The Virtual Concertina

[Daniel Hersh]

It's here. Kind of a cute idea, and I don't think it's been mentioned here before. It might actually be useful for someone who wants to get a sense of the English layout and would like to hear the notes for each button rather than just read lines on a staff.

 

Daniel

[JimLucas]

It's here. Kind of a cute idea, and I don't think it's been mentioned here before. It might actually be useful for someone who wants to get a sense of the English layout and would like to hear the notes for each button rather than just read lines on a staff.

Great fun, but I'm having trouble getting St. Anne's Reel up to speed.

[JimLucas]

It's here. Kind of a cute idea, and I don't think it's been mentioned here before. It might actually be useful for someone who wants to get a sense of the English layout and would like to hear the notes for each button rather than just read lines on a staff.

Great fun, but I'm having trouble getting St. Anne's Reel up to speed.

[Samantha]

But someone clever enough could do something similar for a 30 button anglo using the computer keyboard to map the notes. Now THAT would be a very useful resource indeed!

Samantha

[Mark Evans]

Great fun, but I'm having trouble getting St. Anne's Reel up to speed.

 

Ah Jim, you gave me a good laugh with that one. I could just see you whippin' that mouse back and forth.

[Theodore Kloba]

But someone clever enough could do something similar for a 30 button anglo using the computer keyboard to map the notes.

I tried once, but the keyboard broke in half on the draw. Also the hand straps got in the way when I was typing.

[PeterT]

but I'm having trouble getting St. Anne's Reel up to speed.

The Doppler effect is a bit tricky, too!

[Henrik Müller]

But someone clever enough could do something similar for a 30 button anglo using the computer keyboard to map the notes. Now THAT would be a very useful resource indeed!

Samantha

I am tempted - but not now. We can take the idea through a spin in October, your place. Press = press key, pull is press key + modifier key. Which? Space?

/Henrik

[JimLucas]

But someone clever enough could do something similar for a 30 button anglo using the computer keyboard to map the notes. Now THAT would be a very useful resource indeed!

Bellows reversals would be a serious problem, simply because doing anything with your hands/fingers to indicate bellows direction would be an awkward intrusion that is entirely different from how an anglo actually works.

 

A foot-pedal switch might do the job, but that seems not to be common item with current PC's.

 

If the program could track and sum note durations in both "directions", then it could set limits on how far to go. Then an "air button" would be required, but that's easy, since the space bar lies naturally under the thumb.

[David Barnert]

Anybody know what they used for a sound source? Doesn't sound like concertina reeds to me.

 

Edited for typo.

Edited April 9, 2006 by David Barnert

[m3838]

"Bellows reversals would be a serious problem"

 

I would disagree here. Not any more difficult, then operating the belows. Actually easier.

I'd suggest using the space bar for bellows direction.

I'd be very interested in using the komputer keyboard as a learning tool.

Most of us spend quite a time behind the keyboard, and while searching the Net (I mean, working), we can check out some tunes, quickly test the fingering etc. For example, when Dick Miles suggests some rolls or scale with flatted 7ths, we can quickly test it on our keyboard.

The systems can vary, it can be English, Anglo or Duet. Sure it's not the real thing, but an approximation, good enough to even practice some scales and fingering exercizes away from the instrument.

An extention of this can be a program, employing two keyboards. They're cheap, come in various sizes. Two short keyboards, hooked to one computer, can be very interesting sulution to lack of practice time or noise problem.

Two keyboards can make a good Hayden with 4 octaves range, or any other system yiou can imagine, even a CBA B system, a Chemnitzer, even the piano (although it's a stretch and there are piano keyboards easily available).

[JimLucas]

Bellows reversals would be a serious problem...

I would disagree here. Not any more difficult, then operating the belows. Actually easier.

I'd suggest using the space bar for bellows direction.

What I tried to say was not that it would be more difficult to use the space bar to simulate bellows reversal, but that it would give a false impression of what it feels like to play an anglo, because you would be using the fingers (or thumbs) for something quite different from what they're used for on a real anglo, and it could interfere with the normal use of the fingers for playing notes, thus making it seem harder to play than it is.

 

Of course, if somebody actually creates the program, we could find out whether I'm right or wrong by trying it.

 

By the way, I think a Dvorak keyboard might produce a better simulation, since the keys for the two hands are separated.

[geoffwright]

Why would anyone want a "virtual-anglo" when you can play "air-anglo". Mine is that loud it still upsets the family.