Comparing Concertina Types

[Richard Morse]

Have you tried doing much left hand work with a CBA? If it has a typical stradella bass, it's very very limited."

I took correspondence lessons from Gary Dahl, who teaches "Harmony Application". His use of Stradella involves lot's of moving up/down the left side. It's very doable after some getting used to. You can play chromatic scale on Stradella, no problem. The only limitation is the "wrap around" feel of the scale. It's only one octave, but voiced in such way, that it tricks the listener.

I find that to be a serious limitation. It's not so bad when you have a lot going on, but a real drag when doing cleaner accompaniment to go "over the break". I also find the set inversions of the chords to be sometimes otherwise than I'd like them to be. Not to mention instances when I want just the root and 5th (for example) without the 3rd. Sure you can choose those two from the bass notes so long as you want the deeper sound, but even then you have no choice of inversion. Chords made of bass notes also sound really thick and muddy.

[Boney]

A Piano Accordion is more intuitive to me, at least melody playing (and intervals as well). A Chromatic accordion, having diagonal layout, isn't very intuitive. It , agruably, is the only truly chromatic layout, but it is demanding for a novice.

I don't mean intuitive from the standpoint of learning the layout -- that does look daunting. But from the standpoint of after playing a lot on it (over at least a few years) you could get the patterns of intervals, chords, scales, and the like ingrained enough so that they'd feel "natural" without having to think about them. You could reach for a note up a fifth or down a semitone or whatever, and it'd be right where you expect it to be, no matter what key you're playing in. When I "stumble" the most playing Anglo is when I need to use different rows (especially the top "accidental" row) and/or switch from side-to-side, and any logical flow is gone. I can remember and play single-row C or G tunes FAR easier than tunes in other keys, even if the melodies themselves aren't that complex. English is better in that regard, the piano keyboard even better (and probably better for learning to start out with), but the CBA (chromatic button accordion) would seem to be the most direct correlation between finger position and absolute intervals of any of them.

 

Did you find that even after learning the CBA for many years, it still didn't feel natural? If so, what makes it that way?

Edited February 7, 2006 by Boney

[m3838]

>Did you find that even after learning the CBA for many years, it still didn't feel natural? >If so, what makes it that way?

 

Don't get me wrong, CBA is very good for most anything.

My problem has nothing to do with the layout, but it's a complex issue. May be it simply has to do with the wrong teacher, or too good of an instrument, wrong repertoire, but I think it's the fact that I am a "diatonic man".

Nothing you can do about it. I'd love to get away from it, and learn EC, or Duet, but I'm better off push/pulling.

Now, you are right, basic positions are learnable and repetitive. Intervals, 7ths etc.

However, there are three basic fingerings (only) for 3 row CBA, depending on whicih harmony you play. In each, there is this, as Rich puts it, "break", when logical semitone isn't the next adjuscent button going down the diagonal, but a couple rows up. It means you really have to pay attention to scales and arpeggios in all three positions and not think of 5 rows as an automatic transposing device.

Exercises often deal with playing a C scale from C. Then from D. Then nex etc. So you learn to recognize what scale you are in, regarless of where you started. That logical interval depends on it. Plus you have a luxury of all the inversions, which you need to recognise. Sorry for all the CBA talk, but it's very versitile instrument, which limitations are only in it's voicings: some music just isn't meant to be played on accordion.

But as with all such designs, learning curve is steep.

I actually wish the bass system was, indeed, based on Hayden design. Makes a lot of sence.

In this respect If they made Hayden bandoneon with reeds soundiing only on the pull and big air valve on the push - I'm in.

[Jody Kruskal]

I can’t compare between systems like Jim Lucas, I just love the Anglo concertina. It’s not as versatile as a piano (got to be the best common system for realizing harmony and doing it all), it’s not as expressive as the violin (got to be the most expressive instrument but takes years of sweat to master, and even then...).

 

The limitations of the Anglo direct you in figuring out how to harmonize. Every player has their own way to do it, but if two people agree on the chords and both figure out how to play the tune fully, I maintain that their respective Anglo arrangements will be extremely close. When I play with Tom Kruskal I’m playing just what he’s playing note for note (practically), even though we’ve never played that tune together before. It’s uncanny.

 

Case in point; when I heard those fine Brian Peters tunes on the links page I was struck, I thought “that's just how I play Sally Gardens!” Well not really, but the same buttons and pitches anyway. The same with The First Of August. When I went to play that tune along with Brian, he was playing just the buttons my fingers went to. There are only a few ways to skin this cat. Once you figure them out, you’ve got it.

 

As for intuition... the Anglo has got to be the most anti-intuitive instrument on the planet. Can you think of one that is more so? On my G/D, I know where things are in G, D, A, Em, Bm, A modal and that’s it. I am not comfortable playing in C or E or even Dm, though I sometimes do anyway. Anything beyond that, give me a mandolin please! If I want to play in Bb I take out my Bb/F and play. However, I can learn 95% of a tune by ear, chords and all in just a few passes if it’s in one of my keys. The limitations of the Anglo work in my favor then.

 

The system, if you can even call it that, is so idiosyncratic and seemingly arbitrary that even Jefferies and Wheatstone could not agree on which pitches go where. My 38 button Jefferies is really a twenty button system with lots of other stuff thrown around those core twenty to make it more versatile. It’s insane! But it works great and it fits the hand and it can make dancers jump and shout to a fiddle tune like nothing else I've ever heard with a bellows.

 

Jody

[Daniel Hersh]

Thought I'd join in here...

 

After playing a 30-button Anglo for a number of years, in Irish and old-timey sessions and on and off in bands, I found myself in circumstances where I was playing alone most of the time and getting a bit frustrated with the limitations in what I was able to do to accompany myself while playing melody. If I had heard back then what Jody and some of the folks on Anglo International could do with a few more buttons, I might have tried going that route, but what I wound up doing instead was deciding to learn piano accordion. Since I'd played piano on and off since childhood I figured I had a good head start.

 

So I learned 120-bass PA, which was definitely fun, but I found that the instrument was too heavy to easily get the kind of bounce that I was used to on the Anglo. (Though there are some PA players, notably Laurie Andres, who don't seem to have a problem with this at all.) I then got an old 48-bass Hohner PA which has a slightly harsh tone but bounces much more nicely. That one has become my favorite box to play for contradances, etc...

 

But playing by myself I got frustrated again, this time with the limits of the chord inversions and the lack of true single-note left-hand options on a conventional PA. CBA-type free-bass seemed too different from anything I'd done before, so I decided to try stradella/quint free bass instead and bought a convertor PA. It's my heaviest box, but not nearly as heavy as the 30 pounds that Richard mentioned earlier--I think it's about 18. So now I've got a house full of these things but I can do must of what I want to do. I still love to play Anglo, especially when I'm able to play with other people, but I have more options now.

 

And I've recently started to experiment with Chemmnitzer too, but that's another story...

 

Daniel

 

Have you tried doing much left hand work with a CBA? If it has a typical stradella bass, it's very very limited."

I took correspondence lessons from Gary Dahl, who teaches "Harmony Application". His use of Stradella involves lot's of moving up/down the left side. It's very doable after some getting used to. You can play chromatic scale on Stradella, no problem. The only limitation is the "wrap around" feel of the scale. It's only one octave, but voiced in such way, that it tricks the listener.

I find that to be a serious limitation. It's not so bad when you have a lot going on, but a real drag when doing cleaner accompaniment to go "over the break". I also find the set inversions of the chords to be sometimes otherwise than I'd like them to be. Not to mention instances when I want just the root and 5th (for example) without the 3rd. Sure you can choose those two from the bass notes so long as you want the deeper sound, but even then you have no choice of inversion. Chords made of bass notes also sound really thick and muddy.

[JimLucas]

What do you think about using a Hayden/Wicki layout on the left with a CBA on the right?

I think that's a lot more flexible. We've made a few PA bass conversions from stradella and bassetti into Hayden bass which finger and play very nicely! ... Of course you're still talking about a single instrument with two different fingering systems. Better than it started out with, but imagine how nice it would be to have Hayden on both ends.

That would seem to make a lot of sense. Have you not tried that, Rich? It seems to me that a standard CBA keyboard would be a natural to convert, as the button layout wouldn't have to be changed at all. (I guess both the reed locations and the coupling between buttons would, since I don't think it uses the same sort of coupling mechanism as the bass side, does it?) The result on a 5x21-2 keyboard would give you 2½ octaves in the short direction, 3 octaves and a 3rd in the long direction, for a total range of 5 octaves and a 3rd.

[Jody Kruskal]

it can make dancers jump and shout to a fiddle tune like nothing else I've ever heard with a bellows.

Jody

 

... except for Laurie Andres. You're right Daniel, he's sure got the bellows thing figured out. No even pressure for him. His bellows is doing what the fiddler does with a bow.

 

Sorry all, I guess I got into a rant there. Other instruments can turn heads too. Ever heard Tim Jennings play his old Bastari English? He was at my first NE Squeeze-In back in... the Joel Cowan days. Tim's a story teller up in Vermont, USA http://www.folktale.net/ He managed to figure out how to make that old doggie bark though now he plays an Aola and a Lochanal ediophone. Haven't heard him in years.

 

Jody

Edited February 7, 2006 by Jody Kruskal

[JimLucas]

I can’t compare between systems like Jim Lucas, I just love the Anglo concertina.

...

The limitations of the Anglo direct you in figuring out how to harmonize.

That's true of any instrument. The duet concertinas have the advantage of having all the notes for all the keys and in both directions, but in each system some note combinations are easier than others, and what may be an advantage in one respect can also be a disadvantage.

 

E.g., the most often quoted advantage with the Hayden is that transposing is as simple as shifting the location of the fingers over the keyboard. But this has the disadvantage that if the fingering for a particular harmony or chord is awkward, then it's awkward in every key. On a Maccann, if a harmony or chord is awkward in one key, it may be possible to find another, nearby key in which it's not awkward at all.

 

In that particular respect the Crane is somewhere in between and the Jeffries is out beyond the Maccann. You get something similar on the anglo where in some cases by reversing the bellows direction you can radically change the fingering without changing the key (e.g., a G or Am arpeggio on the C/G). There are some chords & harmonies that can't be done at all on a standard anglo, but for others you have the benefit of being able to choose among different ways to do them.

[Theodore Kloba]

As weird as they are, the chemnitzer & bandoneon left hand layouts with chord tones in the center and bass notes around the periphery are another way to get around the problems.

What about the problem of being able to play in many keys easily?

I guess I don't get into a lot of situations where that's really a big problem. Of course I wouldn't be considering a CBA if those situations never occured.

 

but the CBA (chromatic button accordion) would seem to be the most direct correlation between finger position and absolute intervals of any of them.

Don't forget that at the back of the piano keyboard, the keys are of a uniform width and in chromatic order.

 

I've wondered if total regularity is a hindrance. I've dabbled a bit in linguistics and I think the way we learn music is related to the way we learn languages. All natural human languages have a mixture of regularity and irregularity. We need to have some fixed forms ready by memory for the things we do often, and also some productive rules to get through the things we do seldom.

As for intuition... the Anglo has got to be the most anti-intuitive instrument on the planet. Can you think of one that is more so? On my G/D, I know where things are in G, D, A, Em, Bm, A modal and that’s it. I am not comfortable playing in C or E or even Dm, though I sometimes do anyway. Anything beyond that, give me a mandolin please! If I want to play in Bb I take out my Bb/F and play. However, I can learn 95% of a tune by ear, chords and all in just a few passes if it’s in one of my keys. The limitations of the Anglo work in my favor then.

If you can learn a tune by ear that easily, then I think it is intuitive!

E.g., the most often quoted advantage with the Hayden is that transposing is as simple as shifting the location of the fingers over the keyboard. But this has the disadvantage that if the fingering for a particular harmony or chord is awkward, then it's awkward in every key.

Excellent point, and it applies to 5-row CBA too.

 

I notice that I visualize intervals in a common "shape" whether they're on piano, guitar, concertina, etc... It's just my fingers that have trouble sometimes.

[Richard Morse]

What do you think about using a Hayden/Wicki layout on the left with a CBA on the right?

I think that's a lot more flexible. We've made a few PA bass conversions from stradella and bassetti into Hayden bass which finger and play very nicely! ... Of course you're still talking about a single instrument with two different fingering systems. Better than it started out with, but imagine how nice it would be to have Hayden on both ends.

That would seem to make a lot of sense. Have you not tried that, Rich? It seems to me that a standard CBA keyboard would be a natural to convert, as the button layout wouldn't have to be changed at all. (I guess both the reed locations and the coupling between buttons would, since I don't think it uses the same sort of coupling mechanism as the bass side, does it?)

We haven't converted the treble side of a CBA because we haven't been asked to yet (the customers were CBA proficent on the treble but wanted a better bass system). I would think that converting the treble side would be far more work than converting the bass side. The bass machine can be "reprogrammed" to play any note, and we wax in the extra range notes where they're needed. The bassetti is a very simple rearrangement of reeds on the blocks.

 

The treble side mechanism is "hardwired" and would have to be completely rebuilt with a lot of servolinks which translate 7 notes laterally rather than 1 note laterally (a simple join) as the CBA does.

The result on a 5x21-2 keyboard would give you 2½ octaves in the short direction, 3 octaves and a 3rd in the long direction, for a total range of 5 octaves and a 3rd.

With a Hayden, the octave "above" is the same notes as the octave to the "right", so a Haydenized CBA would have only 4 1/2 octaves of notes.

 

Also, the Hayden layout is a vertical one. Leaping 7 buttons to one side or the other as one is playing would be very difficult to do. The CBA is essentially a horizontal player. I'm not sure what size "sea" of buttons I'd use for a Hayden box if I had to build that end from scratch. Probably 10 or 11 wide and 8 high would let one play in every key identically (and modulate 3 keys in each direction easily without "falling off the end" with 3 1/2 octaves of notes which is pretty typical accordion treble range.

[JimLucas]

It seems to me that a standard CBA keyboard would be a natural to convert, as the button layout wouldn't have to be changed at all. (I guess both the reed locations and the coupling between buttons would, since I don't think it uses the same sort of coupling mechanism as the bass side, does it?)

I would think that converting the treble side would be far more work than converting the bass side. The bass machine can be "reprogrammed" to play any note, and we wax in the extra range notes where they're needed. ...

 

The treble side mechanism is "hardwired" and would have to be completely rebuilt with a lot of servolinks which translate 7 notes laterally rather than 1 note laterally (a simple join) as the CBA does.

That's sort of what I expected, though I hadn't thought as deep as the details. Makes me wonder whether it might be reasonable -- or even possible -- to use the same sort of "programmable" mechanism in the right hand side as in the left.

 

The result on a 5x21-2 keyboard would give you 2½ octaves in the short direction, 3 octaves and a 3rd in the long direction, for a total range of 5 octaves and a 3rd.

With a Hayden, the octave "above" is the same notes as the octave to the "right", so a Haydenized CBA would have only 4 1/2 octaves of notes.

??? A single C-D-E-F#-G#-Bb row extends over 3+ octaves (that's half the notes; the other half are in the next row "up"). So if I start from the low C and go to the right 3 octaves in the same row, then "up" two rows is another octave, and up two more rows takes me to a total coverage of 5 octaves, no? A 3-row CBA-style array would be 4+ octaves, but I said 5-row. I do notice, though that an edge condition is loss of full chromaticity at either end of the array.

 

Also, the Hayden layout is a vertical one. Leaping 7 buttons to one side or the other as one is playing would be very difficult to do.

More so than on a PA? Unlike on a concertina, on an accordion the hand is free to roam the entire length of the keyboard. For that matter, why would you want/need to do jump 7 buttons, except to deliberately jump an octave? What concept am I missing?

 

You say "the Hayden layout is a vertical one". But is it necessarily so? Conceptually I see its pattern extending indefinitely horizontally as well as vertically. It's the fixed hand position on the concertina that constrains it to be only (or primarily) vertical on that instrument. But on an accordion, it doesn't it make sense to have the primary extension horizontal?

[Richard Morse]

Makes me wonder whether it might be reasonable -- or even possible -- to use the same sort of "programmable" mechanism in the right hand side as in the left.

Actually it would be quite easy - Just put the bass sections from two accordions on either side of a bellows. It might even look something like this though I'd want one with more than 3 rows high.

The result on a 5x21-2 keyboard would give you 2½ octaves in the short direction, 3 octaves and a 3rd in the long direction, for a total range of 5 octaves and a 3rd.

With a Hayden, the octave "above" is the same notes as the octave to the "right", so a Haydenized CBA would have only 4 1/2 octaves of notes.

??? A single C-D-E-F#-G#-Bb row extends over 3+ octaves....

Oops! You're right. I counted wrong....

Also, the Hayden layout is a vertical one. Leaping 7 buttons to one side or the other as one is playing would be very difficult to do.

More so than on a PA? Unlike on a concertina, on an accordion the hand is free to roam the entire length of the keyboard. For that matter, why would you want/need to do jump 7 buttons, except to deliberately jump an octave? What concept am I missing?

I was thinking that most tunes DON'T jump 7 buttons but are some sort of progession, and as such it's easier for the pattern of notes to be closer to each other (and in "regular" places) than far away. While an accordion hand IS free to roam, it's probably easier NOT to. It's easier to jump an octave by going 2 notes over than by going 7 notes over.

You say "the Hayden layout is a vertical one". But is it necessarily so?

No, not necessarily, but intrinsically I believe it is. There are a lot of nice things about extending the sea horizontally too. Brian Hayden has shown me a drawing of a Hayden layout for organ which went on vertically AND horizontally for several octaves. One of the neatest (boy and I showing my age!) things about it was that that would enable you to play lower parts with your right hand and higher with your left, plus counterpoint in the same range with both hands.

[m3838]

Thanks Jody.

I read your posts with great interest.

Not that other people's posts are not interesting, but Jody's just stuck with me.

I think you have a very good style of expressing yourself.

It's disheartening though to hear that such masters find Anglo limiting in keys other from few "home" ones. I thought it's only mortals' destiny.

Darn!

I especially liked your comparison between Anglo and other instruments.

I was a bit surprized to read about similarity between players' arrangements.

Interesting what you think of Tom Lowrence's arrangements. (from the links' page), playing his A/E Edgley. Those stacatto chords. If they are to be extended and played your way, do you find them to be the same choice of harmony you're using?

[Boney]

I've added the Tedrow 52-key Hayden and a 55-Key Crane to the chart at the top of this thread.

[JimLucas]

I've added the Tedrow 52-key Hayden and a 55-Key Crane to the chart at the top of this thread.

By the way, are those anglo charts for the Wheatstone or Jeffries standard layout?

[Ivan Viehoff]

The most common kinds of Maccann are 46 key, you also commonly get 39 key.

The most common kinds of Crane is 48 key, you also commonly get 42 and 35 key

The most common kind of Hayden is the Stagi 46-key.

 

Their ranges (and some others) are described in verbal terms

here

[JimLucas]

The most common kinds of Maccann are 46 key, you also commonly get 39 key.

The most common kinds of Crane is 48 key, you also commonly get 42 and 35 key

The most common kind of Hayden is the Stagi 46-key.

And the most common kind of anglo is the 20 key.

But I don't think it's the kind most commonly aspired to.

I think the same goes for the above duets.

[inventor]

For a recently made Chromatic button accordion in concertina form see Don Severs Ergon concept. I got there via Accordionlinks.com then go to instruments - then chromatic button accordion then Don Severs, and go to the bottom of the page. No doubt some clever clogs will put up the way of going there more directly . I can see a way of modifying this to play 3.5 octaves on the right hand side (5 and 2 half rows) which should be enough for most people. as few as seven or eight links sharps to flats would be enough to play in 9 or 10 of the most comonly used keys without awkward fingerings. In addition as the octaves are above each other inside the instrument it should be possible to "borrow" ranks of reeds as was commonly done on cinema organs.

You will find the diagram for the equivalent of the standard 41 note accordion in the Hayden Patent 2131592. which is on one of the concertina websites.

As Rich Morse has pointed out the Left hand side should be no problem. Many years ago whilst waiting 6and a half years for Crabbs to make me my first Hayden concertina, I converted the right hand side of an accordion I had but no longer played, to Hayden system. This accordion I had originally been a B/C/C# British Chromatic had twice been converted to two different ideas of Bisonic systems. It wasn't too much problem. It had a Stradella bass which I was totally familiar with, however now after many years of a totally flexible bass end I would not like to go back to that again.

 

Inventor.