Hayden Duet vs Anglo?

[SqueezeCat]

At the suggestion of Jeff, I'm posting an email I'd sent and the received response on the a question of Hayden Duet vs Anglo. . .

 

 

-------Original Message-------

From: Lloyd

Subject: Hayden Duet?

Sent: Oct 03 '09 1:45pm

 

Hello Jeff,

 

Thought I'd be in touch directly, rather than starting a discussion thread on concertina.net, as you're someone who is known for playing both the Anglo and the Hayden. I'm hoping you can offer some advice and thoughts on the matter.

 

I've been playing Anglo for about four years now. At the moment I have one of Wim's A4s, which is the instrument I spend most of my time with. I've also acquired a G/D rebuilt by Wim from a derelict Crabb. (This one is very light, and plays like a C/G.) Also on the shelf is a 46 key Jeffries Anglo--which looks like it was originally a Jeffries Duet.

 

In the past year or so I've been playing tunes in the 'near' keys (D and F on the C/G) rather than transposing. And, just recently have started to look at more chromatic French popular tunes from the 50s--some of which require quite a bit of acrobatics across the Anglo keyboard. (Easier on the 46 keys!)

 

I have a spot on Wim's waiting list for a new instrument, and had been intending to replace the Jeffries with one of his 39 key Anglos. As I'm starting to play more chromatic music, I'm beginning to think that maybe a Hayden might be useful to contemplate.

 

Most of your recent YouTube videos appear to be your Hayden, so I'm guessing that you prefer it over your Anglo? Can you make any comments about the differences between playing the two instruments? Important issues I should consider?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

My best,

Lloyd

 

 

 

 

-------Reply Message-------

 

From: Jeff Lefferts

Subject: Re: Hayden Duet?

Date: 5 October 2009 2:33:07 am BST

 

 

Well, this might be of more general interest...if you feel like posting your note and my reply to concertina.net, feel free. You might get more perspectives.

 

Yeah, I've pretty much stopped playing the Anglo. It just doesn't seem to make sense to put in the time to play two instruments with such a similar sound. I think the Anglo has an advantage playing bouncy tunes with basic accompaniment, and arranging for the Anglo gives certain challenges which stretches my musical thinking and yields interesting results. But the duet makes so many more things possible. If you want to play several different styles, and play satisfying self-accompaniment, I think duet's the only way to go. Another one of the biggest advantages of the Hayden, for me, is the regular layout. I felt many times on the Anglo like notes were scattered about every which way, and it really seemed to keep me from getting an intuitive feel for tunes and chords.

 

There are downsides to the duet. First of all, it's more difficult -- probably mainly because more complex arrangements are possible, so I feel compelled to play them. Playing with both hands at once isn't easy for me, and has required LOTS of practice. If you don't have a lot of free time and motivation, it might be better to stick with the Anglo. Also, it's easy to fall into a monotonous sound, changing bellows direction as infrequently as possible, never giving the bellows a good "punch." At least having played Anglo has given me the ability (and desire) to work quick bellows changes in to create ornaments or emphasis. The concertina has a limited tone palette, so every little trick helps. But I feel my playing isn't as jaunty as it would be on Anglo, and I'm working on that.

 

With a 46-key instrument, I still often have to transpose tunes into a suitable range. I like arranging and adapting music written for other instruments, but if you don't, you might not like the duet. You can improvise basic chords and bass notes, but I think the duet's strength is in making arrangements which fully utilize the instrument. Me, I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface. Even so, I'd like more buttons! If you usually play with other people, your arrangements can be (probably even should be) less complex, and the Anglo again might be more suitable.

 

Overall, I'd have been happy sticking with Anglo (especially if I had a 36-or-more button G/D), but the duet allows me to go more in the direction I'd like to. I hope to continue trying to keep some of the quirky, dynamic nature of the Anglo in my playing.

 

--- JL

[J Werner]

Thanks for posting this! It's a helpful conversation and I'm looking forward to other comments. I'm buying my first concertina, and I think it will be a Hayden! I've enjoyed Jeff's posts on youtube, and I appreciate the warning that the hayden may have some bad habit/traps in continuous bellows movement leading to monotonous sound/lack of bounciness.

[SqueezeCat]

Thanks for posting this! It's a helpful conversation and I'm looking forward to other comments. I'm buying my first concertina, and I think it will be a Hayden! I've enjoyed Jeff's posts on youtube, and I appreciate the warning that the hayden may have some bad habit/traps in continuous bellows movement leading to monotonous sound/lack of bounciness.

 

 

I suppose I'm tossing around a few thoughts. Not necessarily in any order:

 

 

Anglo: we've got that "bounciness" that can really things liven up

 

Anglo: but, that "bounciness" also means that some things aren't so easy to play lyrically--that is, with a smaller concertina (my 31 key Wakker A4) there are some notes that can only be played in one direction, which means there may be bellows direction changes when one might prefer not

 

Anglo: the push-pull system puts a wide range of notes in a small instrument

 

Anglo: the various limitations force one to come up with creative arrangements

 

Hayden: regular layout suggests ease with sight reading

 

Hayden: with 46 key, actually a smaller span of notes than the a 30 key Anglo

 

Hayden: wide flexibility for making arrangements--notes/chords not limited to a single bellows direction. (Eg., I can have my choice of half-diminished 7th chords)

 

Hayden: actually need to carefully consider phrasing & bellows direction. (Need to do the same w/ Anglo, but it usually happens for you depending on fingering chosen.)

 

 

 

At the moment, it is this chromatic Frenchy stuff I'm playing with now that has me thinking about the Hayden. The fingers really have to go acrobatic across the keyboard. And, while I'm not the world's best sight-reader, it isn't so straightforward to read a new tune in my Frenchy tune-book. Essentially I've got to solve the fingering/bellow problem before coming to anything sensible on the Anglo. Having been trained as a classical instrumentalist I find the steep curve for new chromatic tunes to be something I'm not particularly used to. I shouldn't be surprise, of course, the Anglo is diatonic instrument, after all!

[Dirge]

Hayden: regular layout suggests ease with sight reading

 

Hayden: with 46 key, actually a smaller span of notes than the a 30 key Anglo

 

Hayden: wide flexibility for making arrangements--notes/chords not limited to a single bellows direction. (Eg., I can have my choice of half-diminished 7th chords)

 

Hayden: actually need to carefully consider phrasing & bellows direction. (Need to do the same w/ Anglo, but it usually happens for you depending on fingering chosen.)

 

And just to make sure you have considered it,

 

Maccan: less regular layout, considered 'difficult'. But it isn't random.

 

Maccan: No really cheap entry level models ( and no new ones).

 

BUT

 

Maccan; easy availability of top class instruments at extremely reasonable prices, the only duet system where this is true. And the day you order a large Hayden, look at the prices of the Maccans that are available IMMEDIATELY and feel sick...

 

Maccan: ideal for chromatic work.

 

Maccan: vintage instruments hold their value (currently gently rising it appears)

 

There is no doubt that Haydens (and Cranes for that matter) are very easy to get to grips with and that helps to get you going and stay keen. However I've come across a surprising number of people who have Haydens and still can't do anything with them, and I'm beginning to wonder whether the ability to play at a decent level is a matter of instinctively going to the right button and that the part of your brain that does this isn't as interested in how 'logically' the instrument is laid out as you might think. (What do you think about that one, Jeff?)

 

One thing that kept me enthusiastic was the gorgeous sound of my first duet, and it was 'only' a raised end Wheatstone. Absolutely beautiful. You don't get that with a Chinese Hayden. But of course I had no choice but to shell out for a decent instrument on the outset. (I think £1200 was the asking price, 4 years ago) I knew I would get my money back if I didn't get on with it, but also that I might not be able to do so fast! The investment perhaps focussed me on learning too; 'It cost a fortune, I'll have to bl**dy learn it.'

 

You've got a Jeffries so you know you don't have to be scared of antique instruments.

 

Actually didn't I read somewhere that Brian H's first 'Hayden' was made by shuffling the reeds of a Jeffries duet about? Get your Jeffries made into a 'Jeffries Hayden' perhaps?

[m3838]

I'm beginning to wonder whether the ability to play at a decent level is a matter of instinctively going to the right button and that the part of your brain that does this isn't as interested in how 'logically' the instrument is laid out as you might think.

There you go! It's an axiom. The very keyboard we are typing on. Come to think of it: it can easily be used for playing from the letter score, can't it be? B A G A B B B---, A A A-, B D D-.

Octave up? - space button.

Octave down? - pinky to shift.

I wonder if it's been done?

I think it was you who mentioned that the reason great musicians of the past used large McCanns is it's more compact keyboard compared to other systems. It is more difficult to reach upper buttons on large Crane compared to McCann with similar range. I guess there is perhaps a difference between "intuitiveness" and "logic layout".

[Anglo-Irishman]

I think it was you who mentioned that the reason great musicians of the past used large McCanns is it's more compact keyboard compared to other systems. It is more difficult to reach upper buttons on large Crane compared to McCann with similar range. I guess there is perhaps a difference between "intuitiveness" and "logic layout".

 

Come to think about it, the most important feature of a concertina system is its compactness. You have to be able to reach all the buttons with the fingertips of your basically immobilised hands.

 

The only system in which the scale runs in a single line is the Anglo, and it gains compactness by having 2 notes per button. The English and the duets achieve compactness by folding the scale into a zig-zag of some sort, keeping the rows short enough to be spanned by index and little finger.

The English has only 4 buttons per row, but gains compactness by only having half the scale on each side.

The Maccann has 6 buttons per row, the Crane 5 - so obviously, for a given range, the Maccann will need fewer rows. Apparently, there are people whose fingers are supple enough to span the 6 buttons of a row.

 

However, the differnce between Maccann and Crane lies in the extreme upper end of the range. And I for one don't really need more than my 48-b Crane's 28 right-hand buttons. (Well, I could use 2 more - the high C# and D# - but they would just fill out the present top row, so they wouldn't affect reachability.)

 

Large or small, a Crane has a button pad 5 wide, a Maccann 6 wide, and the notes are chromatic as far up as they go.

 

The Hayden seems different to me. The fingering charts show a button pad 8 buttons wide - quite a stretch - and the only way to make it more compact is to leave off accidentals. And that means eradicating some of the key signatures.

 

So with Maccann and Crane, you always get a chromatic instrument, and you pay more for a greater range. With the Hayden, you get the range, but have to pay extra for all keys.

 

Same applies if the limiting factor is not the size of your wallet, but the length of your fingers. A 35-b Crane is fully chromatic as far as it goes, a small Maccann also (I believe). A small Hayden isn't. So it's more for people with an Anglo mentality, who don't need more than 4 keys anyway

 

I personally took up the duet to get away from the key restrictions of the Anglo, so I went for a Crane (same row length and button spacing as the Anglo), and didn't consider the Hayden. There may be other reasons for buying a duet, and the Hayden may match these.

 

Cheers,

John

[David Levine]

Doesn't it all depend on the music you want to play on the instrument? ITM sounds best on the Anglo. Nothing comes close.

Other music sounds best on the Duet or English concertina.

The Anglo just isn't as well suited to tunes in tricky keys or for tunes with a complicated chordal structure.

But for bouncy Irish dance tunes only the Anglo will do.

[JimLucas]

I think it was you who mentioned that the reason great musicians of the past used large McCanns is it's more compact keyboard compared to other systems. It is more difficult to reach upper buttons on large Crane compared to McCann with similar range. I guess there is perhaps a difference between "intuitiveness" and "logic layout".

Even "intuitiveness" -- conceptual intuitiveness, that is -- is far less important than physical ease and comfort in actual playing. As many have pointed out, that can be a complex interaction between a keyboard layout and the kinds of music and arrangements one is trying to play.

 

Aside from an ability to reach individual buttons, there is the issue of how to play several buttons in a row, and how the flow of playing a sequence of buttons depends on the relative positions of those buttons. I have some further thoughts on that, which I have now posted in another Topic: here.

Edited October 13, 2009 by JimLucas

[Boney]

I'm beginning to wonder whether the ability to play at a decent level is a matter of instinctively going to the right button and that the part of your brain that does this isn't as interested in how 'logically' the instrument is laid out as you might think. (What do you think about that one, Jeff?)

I think that makes sense, with some reservations. The simplicity of the layout I feel has an advantage in learning the layout (as you said), so you'll reach that "instinctive" plateau sooner. And even after you've reached it, a regular layout is an advantage in transposing. I also found that learning a tune by ear is easier on the Hayden layout than the Anglo. Unless you have perfect pitch, it's not like typing, in which you hear a word and automatically know the letters that make up the word. I have to hunt and peck around a bit, and that's easier for me with a regular layout. The advantages may dwindle as you gain experience, but I don't think they ever go away completely. And somehow, the advantages transcend "logic" for me - the Hayden layout just feels good, and makes me happy.

[Boney]

The Hayden seems different to me. The fingering charts show a button pad 8 buttons wide - quite a stretch - and the only way to make it more compact is to leave off accidentals. And that means eradicating some of the key signatures.

Actually, the Hayden layout is only six notes wide to be fully chromatic. You'd need more across to make all keys uniform, but it's still more uniform than all other concertina systems. Any extra width adds duplicates from one side to the other, you still only play a six-wide array at once. (I guess you could call it six and a half, since the buttons are offset from row to row).

 

The 46-key layout does miss out from being "fully chromatic" by not including the lowest C# and Eb. But that's really by choice -- you could use the same amount of buttons to make it chromatic starting from D, but I'd rather have the C. Much like the people who play English concertina who tune one reed down to F. Skipping the F# doesn't really transform the instrument into a "non-chromatic" one.

[SqueezeCat]

Doesn't it all depend on the music you want to play on the instrument? ITM sounds best on the Anglo. Nothing comes close.

Other music sounds best on the Duet or English concertina.

The Anglo just isn't as well suited to tunes in tricky keys or for tunes with a complicated chordal structure.

But for bouncy Irish dance tunes only the Anglo will do.

 

 

It is interesting that you say this. As. . . strangely enough I really started working on cross-row fingering so that when playing in my local session (mostly ITM) here in Yorkshire I wouldn't get "nice, but too English" comments from one of the fiddlers. (Who happens to be English, BTW.) All that cross-row fingering gives the possibility for a lyricism that doesn't happen on the Anglo when keeping within a single row.

 

When it comes to it, many English tunes sound fantastic with the bounciness (in the row) of the Anglo, and due to local session pressure, my playing of English tunes has been 'easily Anglo' where the Irish tunes have taken more thought. This really could be as a result of local conditions, in the end. But, really, one is woe to ignore the comments of fellow musicians.

 

I suppose I started this thread with the problem of widening my repertoire. . .

[JimLucas]

A few responses here to details in John's post.

Come to think about it, the most important feature of a concertina system is its compactness. You have to be able to reach all the buttons with the fingertips of your basically immobilised hands.

Because of the different means of holding the instrument, the immobilization of the hands is less on an English.

 

The only system in which the scale runs in a single line is the Anglo,...

Is this necessarily a good thing?

 

...and it gains compactness by having 2 notes per button. The English and the duets achieve compactness by folding the scale into a zig-zag of some sort, keeping the rows short enough to be spanned by index and little finger.

The English has only 4 buttons per row, but gains compactness by only having half the scale on each side.

There's more to the English than compactness, or even splitting the scale between the two ends. The means of holding the English is very different. Using the thumb loop and the finger plate together restricts the sideways movement of the hand and fingers, but since the array is only four buttons wide, that's not a problem. More importantly, since the hands aren't strapped to a bar, there's far more flexibility in the "forward-back" direction. The "columns" on my 64-button Englishes are 8 buttons long (one of them is 9 buttons), yet I could extend them by another two buttons and still have no difficulty in reaching those at the extreme ends. And my fingers are not unusually long.

 

The Maccann has 6 buttons per row, the Crane 5 - so obviously, for a given range, the Maccann will need fewer rows. Apparently, there are people whose fingers are supple enough to span the 6 buttons of a row.

"Supple"? The width of the 6-button row on a Maccann is the same as the width across my four fingers as they are all touching each other, so no sideways movement is needed to reach either end of a row.

 

However, the differnce between Maccann and Crane lies in the extreme upper end of the range. And I for one don't really need more than my 48-b Crane's 28 right-hand buttons. (Well, I could use 2 more - the high C# and D# - but they would just fill out the present top row, so they wouldn't affect reachability.)

(On a 55-button Crane, those two are filled in, as well as an additional row being added at the top of the left hand. Maybe not "necessary", but definitely useful. )

 

Large or small, a Crane has a button pad 5 wide, a Maccann 6 wide, and the notes are chromatic as far up as they go.

Except for those 2 missing accidentals in the RH top of a 48-button Crane, and a similar lack at the top of the LH on a 35-button Crane (though these are available in the right hand). Extreme Cranes (70 buttons or more?) also need to throw in an extra button outside the 5-wide array to make up for there not being quite enough buttons in the two outer rows for all the accidentals in all the octaves. And though Maccanns are chromatic all the way to the top, the 46-button version is missing the lowest C#, D, and D# in the left hand.

 

The Hayden seems different to me. The fingering charts show a button pad 8 buttons wide - quite a stretch - and the only way to make it more compact is to leave off accidentals. And that means eradicating some of the key signatures.

No, no lost key signatures.

In theory, the accidentals are all there on a 6-wide Hayden array, though alternate rows are offset from each other, making it all slightly wider. And then duplication of some buttons (on the right end of one row and then the left end two rows higher up) is needed to satisfy the principle that transposition can be achieved simply by repositioning the hand over the keyboard. The more fully you fulfill that criterion, the wider your array needs to be (up to a maximum of 11 wide?), so some amount of compromise is inevitable.

 

So with Maccann and Crane, you always get a chromatic instrument, and you pay more for a greater range. With the Hayden, you get the range, but have to pay extra for all keys.

I hope you see now that that last isn't true. What you "have to pay extra for" is uniformity in all keys.

 

Same applies if the limiting factor is not the size of your wallet, but the length of your fingers. A 35-b Crane is fully chromatic as far as it goes, a small Maccann also (I believe). A small Hayden isn't. So it's more for people with an Anglo mentality, who don't need more than 4 keys anyway

The lack of full chromaticity in the smaller Hayden is not inherent in the Hayden concept, but a result of chromatically adjacent notes not being adjacent in the Hayden button array, and the fact that for a particular version of the Hayden, regularity (or compactness) of the button array may be given higher priority than continuity (or compactness) of the coverage of notes. And the "missing" notes will only be at the extreme ends of the range of notes, anyway.

 

But I'll add that I think you're exaggerating the inherent limitations of the anglo, too. There may indeed be individual combinations of notes in a given key that can't be played in another key, but as various individuals (John Kirkpatrick, Harry Scurfield, more than one South African player) have demonstrated, it can be played quite satisfyingly in just about any key.

 

A case in point: During a lunchtime session one year at Witney, Harry started playing (on his 40-button Wheatstone anglo) and singing "Frankie and Johnnie". I (on English) and another person (on Maccann) started playing along. We succeeded, but we both grimaced, because he was playing in C#, not a key we were used to. He noticed... and modulated into the key of D on the second verse.

 

I personally took up the duet to get away from the key restrictions of the Anglo, so I went for a Crane (same row length and button spacing as the Anglo)....

Same button spacing and same number of buttons in a row, perhaps, but not the same arrangement of the buttons. Because of the offset between rows on an anglo, the total width of its "5 wide" array is actually greater than on a Crane. (And some many-button Jeffries have rows with as many as 7 buttons.)

 

All of which, however, seems to ignore the issue of how easy/comfortable it is to move your fingers about from one note (or chord) to the next when playing. Stimulated by your post, John, I've put some thoughts on that here.

[JimLucas]

ITM sounds best on the Anglo. Nothing comes close.

...

But for bouncy Irish dance tunes only the Anglo will do.

I know a number of fiddlers and fluters who would strongly disagree!

[SqueezeCat]

And just to make sure you have considered it,

 

Maccan: No really cheap entry level models ( and no new ones).

. . . well. . . wasn't going to go 'entry level'. You see I've three premium Anglos at the moment. . .

 

Maccan: ideal for chromatic work.

. . . a plus for this Frenchy stuff. . .

 

There is no doubt that Haydens (and Cranes for that matter) are very easy to get to grips with and that helps to get you going and stay keen.

A strong positive.

 

However I've come across a surprising number of people who have Haydens and still can't do anything with them,

I suppose I find that somewhat surprising. Considering. . . that the Hayden is a 'modern', regular layout. Which, is why I'm beginning to be attracted--and for the flexibility to transpose in a very straightforward manner.

 

and I'm beginning to wonder whether the ability to play at a decent level is a matter of instinctively going to the right button and that the part of your brain that does this isn't as interested in how 'logically' the instrument is laid out as you might think. (What do you think about that one, Jeff?)

Of course, in the long run, the more one 'knows' the idiom of one's instrument, the more one makes appropriate choices.

 

One thing that kept me enthusiastic was the gorgeous sound of my first duet, and it was 'only' a raised end Wheatstone. Absolutely beautiful.

 

The investment perhaps focussed me on learning too; 'It cost a fortune, I'll have to bl**dy learn it.'

 

You've got a Jeffries so you know you don't have to be scared of antique instruments.

And. . . the reeds of antique instruments have that lovely, mature 'played in' sound.

 

Actually didn't I read somewhere that Brian H's first 'Hayden' was made by shuffling the reeds of a Jeffries duet about? Get your Jeffries made into a 'Jeffries Hayden' perhaps?

Oh no! Something else to think about!!

[Boney]

However I've come across a surprising number of people who have Haydens and still can't do anything with them,

I suppose I find that somewhat surprising. Considering. . . that the Hayden is a 'modern', regular layout. Which, is why I'm beginning to be attracted--and for the flexibility to transpose in a very straightforward manner.

I'm not surprised. The Hayden/Wicki layout is far from a magic bullet to instant playing success in all keys with automatic transposition. It's a nice layout that's easy to learn, but getting your fingers to move rhythmically, coordinating the two hands, adding expression through the bellows, controlling articulation and ornaments -- those are are issues that are just as difficult in any system. There are also some ways the Hayden (or any duet) is more difficult than the Anglo or English. And transposing, while easier, isn't a "no-brainer," even if your instrument has enough buttons to play in the new key with the same patterns. As Jim Lucas pointed out, your hand is at a slightly different angle, and it takes some getting used to. If your instrument doesn't have enough buttons (and for many tunes it won't), you'll have to make some substitutions, and while it may be easier than on an English or Anglo, it'll take a lot of practice.

 

Also, because more is technically possible on a duet, I find myself naturally aiming higher, so in a sense I'm adding back in at least as much complexity as I took out by moving from the Anglo to the duet. If you're satisfied playing single-line melodies, yes, it's relatively easy on the Hayden, but it's probably easier on the English. And if you like simple bass notes and occasional harmony in "folk keys," that's also pretty easy on the Hayden, but it's probably easier on the Anglo.

[Dirge]

Interesting all this.

 

I had never bothered to even consider whether the Hayden layout does what it says on the can because when I went duet the only available ones were small Stagis so all I had to weigh up, for my purposes, was Crane vs Maccan. I had noticed it was a wide layout but never thought about it.

 

John, Jim is absolutely right that spanning the width of a Maccan keyboard with your hand is no trouble at all; indeed playing in Db is quite easy because a lot of the time you are just rattling up and down the outside edges. Not that I do it enough to be comfortable, but I have a piece of Dvorak on the back burner that calls for exactly that so I've tried it and it's not a problem.

 

Squeeze cat; you've had a good varied cross section of the pros and cons. There's Jeff with his Hayden, John and his Crane and me on Maccan, all happy that our choices of system are the best for our particular tastes and styles. It probably now comes down to your personal grading of the importance of the various points. It's not an easy decision but important, I think.

 

That's if you don't buy another Anglo, of course...

[David Levine]

ITM sounds best on the Anglo. Nothing comes close.

...

But for bouncy Irish dance tunes only the Anglo will do.

 

[Jim said:] I know a number of fiddlers and fluters who would strongly disagree!

 

Is ITM ever played on fiddle or flute? I didn't know that!

[SqueezeCat]

That's if you don't buy another Anglo, of course...

 

Clearly, I could always do with another Anglo. (The question is whether my bank manager agrees!)

 

And thanks for the advice--a number of things to consider.