English Concertina Question

[Austin]

Hello, I'm new to concertina's and I've been looking for an English one to start on. (And haven't been having much luck in my area, actually, it's mostly Anglo models.) Anyway, I was wondering about a peculiarity that I noticed while attempting to play 2 different Stagi's at a music store. One was a 30 button, and the other was a 48. To my understanding, once you find C, you just use the middle two rows and walk your self right up the scale, alternating sides, of course. But with both of these, once I got to the 4th note, (F) it seemed very flat. So, I went to what I thought should be F#, and it sounded just fine in the scale. Is it normal with these Stagis to have to go outside the main (middle) two rows just to play a scale?

[David Barnert]

This does not seem to make any sense. The 4th note of a standard major scale is only a half step higher than (that is, it is adjacent to) the 3rd note. There is no "black note" between them. If you've found a note that seems to be intermediate in pitch between what sound like the 3rd and 4th notes of a scale, (and you're hearing it on more than one instrument) then you must be hearing something incorrectly.

 

Make sure you are really starting on C. Sing along with your playing. Then play and sing D, then E. Listen to the E.

 

Then play F, and go back & forth between E and F a few times. It should only be a half step, two notes as near in pitch as they can be without being the same note, like the alternating notes at the beginning of Beethoven's "Für Elise."

 

Try the C and the F one after the other. It should be a perfect 4th, like the notes at the beginning of Taps or Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."

 

Does this help?

[Austin]

You're right, it should only be a half step, and I could actually have just been hearing things, but the woman in the shop was also telling me that it wasn't the right note. =/ It was also strange because she told me one was used and the other was new. Although, they both looked worn to me.

 

I dunno, maybe I am crazy and wasn't actually finding a C. My ears aren't trained nearly as well as I'd like them to be.

 

But in the meantime here, after going through some older posts, I've decided to stay away from Stagi (especially a used one) and start on a Jackie. So hopefully I won't have crazy problems with that. Thanks a lot for your help, though.

[Tom Permutt]

I dunno, maybe I am crazy and wasn't actually finding a C.

That wouldn't explain it, though. There is nowhere you could start on a diatonic scale and have the fourth degree be flat.

 

If you started on F, though, the fourth would be sharp a half step, and the key beside it (b-flat) would be correct. Did you really mean "flat" in the sense of _below_ the correct pitch (in which case, as David says, there's nothing in could be but out of tune), or just _not right_? Could it have been above (sharp)?

[Austin]

Now that I look at a fingering chart, I definitely did not find a C, because I had it in my head to start the scale on the right side for some reason. And you're right, it could have very well just sounded not right, and not specifically flat. In fact, looking at this, it does look like I was starting on an F and then getting to that B you're talking about.

[lildogturpy]

My first EC was a very cheap chinese knock off model with a quirk that really confused me when I switched to a wheatstone. The button layout looked like the standard button layout except the buttons were spaced much wider but the f# and f buttons were reversed. This meant you could start on G and walk up the middle buttons and play a major scale.