I'm thrilled with both. The Geordie is a flawless piece of craftsmanship. Bellows are impeccably constructed and the ends and frames have joints so tight they are hard to find and the finish glows. It's tuned and voiced so that it speaks easily through most of the range (the two lowest notes (F and F# 2 octaves below middle c are slow to speak, but that's true with low free reeds, and these notes are not typically on the Geordie.) The bellows need a little breaking in, but doing so will be a pleasure. I've found some nice Bach pieces that take advantage of nearly the full range of the instrument (F to a'' in Helmholtz notation).
The Fantini is everything I hoped for except it seemed the converter mechanism was mildly bungled in shipping. It has a date with a repair man next week. In the meanwhile, I can still play it in free bass mode, which is my objective! I have successfully worked through the Suzuki Piano 1 book. The basslines in that book are heavily patterned, so were not too difficult. I started working on some of the book 2 of the Suzuki Piano series and it will prove to be a good learning experience, much more challenging. The basslines require a lot more movement on the keyboard, so I will surely learn my way around the bass as I work though that book. On the other hand, my right one- that is, things are moving along quite well. I am comfortably using 4 of the 5 rows of buttons for ease of fingering and am developing a bit of an intuition for the larger jumps. I play in front of the piano, so it's easy to check my self.
My interest in the free reed as a method of sound generation is growing. I did some experiments with plastic drinking straws without much success, more on that to come...
