening the finger such that you add the G on Col3, row4, you strengthen the off beat; likewise, for a stronger on beat, you can flatten the finger on Col4 during the Oohm.

Here is a Crane layout diagram that I found useful to understand RAc's patterns:

 

[saguaro_squeezer]

Jerry,  you might have a look at my Cranes for sale in the forum.

 

kind regards,

 

Rod