Modifying A Crane Duet

[JimLucas]

I'm putting my response to Malcolm's suggested Crane modification in this subForum, where I think it belongs.

 

I am about to acquire another 48 key [Crane], and I have this idea of changing the core key (i.e. the three middle rows) from C to D by swapping the reed positions of the C and C# and the F and F# throughout both sides of the concertina. I intend to leave the remaining notes where they are, resisting the temptation to take the whole box up a full tone, a process not easily reversible!

...about bringing a standard Crane layout up to a "D" core.... do you have a few spare reeds available?

 

If so, what *I* would consider doing in your situation is to repitch the whole instrument "reversibly".  I suggest you move every reed in your Crane so that it is in a slot originally designated for a reed 1 step lower in pitch.  I.e., move every D reed to a "C position slot," every D# to a C# position, etc.

 

Obviously a couple of original reeds will be left over at the low end [of each hand], and a couple of extra, unoriginal reeds will be needed to be inserted at the top of the range [on each end].

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As a general concept Paul's idea is good, but from a standpoint of minimizing the actual changes required Malcolm's is better. On a standard 48-button Crane, only two notes would need to be changed, aside from M's proposed swapping. These are the highest C and F, which would need to be converted to C# and F# to fit the pattern and fulfill the D major scale. (I agree with Paul that these should be replaced, not retuned, in case back-conversion is desired in the future.) Paul's suggestion would require new reeds for those same two new notes plus one more (a high G) for the right hand and two also for the left hand. Malcolm's idea also needs to shift the locations of only 16 notes (4 pair in each hand), rather than the entire set.

 

A separate point is that Malcolm's pattern would still be completely consistent with the concept of the Crane layout. Starting on the lowest D, the fingering of the chromatic scale would be exactly the same as if starting a C scale at the second C on a standard Crane. And the instrument would still have a low C# and C in each hand, notes which I sorely miss on the whistle when I play those Irish tunes in D or G which want them.

 

As an experienced -- though hardly virtuoso -- Crane player, I very much approve.

 

Edited to correct a confusion between number of notes and number of reeds, since there are two reeds per note.

Edited October 1, 2005 by JimLucas

[BruceB]

Something I thought of asking Bob to do to my 48b Crane is changing the top three right hand notes (d,e,f) to c#, d & e. There are times where I've needed that c#, more so than I need the f.

I guess this would be pretty simple to do.

 

Kurt & Jim, how much do you use the extra overlap between hands that a 55b gives?

 

bruce boysen

[BruceB]

I wouldn't actually do this, but here's another thing that crossed my mind at NESI. The Button Box had a wonderful 60b Edeophone Maccann that went from G to a1 in the left hand and c1 to a3 in the right. The asking price was only 2100 USD. This is a seriously nice Maccann, even David Cornell, who much prefers Wheatstones said it was really nice.

 

It seems like it would be possible to make new metal ends in a 60 button Crane pattern and pull off the action and put it back in a Crane pattern. Sure, you might need to get some new levers and maybe bend some a bit to fit, a big job, but one that wouldn't pose any major problems, as far as I can tell.

 

What do you think, just as a thought experiment? I'd never do this to a concertina as nice as this one, but if I had a nice Maccann with smashed up ends I'd consider it.

 

bruce boysen

[JimLucas]

Something I thought of asking Bob to do to my 48b Crane is changing the top three right hand notes (d,e,f) to c#, d & e. There are times where I've needed that c#, more so than I need the f.

Well, that would break the pattern of the Crane system's design. If you're going to do that, why not just replace the F with a C# and leave the others? That would mean only one note out of pattern, rather than three. (And then the best way to make the change would be to replace the reeds, rather than retune them by two whole steps. Then keep the originals in case you want to sell it to someone who wants the original layout.)

 

Kurt & Jim, how much do you use the extra overlap between hands that a 55b gives?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I haven't tried keeping statistics, but I can say that I do use them when they're available. On a 48-button I can survive without them, but I like the additional harmonic capabilities they provide on the 55-button. I find that different chord inversions, or even the same note in different octaves, can produce very different emotional qualities.

[Kurt Braun]

  Kurt & Jim, how much do you use the extra overlap between hands that a 55b gives?

 

                    bruce boysen

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My first Crane was a 55 with a full octave overlap. My current 59 has less because the left hand is pitched an octave lower. I like the range of the 59 but preferred the additioanal overlap of the 55. On both, I use it all the and never had enough. I saw a Crabb Crane sell on ebay a while back that had everthing -- my first instrument's overlap and my current instrument's range. I suspect it is heavy -- you can't have everything.

 

Bruce, I think I mentioned to you before that I'm a great believer in pouring oneself into a single instrument. Earl Scruggs has had the same banjo for 50+ years and the money to buy anything he wants. He says that when he reaches for a note he doesn't want to be suprised. All of these instruments have their advantages and the last time I picked up a 48 key I thought it was really sweet and loved the efforlessness of its lighter weight.

[Paul Groff]

Hi Jim, Kurt, and all,

 

Jim, I don't have time right now to confirm the details of your post but taking it all as accurate, I think your argument is excellent. Nothing wrong with reversibly modifying a Crane as you suggest, to see if that helps your music. However, it seems to me that the result will have the fingers lying on the buttons in a different way (relative to the handrails) than just "playing as if in C" and having the instrument transpose that pattern to D. The latter is my notion of a transposing instrument.

 

The choice between the two (as long as careful reversibility is maintained) is really a matter of preference.

 

However Malcolm had commented that to convert the whole instrument up a step would be hard to reverse, and I aimed to show that was not necessarily so. Tedious, I grant you!

 

Re: Kurt’s comments in the original thread (I am paraphrasing): "no one plays a transposing piano keyboard", * "the standard for an instrumentalist is to play in all keys," etc. I anticipated these criticisms when I defended the "transposing duet/english" concept and I half agree with them, as a piano player myself. For a very serious musician with dedication to master their entire instrument, of course all keys and fingerings (and every other dimension of musical expression) beckon and challenge.

 

But even in the "classical music" world there are reeds and horns pitched in F, Bb, Eb etc. These transposing instruments are set up as they are to facilitate the fingering, to increase reliability, and to get closer to the range, and the tone, most desired. The "double french horns" have a valve to switch between two different (typically non- C) keys, that is analogous to the capo used on guitars! In this context, keep in mind that music for a Bb brass instrument could be read by players of "Bb" transposing concertinas.

 

And what about those guitar capos...in the folk and traditional music world, they are used very widely by players, often of excellent and/or professional standard, to get the effect they want: a particular fingering they already know and prefer, but in a range (and often a timbre) that is different from the one this same fingering gives in the "normal" key. Again this is the role of a transposing concertina.

 

Obviously the "Bb" englishes and duets were made to make life easier for players at the time they were made. More than a few such instruments were made, and so we can reasonably conclude they were successful, at least for some. Similar transposing instruments (and possibly "new" ideas such as Malcolm's) might have even more application today.

 

Remember that not all players of the concertina will have the time or dedication to master all keys on the instrument. As much as I would like to encourage the highest standards of concertina playing (in all styles including totally original styles), for the sake of the instrument's future, I know that many adult beginners gravitate to the concertina exactly BECAUSE it is so easy to succeed in learning to play just a few, very simple, pieces. These are players who might never have gotten beyond screeches and scratches on the violin or feeble hoots on the flute. Probably (as George Bernard Shaw implied) this has always been an important function for the concertina -- to make a little uncomplicated music very easy for the amateur to achieve. Of course playing any music VERY WELL is never simple, no matter how easy it may be to get out the notes in order...but even getting to the baby steps on many other instruments can be much more challenging.

 

Anyway this is part of the charm of this instrument, to give a musical voice to many hobbyists who might otherwise not have found one. And if a transposing instrument helps them get on more easily with what they want to do (or maybe even if they THINK it will) then why shouldn't they have one?

 

& Jim thanks for your agreement on the singer's range issue. Yes, this was probably not the reason for most transposing instruments of the past (concertina bands or mixed bands with brass might have been the reason), but might be a reason to have some more made today.

 

Paul

 

* Actually the “electronic transpose” function on electronic keyboards seems to get used A LOT by many players I know.

[JimLucas]

The Button Box had a wonderful 60b Edeophone Maccann that went from G to a1 in the left hand and c1 to a3 in the right.

 

It seems like it would be possible to make new metal ends in a 60 button Crane pattern and pull off the action and put it back in a Crane pattern. Sure, you might need to get some new levers and maybe bend some a bit to fit, a big job, but one that wouldn't pose any major problems, as far as I can tell.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

These are the problems I envision:

... You would have to move the reeds around. Most of the notes -- and therefor the reeds in the reedpan -- are in radically different positions in the two layouts, many even on opposite sides of the end. Here's a list for just the first 1½ octaves of the right hand (with codes of L for the left two rows, R for the right two, and C for the center two on the Maccann and the single center row on the Crane):

Note        Crane       Maccann
 C            L            L
 C#           L            L
 D            R            C
 D#           R            C
 E            C            C
 F            L            R
 F#           L            R
 G            R            L
 G#           R            L
 A            C            C
 Bb           L            R
 B            L            R
 c            R            L
 c#           R            L
 d            C            C
 d#           L            C
 e            L            C
 f            R            R
 f#           R            R
 g            C            L

... I'm sure that to leave all the reeds in their Maccann locations would require an impossible meshwork of the levers... impossible because there would be no way to completely prevent collisions. Even with a standard layout -- Crane, Maccann, or English -- adjacent notes in the reed pan don't run strictly from lowest to highest. Some shuffling is needed to allow a reasonable layout of the levers.

... I expect that even if just moving reeds about could give an arrangement compatible with a Crane button layout, very few of the Maccann levers would match lengths needed for the new layout, so most levers would have to be made new.

... But would it be possible to convert from the Maccann configuration to a Crane-compatible one simply by shifting reeds around? E.g., by swapping the F & F# with the G and G# in the first octave and the first B & Bb with the second C & C#? I seriously doubt it. I expect that some cutting and filling of the slots in the reed pan would be required.

... But then there's the question of the chamber sizes. Move the walls of some of the chambers? But that might require moving some of the reed slots, not just changing their size. And that would also require relocating the corresponding holes for the pads.

... So it looks like at least some changes, and possibly major changes, would be needed to both the reed pan and the pad board. If they're just going to be "adjusted" from the Maccann configuration, but not match a standard Crane configuration, then I expect considerable design work would be required. At what point does the cost of the design effort overtake the cost of new construction on an existing design? Very quickly, I suspect.

... But if both the reed pans and pad boards are going to be made fresh, along with many (most?) of the levers, the ends (with all their fretwork) and the action boards (all those holes), then what's being kept is only a little more than the bellows, reeds, and buttons.

 

So my suggestion would be that if you have a set of reeds from an otherwise trashed instrument, go ahead and build a Crane around them. But if it's an instrument that's substantially restorable as a Maccann, you'd be better off selling it as such and having a new Crane built from scratch. It would probably be less work for the maker than a conversion, which should translate into both lower cost and earlier delivery for you.

 

However, if the makers on this Forum disagree with me, believe them!

[JimLucas]

Nothing wrong with reversibly modifying a Crane as you suggest, to see if that helps your music. However, it seems to me that the result will have the fingers lying on the buttons in a different way (relative to the handrails) than just "playing as if in C" and having the instrument transpose that pattern to D. The latter is my notion of a transposing instrument.

Well, yes. But Malcolm didn't say he wanted "a transposing instrument". He said his object was "changing the core key (i.e. the three middle rows) from C to D...," which is not as narrow a requirement as producing a transposing instrument. And that's what I was addressing.

 

To produce an otherwise-standard Crane that's transposed up one step from C to D, your suggestion seems excellent. And that would seem to be one way to achieve Malcolm's stated goal, though he appears to have settled on another.

 

A major advantage of a transposing instrument -- being able to use the same, standard fingering to get a transposed result -- depends on already knowing the standard fingering. Besides, I don't think Malcolm's goal is to play tunes written in C and F but have them sound in D and G. Instead, he wants to play tunes in D and G and have them sound in D and G, but with what he considers an easier (simpler? more "natural"?) fingering. Since he's already somewhat familiar with the Crane keyboard -- though with a "love/hate relationship," -- it may be that slightly shifting the locations of a couple of notes in each octave would be easier for him to get used to than a larger shift of all the notes, as well as being easier to construct. Furthermore, he would still have that low C and C#. I don't know about him, but I would certainly hate to lose them.

 

Malcolm had commented that to convert the whole instrument up a step would be hard to reverse, and I aimed to show that was not necessarily so.

Quite so. And definitely the way to go if one's goal is an instrument transposed up a step.

[BruceB]

Thanks Guys,

 

Jim, converting a Maccann to a Crane does sound more difficult than I thought. It does seem that if you didn't move reeds around you'd end up with a rats nest of crossed levers.

 

The debate between having a smaller, lighter instrument vs a bigger one with more range &/or overlap is a concern of mine. I've always enjoyed playing smaller, lighter instruments much more than bigger ones. I think the reasons have more to do with my own personal preferences as I'm very much a minimalist. .......Off Topic ramble follows....... (For example, I ride very difficult trails on a bicycle with a single gear, no suspension & regular pedals (sneakers on my feet), a very simple bike that mostly could have been built a century ago, except for the modern materials. Most of the people I ride with are on expensive rigs with 27 gears, high zoot suspensions, indexing, clipless; complex bicycles that are fussy, ugly, heavy and unreliable by comparison. Their wheels cost more than my complete bike! I've done both and the simple way is so much more fun and effective for me)

 

The above is just a long winded way to say my preference is for a smaller instrument....... but I'm not totally stupid about this, if a wonderful bigger Crane came along I'd have no problem with it......I think.

 

bruce boysen, plays a 37 button english and much prefers it over a 48b.

[Robin Madge]

If you want to change a Maccan to a Crane reversibly(or an Aglo or an English), how about a second pair of reed pans?

 

Robin Madge

[David Barnert]

Re: Kurt’s comments in the original thread (I am paraphrasing): "no one plays a transposing piano keyboard"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Irving Berlin had a transposing piano. The keyboard could be shifted over the strings so that when he played in F# (the only key he was comfortable in, playing the black notes) it would come out in any arbitrary key.

[JimLucas]

If you want to change a Maccan to a Crane reversibly(or an Aglo or an English), how about a second pair of reed pans?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Robin, did you intend a smiley?

 

A second pair of reed pans, along with the second pair of ends (for the completely different button layouts), including the actions? Unless you want to shift the buttons back and forth -- worth the better part of a day, -- what you'd have would be two separte instruments taking turns with one bellows. May as well pay for the second bellows and not bother shifting anything.

 

Well, maybe you'd also be interested in moving all the reeds between the reed pans, since reeds are so expensive? That might work between two different kinds of duet (though the ranges of the standard layouts don't match exactly), but you'd have to have extra reeds on at least one end of a swap between an English or anglo and anything else.

[JimLucas]

The debate between having a smaller, lighter instrument vs a bigger one with more range &/or overlap is a concern of mine.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My 55-button New Model Crane is exactly the same dimensions and weight as my 48-button Crane-labelled Crane.

 

The only problem with this particular 55-button is that someone before me tried to rearrange the notes, turning the reed pans and reeds into a disaster area, so the instrument really isn't playable. (You may guess that I got it cheap.) I think that when I get a little money it's going to be my candidate for MIDIfication.