bisonoric english system concertina

[david_boveri]

as an anglo player, i am always intrigued by the chromatic nature of the english concertina, yet i am taken aback by the utter waste of reeds it takes to make a unisonoric concertina. ideally, i imagine an english concertina in C as per usual on the pull, but then another key on the push. i would imagine B might be the best idea, so that you could get chromaticism even easier, but perhaps another key may be easier to facilitate arpeggios etc.

 

i know that english players are happy with their system, and that it would cause changes in phrasing, adaptability, and necessitate an air button (which not all english system concertinas have). what i am really wondering, then, is has anyone seen an instrument like this, either retro-fitted or originally manufactured to be like this?

[haimson]

As a person who has never been able to wrap his brain around the in-out paradigm, I find your idea deeply disturbing! How would you feel about a unisonoric anglo? (Is that what you'd call a Hayden?)

 

I agree that from an engineering point of view, duplicating all the reeds to get the same note both ways is inelegant. I assume the alternatives have all been explored and rejected, but sometimes I wonder...

 

David Haimson

[TonyRussell]

Wouldn't that be an "Anglo" with a different button arrangement ? I play mono and bi-sonorics, so can see your point of view, but it is looking at the EC from the wrong angle/o .

You're right to point out the advantages of EC that would be lost and for others reading your thread here's "for instances". To play a series of staccato notes (like the start of Trumpet hornpipe/Pugwash) you can change the bellows rapidly instead of popping the button (that's how the EC old timers would teach you to do it), so the double reeds are not always wasted. Also it's a completely chromatic instrument and, although some keys need some thought to get right (one's that have more than 4 sharps or flats, so Bmaj. is one of them, although good readers in the old band used to rattle off C# at sight ) you can play in any key as it is so a different "home" key wouldn't be a huge bonus. Again, ECs were originally intended to cover the range of violin to play (mostly) popular classical parlour pieces.

Actually, transposing ECs have been made - where you play the buttons that should give key of C but it comes out as (say) Bb - but the reason for them is speculative; maybe to fit in with Bb/Eb brass? In the concertina bands it was common to write the baritone and bass parts on a treble stave so we didn't need to learn the bass clef, so I suppose that was transposing of a sort?

Talking of bass, this might count as something like what you've envisaged? I used to play a single action bass EC and have also met with single action baritones. All reeds play on push only, when you (nearly) run out of air you rive the bellows open before the next note is due - there's a number of big one way clack-valves to help so there's almost no resistance - it cut down on the weight of the bass reeds but I doubt it would be practical for tenor/treble music .

Gosh, have I gone on a bit? Tony

[TonyRussell]

Dick - I don't understand, is that sarcasm? T.

[Stephen Chambers]

How would you feel about a unisonoric anglo? (Is that what you'd call a Hayden?)

No, it exists and it's called a Jeffries duet...

[Daniel Hersh]

Though I believe that the original Hayden was a modified Jeffries Duet...I play Anglo and have been playing around with a Hayden Elise and there are several parallels between the systems.

 

But I find the idea of a bisonoric English a bit terrifying -- sort of the worst of both worlds, at least for the way my brain works.

 

How would you feel about a unisonoric anglo? (Is that what you'd call a Hayden?)

No, it exists and it's called a Jeffries duet...

[Henrik Müller]

...

...

...

...

for goodness sake,get me a padded cell.

Preferably with a bar...

[yankeeclipper]

"Bisonoric English concertina"

 

Sounds like a buffalo with sleep apnea.

Edited August 12, 2009 by yankeeclipper

[david_boveri]

As a person who has never been able to wrap his brain around the in-out paradigm, I find your idea deeply disturbing! How would you feel about a unisonoric anglo? (Is that what you'd call a Hayden?)

 

I agree that from an engineering point of view, duplicating all the reeds to get the same note both ways is inelegant. I assume the alternatives have all been explored and rejected, but sometimes I wonder...

 

David Haimson

 

a unisonoric anglo does not bother me! it's just not terribly effective. if you look at jones' 1884 patent for a 40 button anglo, 13 out of 40 buttons are unisonoric! so clearly the idea is not so foreign. i have never played such a concertina, but i am very curious as to the benefits of it as opposed to more usual 30+ layouts.

 

assuming that the alternatives have been rejected is quite an assumption!

 

there have been english concertinas which could only play in one direction. i can't recall which direction it was, but i know i have heard of them. one direction was for playing notes and the other was for getting air.

 

it just seems to me with all the strange mutations people try with concertinas that this one would have been tried. i can't think of a use for it yet, but there might be one.

[yankeeclipper]

there have been english concertinas which could only play in one direction. i can't recall which direction it was, but i know i have heard of them. one direction was for playing notes and the other was for getting air.

 

The big bass ECs are single-action as you describe. Because the huge reeds require great volumes of air, the instrument only sounds on the push and catches its breath on the pull. The bass ECs I've heard have deep, magnificent sound, but labor a bit under the limitations of single action.

 

Unlike Anglo concertinas, the more conventional ECs free the music from the restrictions of bellows direction. I cannot see any reason to discard that advantage!

Edited August 13, 2009 by yankeeclipper

[Hooves]

ah yes the English Concertina,

 

if you play it long enough it becomes Bisonoric.

[david_boveri]

there have been english concertinas which could only play in one direction. i can't recall which direction it was, but i know i have heard of them. one direction was for playing notes and the other was for getting air.

 

The big bass ECs are single-action as you describe. Because the huge reeds require great volumes of air, the instrument only sounds on the push and catches its breath on the pull. The bass ECs I've heard have deep, magnificent sound, but labor a bit under the limitations of single action.

 

Unlike Anglo concertinas, the more conventional ECs free the music from the restrictions of bellows direction. I cannot see any reason to discard that advantage!

 

thanks for the clarification. i have not yet figured out how it would not cause more problems than advantages, but it just seems to me that some other daft soul such as myself would have made such an instrument or modified another instrument. it is surprising to here that we have all sorts of inventive changes on anglos, duets, and even whole new layouts, but that this particular idea would not have been tried.

[JimLucas]

as an anglo player, i am always intrigued by the chromatic nature of the english concertina, yet i am taken aback by the utter waste of reeds it takes to make a unisonoric concertina.

"bisonoric english system concertina" = oxymoron

May as well talk about a bicycle with 4-wheel drive. Or simply call an anglo "English system". Doesn't make it so, though.

 

Your concern about duplication is interesting, but I don't see your attempts to "avoid" it as useful.

ideally, i imagine an english concertina in C as per usual on the pull, but then another key on the push. i would imagine B might be the best idea, so that you could get chromaticism even easier, but perhaps another key may be easier to facilitate arpeggios etc.

Since the English is already fully chromatic in both directions, that suggestion wouldn't make "chromaticism" any easier. And the layout already makes arpeggios about as easy as possible, in any key and even when they aren't simple chords. Ask yourself, if you have all the notes in one (either) direction, how would being able to reverse the bellows to get some notes in a different location make things "easier"?

 

What's more, that suggestion neither reduces the total number of reeds nor increases the number of notes available in either direction. (Because the second key would be shifted from the first, it would add a few notes at one end of the range, but at the expense of subtracting the same number of notes at the other end, and both the added and subtracted notes would then be available in only one direction.)

 

What does reduce the number of reeds -- by half -- is making a "single-action" English, i.e., with reeds for only one direction. Such instruments weren't as common as double-action, but common enough that many of them still exist. I've played on a few. See my next post.

 

i know that english players are happy with their system, and that it would cause changes in phrasing, adaptability, and necessitate an air button (which not all english system concertinas have). what i am really wondering, then, is has anyone seen an instrument like this, either retro-fitted or originally manufactured to be like this?

I've never even heard of anyone else considering the idea. And for good reason, I would say.

[JimLucas]

Wouldn't that be an "Anglo" with a different button arrangement ?

Nope.

Wouldn't be either an anglo or an English. So different that it deserves its own name if one insists on giving it a short name instead of simply describing it to avoid confusion.

 

...although some keys need some thought to get right (one's that have more than 4 sharps or flats, so Bmaj. is one of them, although good readers in the old band used to rattle off C# at sight ) you can play in any key as it is so a different "home" key wouldn't be a huge bonus.

A detail: That's more than 4 sharps or 3 flats.

 

And the "some thought" that's required is knowing the equivalence between the various sharps and flats, since (e.g.) both G# and Ab are located where they fit the "standard" alternating-and-walking pattern of the "common" keys, but Gb and A# have to be mentally "replaced" by F# and Bb... until one gets used to doing so and no longer needs to think about it.

 

you can play in any key as it is so a different "home" key wouldn't be a huge bonus. ....

 

Actually, transposing ECs have been made - where you play the buttons that should give key of C but it comes out as (say) Bb - but the reason for them is speculative; maybe to fit in with Bb/Eb brass? In the concertina bands it was common to write the baritone and bass parts on a treble stave so we didn't need to learn the bass clef, so I suppose that was transposing of a sort?

Not so speculative. Trumpets are normally pitched in Bb, so that when one plays what is written as a C, the pitch produced is Bb. Regular clarinets and soprano and tenor saxophones are also normally in Bb, while alto clarinets and alto and baritone saxes are in Eb. So it makes sense that concertinas made specifically to play from "brass" band parts would also be tuned to obtain the same shift.

 

As for baritone (including trombone) and bass parts written in the treble clef, that's a separate issue. When written in bass clef, parts for those instruments are written non-transposed, but when written in treble clef they are written transposed. So to sound the note C (e.g.), in the bass clef it would be written as a C, but in the treble clef it would be written as a D, though the fingering (slide position) would be exactly the same. I don't know why.

 

Talking of bass, this might count as something like what you've envisaged? I used to play a single action bass EC and have also met with single action baritones. All reeds play on push only, when you (nearly) run out of air you rive the bellows open before the next note is due - there's a number of big one way clack-valves to help so there's almost no resistance - it cut down on the weight of the bass reeds but I doubt it would be practical for tenor/treble music .

These have been mentioned is past threads. The valves are normally in the lower panels of the bellows, consisting of almost the entire panel, and there are several of them. The result is that even on a bass concertina, the bellows can be pulled entirely open from a nearly closed position in a small fraction of a second... no more time -- maybe less -- than a good singer requires to take a breath. (At least one member here has such an instrument, as well as a standard double-action English. Maybe she'll tell us what it's like to play?) While I enjoy the double-action nature of my Englishes, single action shouldn't be impractical even in a treble. After all, a flute isn't considered to be "impractical" simply because the flautist needs to breathe occasionally.

 

Again, ECs were originally intended to cover the range of violin to play (mostly) popular classical parlour pieces.

Again, I feel the urge to correct this common misconception.

While the 48-button treble version of the English concertina may have been developed as an instrument that could play music written for the violin, Wheatstone's earliest (i.e., original) Englishes had far fewer buttons and had a range that missed the bottom of the violin's range by quite a bit.