Miniature Concertina Designs

[d.elliott]

So, what keyboard layouts have people seen for miniature concertinas? Obviously, there are the miniature englishes, but there are also miniature anglos, and I have heard of minature duets.

 

--Dave

 

 

Don't be so dissmisive of the English system miniatures, I know you are an anglocan but you can still learn a lot from the English system miniature's development. my English is either 2.5 or 2.75 is A/F, I cannot remember and its not accessible to measure where I am now.

 

Its main design features:

 

1. it annoys dogs, all the reeds are small and the instrument plays 3 octaves up. 1st stage of miniaturisation

 

2. it has limited keys, 12 keys not 48, so it has a limited compass and limited musical keys that it can be played in: 2nd stage of miniaturisation

 

3. it has no thumbstraps or finger slides, it relies on the player's grip and leather loops for holding: 3rd element in miniaturisations

 

4. its action layout is at best unconventional: another element in miniaturisations

 

5. it has 12 or so folds to its bellows to have enough air for playing, a bye-product of miniaturisations

 

6. the key spacing and sizes are as expected for easy of playability & transition

 

There are two real down sides: it is so clear on sound and piercing that any error in play is easily spotted by the tone deaf at a distance of 800 yards, tuning is a bugger, the reads are like filing baking foil.

 

So:

• keep on with the planning of a limited compass instrument with a minimum of keys
  
• raise the pitch as high as you can get away with
  
• re-consider your holding arrangement
  
• don't get hung up on action layout
  
• increase the number of folds for air volume
  
• keep the key spacing
  

 

 

Hope that this brief analysis helps, but don't worry, its not your fault that you play Anglo, we English players are always ready to help you know (sorry)

 

If you want to go miniature, you can always switch system, AND we also have big Bass instruments, I have handled one 30 inches across the points

 

best wishes for the new year

 

Dave E

[Hooves]

Samantha, isn't this exactly the design your Russian friend was planning on using for his Haydens but it turned out that unless he made each individual reed by hand, there was no other way to get reeds?

 

Nonsense!

 

just use a bloody harmonica reed plate.

 

Its small, cheap, and mounted in the little box will probably sound enough like a concertina to satisfy your cravings for a tiny tina.

[david_boveri]

i know a guy whose been working on an article about miniature concertinas, and has a small collection. i have played at leaste 4 or 5 of his miniatures. i know two or three anglos, one or two englishes, and maybe a duet or two. i'm not sure... it's hard to recall which ones i have played, and i have no idea how many he has.

 

i'll ask him if he has the time to share with us/me some/all of the layouts.

[david_boveri]

How do you get a miniature anglo to be really playable given the need for rapid bellows directions?

i have played both anglo and english, and i find them both equally playable. my friend whose miniatures i had told me that he wanted to special order a newly made english, because he thought the miniature anglos were equivalent to toys. but after i spent a minute or two with them, i was able to play full tunes on all of the ones he had. of course noel hill made an easy go at them as well, and a friend of mine who was younger than me was able to pick out some stuff as well.

 

the only thing that made the anglos not fully playable was that they were missing an accidental i wanted, i believe. this was because they had repeated repeated notes. in desigining a new layout, we talked about getting rid of those extra notes.

 

 

 

QUOTE (goran rahm @ Dec 3 2003, 02:33 PM)

 

I never played my miniatures until I put on thumbstraps, (little) finger rests AND wriststraps on them.Wriststrap first of all and they are easiest to arrange but fingers tend to slip at push all the same so the thumbstrap and finger rest add a lot to it.

 

The only Anglo player I know who performs in public with a miniature is Noel Hill, he uses a wriststrap on his and that obviouisly works very well for him.

 

noel hill does not have a wrist strap on his miniature! he has thumb straps only. the ones i have played either had zero or one thumb strap. i think one thumb strap is sufficient, though i'm not sure i'd turn down having two! interestingly enough, from my limited experience playing miniatures without straps, i can play the full sized anglo without straps pretty well. the only thing i have to work on is the air button, and i almost have that down--i use my pointer finger.

[david fabre]

I saw on his web site that A.C. Norman has designed a 13 key miniature anglo.

( http://www.acnorman.co.uk/ )

Has anybody an idea of the layout ?

[Takayuki YAGI]

On 2/3/2009 at 4:27 AM, david fabre said:

I saw on his web site that A.C. Norman has designed a 13 key miniature anglo.

( http://www.acnorman.co.uk/ )

Has anybody an idea of the layout ?

I own one of his miniatures. The core layout is C row of C/G anglo and with C#/F# accidental on LHS, c#/f# and c#'/d' on RHS.