Identifying A Crane Triumph System Duet

[Charles Hunt]

I recently bought what was listed at Elderly Instruments as a Crane

Triumph Duet Concertina. I don't know if anyone on the forum saw it advertised. It is a little strange in that it is a 48 button, but has only 18 buttons on the

bass side and 30 on the treble side. I am not a concertina player (yet) but I am

interested and after reading about the different types, the crane duet

system appealed to me. I am a fairly accomplished mandolin player and have

played harmonica since I was a kid, although not so much now. The sound of

a concertina has always appealed to me, so anyway I took the plunge. I was

wondering what fingers you use for the rows of buttons on the bass and

treble side. I would think you would use all 4 fingers. Maybe your index

finger for the first two rows of buttons and the rest of the fingers for

each of the other 3 rows? On the left, bass side, the maker left out the high G

and high F# studs. On the treble side, they added high C# and high D#

studs. Have you ever seen such an array of studs? The instrument from my

very little knowledge looks like a Crabb I have seen. There is a guy in

Alaska who has a Crabb English, and his has similar aluminum ends. It also

has papers that look like I've seen in pictures of some Crabs. The reed

pans however say George Jones on them, although I read Jones never made a

duet concertina. This one might be a Frankenstein. It works tolerably well

and is mostly in tune. I have got on the waiting list for the Button Box to

restore it whenever they get that far. Meanwhile. I will try to learn to

play it. I would appreciate it if you could comment about anything you

might know about this concertina. All the best Charlie Hunt

[Samantha]

Welcome to concertina.net and congratulations on getting bitten by the bug!

It might be helpful if you could post some sort of diagram of the button layout of your concertina which would help people to identify which system you've got.

Samantha

[JimLucas]

I was wondering what fingers you use for the rows of buttons on the bass and treble side.  I would think you would use all 4 fingers. Maybe your index finger for the first two rows of buttons and the rest of the fingers for each of the other 3 rows?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's pretty much what I do. Stated another way, it's the middle finger for the middle row, index and ring fingers for the rows on either side, index finger doubling for the outer row on its side, and little finger for the outer row on its side.

 

But always be ready to shift a finger to another row to make things easier. The main thing here is using an alternate finger to avoid "jumping", playing two cosecutive notes with the same finger. And very often this is best accomplished by using an alternate finger before the troublesome note, to head off the trouble. Without this "ounce of prevention", attempts to avoid such problems can actually compound the problem. Another place where I sometimes use an alternate is on high notes (generally treble side), where I'll use my ring finger rather than my little finger on the outer row. This is because my little fingers are short, and even with the sideways shift, my ring finger can reach farther.

 

And from this page (at the bottom) on the Maccann duet web site you can download a copy of Crane's concertina tutor.

 

It might be helpful if you could post some sort of diagram of the button layout of your concertina which would help people to identify which system you've got.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds to me like he's pretty clear about what layout he has. Standard Crane layout (which is very regular), with an almost standard selection of buttons on each side. But pictures of the ends, reed pan, etc. might help get its maker(s) identified.