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Thummer?


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Looks interesting, although I'm a big supporter of acoustic music (non-synthesized/sampled) I think it would be a nice little device to play around with. I'm always thinking of tools for live solo playing, I had even contemplated a one handed/ended concertina (thanks to the BAD concertina thread), but a MIDI based controller would still be useful, and may actaully provide more textures for a modern audience.

 

I'm thinking more of an analog type sound, though I thought the horn demos were pretty good.

 

I think the joy stick controllers on the side are a good idea. I saw in the video him shaking it, motion sensors would be great for adding musical as well as visual expression.

 

(in fact I always thought it would be great to be a cartoon conductor: where the charctor is doing all sorts of motions and genertating dynamics and phrases)

 

There was mention on the other thread of other concepts I found equally intriguing: such as the chromatic staff - I had never even heard of the chromatic staff, so will look into it further.

 

If they had a "Thummer" ready to go, and it wasn't an arm and a leg, I would try it out. On the Thumbtronics site's forum, another similiar device called a"Jammer" was mentioned, with some basic instructions on building it. Basically, the author took an existign MIDI keyboard, and rearranged and rebuilt the keys.

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Looks interesting, although I'm a big supporter of acoustic music (non-synthesized/sampled) I think it would be a nice little device to play around with. I'm always thinking of tools for live solo playing, I had even contemplated a one handed/ended concertina (thanks to the BAD concertina thread), but a MIDI based controller would still be useful, and may actually provide more textures for a modern audience.

 

I'm thinking more of an analog type sound, though I thought the horn demos were pretty good.

I'm the guy who started the BAD thread, and I also got pretty excited about the Thummer keyboard, since it's a Hayden/Wicki Duet layout, meaning a few of us could really play it straight out of the box.

 

You're right; a MIDI output can be directed to synthesize any kind of musical (?) sound. I think a big cathedral pipe organ played by a little duet 'tina is a grand idea ...

I think the joy stick controllers on the side are a good idea. I saw in the video him shaking it, motion sensors would be great for adding musical as well as visual expression.

 

(in fact I always thought it would be great to be a cartoon conductor: where the character is doing all sorts of motions and generating dynamics and phrases)

I think there are already musical "games" like that for the Wii console. If not, someone should create them! Years ago, a scientist and musician at Bell Labs did interface a sort of conductor's wand to a computer, allowing for expressive control of dynamics and tempo.

There was mention on the other thread of other concepts I found equally intriguing: such as the chromatic staff - I had never even heard of the chromatic staff, so will look into it further.

 

If they had a "Thummer" ready to go, and it wasn't an arm and a leg, I would try it out.

When last I looked, the Thummer people were not unbundling the instrument to sell by itself, but were presenting it as a part of a whole package of new concepts in music education adn theory. SOme of these are good. But I/we just want to get our hands on the box!

On the Thumbtronics site's forum, another similar device called a"Jammer" was mentioned, with some basic instructions on building it. Basically, the author took an existing MIDI keyboard, and rearranged and rebuilt the keys.

That's one way to do it -- hack a cheap electronic keyboard. But you can buy the electronic circuit card and neatly wire up your own matrix of buttons, as someone did to make a Mini MIDI Hayden, in a thread on this forum (no, I can't find it right now nor know how to quote it).

--Mike K.

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You're right; a MIDI output can be directed to synthesize any kind of musical (?) sound. I think a big cathedral pipe organ played by a little duet 'tina is a grand idea ...

Take it from me, playing cathedral organ on a little anglo 'tina is a bit of a gas too!

 

Chris

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I think there are already musical "games" like that for the Wii console. If not, someone should create them! Years ago, a scientist and musician at Bell Labs did interface a sort of conductor's wand to a computer, allowing for expressive control of dynamics and tempo.

 

Take a look at this :lol:

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I think there are already musical "games" like that for the Wii console. If not, someone should create them! Years ago, a scientist and musician at Bell Labs did interface a sort of conductor's wand to a computer, allowing for expressive control of dynamics and tempo.

 

Take a look at this :lol:

 

 

I'm somewhere between amazed and offended - that was great. Just goes to show how much you can get with just a few buttons. Neat stuff.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi there, I heard my work was mentioned here, I'm Ken Rushton, aka MusicScienceGuy; I've built a couple of jammers like the Thummer that Jim P. is trying to get financing for. I've put on my blog reasonably detailed instructions on how to make a gig-grade jammer from a M-Audio 88es conventional keyboard. Cost is circa $400 plus 3 fairly solid weekends of work (possibly less).

 

But! I need advice:

(1) I've been learning how to play them, where would I best go to for info on how to learn to play a wicki-Hayden layout?

(2) are there any downsides / gotchas to the design I should know about?

(3) anything I can improve?

(4) Where in concertina.Net should I post questions like this?

(5) I'm thinking of starting up a Google discussion group for Jammer nuts. Is this the best place to do so?

If you can help me, I'd appreciate it, and would love to give you credit.

 

Thank you for your time, and I hope I'm not intruding.

Ken, MSG

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Hi there, I heard my work was mentioned here, I'm Ken Rushton, aka MusicScienceGuy; I've built a couple of jammers like the Thummer that Jim P. is trying to get financing for. I've put on my blog reasonably detailed instructions on how to make a gig-grade jammer from a M-Audio 88es conventional keyboard. Cost is circa $400 plus 3 fairly solid weekends of work (possibly less).

 

But! I need advice:

(1) I've been learning how to play them, where would I best go to for info on how to learn to play a wicki-Hayden layout?

(2) are there any downsides / gotchas to the design I should know about?

(3) anything I can improve?

(4) Where in concertina.Net should I post questions like this?

(5) I'm thinking of starting up a Google discussion group for Jammer nuts. Is this the best place to do so?

If you can help me, I'd appreciate it, and would love to give you credit.

 

Thank you for your time, and I hope I'm not intruding.

Ken, MSG

 

 

Sounds like a job for Mr. Hayden himself, whom I beleive is a member of this vary forum. The Sister site Concertina.com also ahs some info on the Hayden duet i believe, but I have not gone very far intot he hayden system myself, though the concept behind the Hayden system seems well devised, seeing as Mr. Hayden studied all known main-stream duet systems.

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(1) I've been learning how to play them, where would I best go to for info on how to learn to play a wicki-Hayden *concertina* layout?
Where the most people are playing them (in real-life) is at the Northeast Squeeze-In which usually fields a half dozen Hayden players and the Northeast Concertina Workshop which often has workshop classes in playing Hayden (as well as players of course!). Not much on-line about how-to-play them though the most comprehensive site on Haydens is Concertina.com. Be sure to check out the system's playability observations by Robert Gaskins about halfway down the page in this article. Please note that people have differing views on this topic, and mine vary considerably from his. There has been considerable discussion on the various fingerings one uses with Hayden here on concertina.net. Here is the link to one of them.
(2) are there any downsides / gotchas to the design I should know about?
That depends upon your viewpoint. Two of the most often-mentioned limitations arfe that one cannot play in many keys as the hand is restricted by the handstrap, and that the instrument is key-limited due to size... you see what I mean? But it looks like you're considering a non-hand-restricted keyboard without size limitation so these wouldn't be an impediment in such a case.

 

Another is that some people feel that the slant of the buttons could be improved upon. Again - this is a concertina-keyboard specific issue (though I've seen some sketches Brian Hayden created for a Hayden organ which ergonomically had the keys arranged in a simile).

 

Many people have brought up the difficulty of having half-notes so far apart though personally I find this to be a moot thing as the type of music I play doesn't have a lot of long chromatic runs or a lot of enchordial major/minor combinations (like is common in middle eastern music to switch back and forth rapidly between Dm and Dmaj in a piece). Actually both situations are pretty easy to deal with when the hand is free. In fact it's easier to play very long chromatic runs on a Hayden than on a typical piano keyboard as the intervals are regular.

(3) anything I can improve?
From what starting point? Looks like you've put a lot of effort into getting where you are. While I've never made a unit like yours, I have Haydenized my computer keyboard and worked out a few cardboard keyboards to "air-play" with the thoughts of working out ideal key size, shapes, and key ranges. I did that many years ago and now can't find the stuff, but I do remember that I ended up favoring rounded-hex keys that were the same size and spacing as the "standard" piano accordion keyboard (which is a little smaller than a piano keyboard), and such that each row away from you was raised only slightly higher (more like a stepped button accordion's keyboard rather than the height difference between the white and black keys of a piano keyboard).

 

I found that I liked the range of keys more compact that horizontally spread out: a sea of 24W x 8H to cover an 88-note range. Yeah, lots of enharmonic duplications.... so be it! But the thing I liked about it is that it allows me to play in higher range with my left hand and lower on my right. Lot's of flexibility there! Also it'd be more compact for carrying places (speaking as one who's transported enough of piano keyboards in a small car).

(4) Where in concertina.Net should I post questions like this?
This is probably the best spot for starters though the "Teaching and Learning" section may be a bit more appropriate.
(5) I'm thinking of starting up a Google discussion group for Jammer nuts. Is this the best place to do so?
Probably not as we're into concertinas and what you're into is a specific keyboard system/design for unsecured hands. You would probably have more traffic at a Thummer event or one of the many Chromatone sites.

 

Actually, checking out Chromatone would give you some ideas on how they developed their instruments. You can see/hear a lot of them played on Youtube.com. Someplace there's a page of demos which is absolutely mindboggling... which I can't seem to google up at the moment. If you're wondering why the uppermost row is those flat skinny keys, that's for doing glissando's.

 

-- Rich --

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Sounds like a job for Mr. Hayden himself, whom I beleive is a member of this vary forum. The Sister site Concertina.com also ahs some info on the Hayden duet i believe, but I have not gone very far intot he hayden system myself, though the concept behind the Hayden system seems well devised, seeing as Mr. Hayden studied all known main-stream duet systems.

Thanks, I wonder if he'll be pleased at the direction that I've taken his idea, or agast!. His idea is more than "well devised", as I tried to show in a music theory posting; it matches the way we hear and compose music.

So I hope he'll be kind. What is his non-de-plume in this forum?

Ken.

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