Returning to minor key

[Cathasach]

So, here I am with yet another weird idea that I'll probably never follow through on, but...

 

I have a low end CG hybrid(Trinity college) that I want to play around with. How hard would it be to change it to something like a Cm/Gm? I assume you'd just have to flatten a few of the notes and maybe switch out some.of the accidentals. 

[Jody Kruskal]

What a great idea! Never thought of it. I also wonder what it would be like to play a minor tuned anglo. Could such a thing work? I can play in minor keys/modes on the standard Anglo... would the reverse be true? Could you play in major keys on the minor tuned Anglo. The mind boggles!

[Luke Hillman]

Fascinating idea. Here's a Cm/Gm (harmonic minor) layout for your exploration. I started with a C/G Wheatstone layout —not entirely sure I got the accidentals right, but it's an okay starting point to look at what notes and chords are available, and where.

[Richard Mellish]

I have a G-minor/D-minor 40-key Anglo made for me by Wim Wakker. I still haven't sorted out how to edit an Anglo Piano file to show a new layout so I am attaching the PDF that I sent to Wim. At that time I had not got to grips with the A3, D4 etc notation, but most notes are the same as on a standard Wheatstone G/D, and those that are different are at most a few semitones away, which defines which octaves they are in. It also means that, if a future owner prefers to have a normal G/D layout, those reeds will not need to be retuned very far.

 

I started with the standard Wheatstone layout, then flattened the thirds and sixths but left the sevenths sharp, because the Swedish tunes that I mainly want it for tend to have sharp sevenths. That resulted in the two main rows now having some notes that are normally on the top row, so I then chose alternative notes for those buttons.

 

Having had the instrument for a few years I have come to suspect that a few notes might be better changed to something else, but I have not yet come to any definite decision.

Richard Mellish anglo.pdf

[hjcjones]

Not on concertina, but I have a Streb MIDI melodeon which allows me to program alternative keyboard layouts, and I've experimented with G min/D min.  Playing along the rows is fine, and my brain can handle the concept of playing a mojor fingering and getting minor notes.  However playing the normal minor patterns doesn't give the relative major keys but something weird and modal-ish.

 

I haven't used it for real ie at a gig. I could envisage using it for something strictly in G min or D min, but once you start to wander from those it completely messes up how you would usually play in standard layout. It would really require me to learn totally different fingerings.  I would guess that this is even more true on concertina, and if you're going to do that you might as well learn them for standard layout.  For me on the melodeon it's a bit of fun, but not really that useful. However Richard presumably finds it useful.

[Cathasach]

Yeah, playing what would be a minor on a minor tuned angle will get you the phrygian mode. I play in minors a lot and I'd like to do harmonic style with it but it's just too complicated for me to switch into.

 

I have a lot of fun playing some of the basic polkas, like high cauled cap, in minor or lydian when I'm jamming with more experienced musicians who don't play Irish.