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Layout Redundancy and Breaking the Pattern

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Gena Crisman:
Hello! I have a question to pose. I've been becoming aware of more 2 row 4th apart instruments recently that have a change to the (beloved?) Diatonic progression that the Melodeon is known for having. For some, the possibility of using a 2.5 or 3 row, or adding additional basses is unappetising, so from time to time, small changes to the 'standard' layout of a 2 row 8 bass are presented or happened across in the wild, and I'd like to talk about one that's taken my interest.

With a 4th apart box, the tonic note of the outside row is positioned on the push on both the inside and outside row. The II note of that scale also is the VI note of the inside row, which will both be found on the pull. This means that there are several buttons that play exactly the same note given a fixed bellows direction. This is actually good and sensible, especially for up/down the row playing, and it maintains the system of progression across the instrument. For extreme cross rowists, it may not be considered an ideal use of resources. This duplication is present in multiple places, every 4 buttons as you move through the push scales, in fact. You may be familiar with the "Dutch Reversal", where some of the plates for the inside row scale are reversed (5th button on a 3rd button start), so (in DG) D5/E5 becomes E5/D5. This can be considered practical because both these notes can still be found with the original bellows direction on the outside row (albeit on different buttons). This, then, gives you a very helpful reversal but has some costs: the duplicate button does offer you the opportunity to reach over your fingers as you play (as one might use your thumb while playing the piano) and allows you to more easily find fingering for a long Arpeggio up either row. As a change later in your playing career, it may also compromise a large number of the tunes that you know.

However I don't particularly want to talk about the dutch reversal at this point. I want to talk about this: In D/G speak, the D4 / F#4 button on the G row shares a D4 with the D4/E4 button on the outside row. Or: the button closer to the chin but adjacent to the 'start' of the instrument on the inside row, possesses a duplicate note to an adjacent button on the outside row. It seems quite common to see D/G players reach over to this button for the much needed E4, due to the propensity of D<->E<->F# runs, so it's seemingly something people already do quite a lot.

To be clear, I'm talking about these buttons:
or

I have heard people talk about changing/having different notes on these exact buttons. Because they do not seem to offer a big assistance with fingering a long arpeggio, and we are used to the pattern breaking down in this area, perhaps it's viable to make adjustments here to enhance our musical vocabulary, without compromising 90% of our repertoire? Heavy RHS chord players are probably very happy with standard low notes, which I have actually completely omitted from the diagrams below, sorry for that! I think this concept may be more interest to only a certain subset of players anyway. Sometimes this conversation can get bogged down in the purely theoretical, so, here are some layouts that I have mostly actually seen, in real life, and may even have the chance to have a go on from time to time to see how they actually behave for me. I would love to hear people's opinions on them, as I have learnt that there are really very few actual mistakes in the layout and pattern of notes and breaking it should be done with caution and at ones own peril.

Firstly, reference diagrams:
Normal:

(3rd button start, no anomalies)

Low G Scale:

(4th button start but with B/C instead of B/D and G/A instead of F#/A - can be done without getting new plates)

However I have also seen these:

Low Scale Push E
(As seen in this thread http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,22486.0.html )

(As Low G Scale, but, the 3rd button is changed from D4 / F#4 to E4 / F#4. Presumably can be done without getting new plates)
I have seen this layout on several (but not all) new Serenellini instruments stocked by Hobgoblin in Southampton. I have included the accidental directions as described in the thread.

Normal with low F & low C

(As normal layout, but, with G row 2nd button D4 / F#4 changed to F4 / F#4, and D row A3 / C#4 changed to A3 / C4)
I recently encountered this layout on a DB Binci II, owned by a box player named David that I met recently. He's very fond of it for playing in A minor as it offers a low natural F and C that are otherwise missing, especially if one does not want to compromise on the high notes on a compact 19 button instrument. I believe that he has at least the original D/F# plate, which suggests that the plate was replaced rather than the D sharpened up 3 semitones, which seems like a lot. This should offer assistance in playing in A minor & C, and with a 3rds stop, also also D minor and G minor should be more possible. This is however at the cost of the low C# - potentially this could be OK as many of the tunes I play in D actually start halfway up, at the mid point D, but, I do know I use that note.

Low G Scale Push F

(As low scale, but with a push low F4 instead of D4)
This is not a layout I have seen in real life, but is a combination of the two ideas above. It reflects the scale that Anahata has pondered about a couple of times I think, but mentioned at least in that same thread. It's sort of a combination of the above two concepts. It seems a bit weird though that a) the Fs might be in different directions to one another (maybe that's good though) and b) now the F4 has an extra button between it and 'the accidental zone'.

Anyway, for one, that's some stuff I've observed. For two, I guess if people have thoughts or have encountered other ideas with these buttons, I would also like to hear them, as I am likely to put my flag on the 2 row / 8 bass hill for quite some time and I'm interested in ideas people have had in this area of the melodeon, especially if they tried them and found they didn't work.

tiny:
Loved reading this Gena, but way above me  (:)

Theo:
If you have a DG box with a low reed set, eg LMM or LM, then you can play in the upper octave and all the low G and the C naturals you need are there.  It doesn't help with F naturals though.

Tone Dumb Greg:
I wish I could solve my dilemma.
G#4/Bb4 is fine but I have more problems with Eb/F I want that in the 4th octave and the 5th, or rather, I want F4, Eb4and Eb5. Not so bothered by F5. Too many notes and not enough buttons.
I also want a low G scale and I like have having a D pull and an E push, as well.

Gena Crisman:
Sometimes, I feel like it would be useful to have a melodeon heat map of which buttons I actually use, and which I do not.


--- Quote from: Theo on August 08, 2018, 07:57:40 PM ---If you have a DG box with a low reed set, eg LMM or LM, then you can play in the upper octave and all the low G and the C naturals you need are there.  It doesn't help with F naturals though.

--- End quote ---

This is certainly my plan - I want a 3 voice sound anyway and am prepared to take the weight hit for it. I have a few tunes that want a single accidental in an octave I don't have it, for example, at my local session we've picked the tunes A Night on the Gin and The Bedbreaker to learn. A Night on the Gin wants an F4 (and an F chord), and The Bedbreaker uses both a D#4 and a D#5. My original plan was to see if I could play the B music of Gin in octaves and use the higher F5 accidental on its own, effectively sneaking into a different octave. With LMM... you're already playing in octaves, so, that would be problem solved perhaps, but for now I just run up to the C5 instead of down to an F4 and actually that's fine. The Bedbreaker, I found that I could cheat the low D# with selective use of the B major chord.

There is a point where the bag of tricks runs out, though, and sometimes you have to work out if it's better for you to to have multiple answers to a single problem rather than single answers to multiple problems.


--- Quote from: Tone Dumb Greg on August 08, 2018, 08:09:20 PM ---Too many notes and not enough buttons.

--- End quote ---

Creativity and then the skill to act on it is pretty much always the answer to playing a tune that really doesn't fall onto the notes that you do have, but there is always going to be a limit, and everyone seems to end up coming up with their own ideas of where they want to push the envelope. I was quite surprised though to see something like a push E from a store dealer on a new instrument: low G scale seems to be catching on, but a few with a push D->E conversion like this seems unusual since it isn't something that I have seen discussed much here, and I have over the last year or so gone down some rather deep holes of reading about dutch reversals and accidental directions and such.

Given that any one thing that you can add to the instrument, eg an L voice, or another button or bass fundamental, increases what you can do with what you otherwise already had, it can be difficult to not end up with a laundry list because it keeps building on itself. Obviously, it adds weight and size too and eventually you're playing a shed. Really, it's not about being set up for tunes in otherwise completely foreign keys, but for tunes that lean into other scales of borrow chords from modes for just a moment, and having enough tools to keep the wheels rolling. If you need a lot, then, really your only option is an extra full or half row.

I guess I'm currently thinking of putting some tape on my G row D reeds and just silence them, and then just... see if I can live without it? I can't currently see how losing this note will hurt me.

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