Out of my league!

The musty bellow-less MacCann Duet went for over $130 USD. Amazing. Hopefully the insides are in good enough shape to fix up for the person who's out the money!

My free bass Fantini will be here Monday if FedEx delivers on time. Hopefully it will arrive in one piece with all the buttons working properly. 

This week my husband surprised me with my early Christmas present: A piano! I nice clean looking low-profile spinet. It is ironic, because the reason I got into concertina and accordion was that I had to liquidate my upright piano and harpsichord in order to move into his small house. I always grew up with keyboard instruments, as my Dad tunes and repairs pianos. Letting those instruments go was extremely difficult. Fortunately I was able to get a handsome price for the harpsichord, but the piano I had to give away.  When I moved in, I did get an electronic keyboard, but it is a sadly poor substitute for a real instrument. Electrons will never replace levers, hammers, plectra, and the delightful mechanical wonders that make instruments  beautiful, temperamental, fragile, and full of personality.

I decided that I needed to learn a small instrument that would play in tune on its own (a reference to my cacophonous experience as a cellist). I needed to be able to accompany my son on his trumpet, and play some Bach melodies. The English Concertina was a great fit. I'm learning that, but I also hunger to play my own accompaniment or bass line, so I tried a duet concertina (Hayden system). The Stagi Duet that I could afford was not a very fun instrument to play: sluggish action and I thought it sounded like a toy compared to the Morse Baritone. I then got the Bayan, started this blog, and moved up to the much anticipated Fantini. In my quest for the perfect compliment of accordions and concertinas, I have had at some time and in order of possession:

• Full size Italian piano accordion- no brand (sold)
• Jack English Concertina (sold)
• Jackie English Concertina (sold)
• Morse Albion Baritone EC (ready to exchange when the Geordie is done being made)
• Kirov Rubin 7 Bayan(sold)
• And on it's way here, the Fantini.

At least there is a flux of instruments and not a stack of accordions and concertinas in my office. I will have to learn how to repair accordions before starting a store (I am joking here, but sometimes the unintended is exactly what happens). When the dust settles I should have only the Geordie and the Fantini, and... finally the piano I have been sorely missing.

Curiosity kills

After promising my my dear spouse that I would not buy any more accordions, this neglected Lachenal MacCann Duet (?) popped up on eBay and in the US. I bid really low since it's in such rough shape, but maybe it will make a nice project.

The bellows are completely deteriorated, but I can't tell much about the mechanism and condition of the wood, except that it seems to be hanging together with a roughly concertina-shaped geometry.

Concertina.com has a great page about the MacCann Duet configuration with samples of tutors and arrangements for the instrument (MacCann Duet Page). It seems to have been the dominant duet configuration in the later 1800s and first half of the 20th century. The Robert Gaskins article mentions that MacCann Duet 'tinas are increasingly rare because they are no longer being made. My thoughts are that this is because the demand is in decline and the new Hayden Duet system is now the preferred configuration. Here's another Gaskins article comparing the configurations.

Why paper cutters were the best thing for Concetrina manufacture since the evolution of folded cows.

An in-progress concertina bellows by Bob Tedrow

Here's a great photo essay about the intensely precise effort that it takes to turn some cardboard and hide into a beautiful bellows. Bob Tedrow is a Concertina Maker extraordinaire in the SE US.
Link: Bob Tedrow makes some bellows

A couple nice free arrangements

These were arranged by Nikolai Ryskov and posted on Free-scores.com. Mr. Ryskov has nearly 50 free arrangements of tunes through the Free-scores site so if you like one you might investigate his other arrangements. It's great that people share so much work so freely.

The famous Habanera from Bizet's Carmen
Love is a gypsy's child,
it has never, ever, known a law;
love me not, then I love you;
if I love you, you'd best beware!

Bizet, Georges Habaneta ''Dat's Love'' from Opera ''Carmen'' Accordion Classical / 1875 Powered by Free-scores.com

 
and also:
Offenbach's Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld.

Offenbach, Jacques Can-Can + MP3 (human interpretation)Accordion Classical / 1858 Powered by Free-scores.com

New family member

It just happened to be on eBay, at an unimaginable price. It's a smaller B-system converter accordion by Fantini. It has 3 sets of reeds in the treble and 4 in the bass.


It will be a couple weeks before it arrives, maybe sooner. Depends on how DHL ships.  I put the Bayan up on State College Craigslist. Any takers? (UPDATE: After only three days on craigslist I found a taker on the Bayan. Who'd a thunk it would be so easy!)

Some musical progress and getting to know the Bayan's good points

I am having a lot of fun with the bayan.  I'm doing much better at scales. I can do them with modest fluidity with both hands. I can sight read things without too many sharps and flats on my right hand.  I am working through the Palmer-Hughes basic accordion books. I am just over half way through book 2. I use the standard bass for those. Playing simple arrangements for standbys like "Coming 'round the mountain" and "The Merry Widow Waltz" is surprisingly more rewarding than I expected. I have noticed that when I keep a light touch on the base, the accordion sounds happy and light. If I dwell on the bass and chords, the music gets heavy very quickly, perhaps because of the amount of sound generated. If I get one down well, maybe I will summon the courage to put a video up for prosperity. It's on the edge of awful right now thanks to my poor- but developing skills.

On the Bach, the one that I presented the fingerings for, below, I can play slowly with the free bass. The bass is great for the deep notes, but it is easy to see that the action is a little sluggish and the voicing is uneven. I am completely spoiled by my current English concertina, which is like lightning (Morse Albion Baritone, soon to be traded in for a Geordie Morse Baritone).

FB-R fingerings for Minuet in G

Click for printable version

Here are the bass fingerings (pencil) that I worked out for the piece. The arpeggiatic patterns are amazingly fluid on this bass configuration.

Some Blues Scale Fingerings for Russian Reversed Free Bass

Here are three suggestions for the Blues Scale. There are some awkward moments, I'll edit this if I come up with some better fingerings.

Blues scale Fingerings for Russian Reversed Free Bass.

 Click for printable version.

Russian Reversed Freebass Fingerings Maj. Scale

Here are the three row fingerings that I managed. There is a lot of tucking fingers beneath each other, which is not like the English concertina at all. Not that I expected a similarity, but it feels completely different.

Click for printable PDF

Down to business on scale fingerings

After some meditative thought on the Bayan free bass system, I realized in an out-of-the-box moment that if I aligned my fingers parallel to the buttons rather than perpendicular to the side of the accordion, fingerings may be easier. I investigated and many images of Bayan player do this. Here's Mr Fredrich Lips (He literally wrote the book on Bayan playing). Note his fingers are at an angle similar to the button diagonals. There are images of Bayan players with the fingers pointing down, as well. I suppose the angle of the hand is adjusted according to the position of the arm and also the fingering that's required. I wish I could get a copy of Mr. Lips' book, it's out of print in the US. Here's a link to Stanley Fefferman's photograph in it's original context.

I had much 'real' work to do today so I am just sitting down now with the instrument. I did make a fingering chart, which could be useful to other chromatic players. It's below- click on the image for a full size version..
More on the fingerings when I figure them out.

Chromatic 3-row fingering chart. Click to enlarge.

A day's progress

What a day. Learning this will be a big project. My first observations are as follows:

• It's not just a free bass, it's a converter, so I will be able to play tunes that use a Stradella bass, too. 
• It is heavy and I need better straps. It seems to aggravate my left shoulder. 
• The action of the treble feels very solid. A few sticky keys on the bass. 
• The arrangement of the free bass is that of a Reversed, Russian, or Bayan free bass system, depending upon who you talk to. The other two bass set ups are B-Griff and C-Griff, which is apparently most common (see image below, Rubin is of the Bayan system on the right). The treble is a B-Griff treble layout.
• The major scales seem to finger quite naturally for the right hand, but the left is very awkward. I am not sure if the Russian/Reversed system is just awkward or if it is that I am not left handed. In any case, the learning curve will be steep indeed. 
• The instrument gets a nice big sound, especially in the lower registers. The higher notes seem relatively mousy.

I successfully can do scales on each hand, but am nowhere near running both hand simultaneously. I think the next step is determining some fingerings for the scales. There will be three sets for the right hand, to accommodate scales with notes starting on each of the rows. For the bass I am not sure. The free bass system has more rows than the treble, so I may be able to incorporate some alternate fingerings that are more comfortable.

There isn't a lot on the web about the reversed bass system, maybe there is, but it's in Russian and not showing up on my searches.

Tomorrow, I will work on the fingerings.

Image, below, of Free Bass Systems.

Rubin has arrived.

I picked up the bayan at the post office this morning. It came well-wrapped in styrofoam and cardboard. Tape was applied over the buttons to keep the action from shifting. It was in great shape. The accordion is of better quality than I expected. It seems tightly manufactured and feels sturdy. There's a lot a bad words about Russian accordions on the web, but for a beginner like me who wants to get a feel for the instrument, this is definitely of acceptable quality.

 

Any day when a package comes with Cyrillic is an exciting one. And here's my vocalist, Sparky, giving a sultry look by Rubin, the Bayan.

Today's goal is to manage a major scale up and down on both hands simultaneously.

My new bayan arrives tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping in. The beast is a 3-row B-system free-bass (maybe converter) from Russia. I'm not expecting much in quality, but I am hoping that it's playable enough to learn. It's a used instrument from an eBayer in Ukraine. My fingers are crossed on a safe delivery!

I'll be working first on scales and familiarizing myself with the layout. I'll chart my progress here as it is made.