Jax RCFB Hayden Duet Concertina Page

• See Jax Proposed 55-key Hayden Duet Layout
• See also our Free Reed Instruments page.
• Hayden Duet inventor Brian Hayden:
  
  • Interview with Brian Hayden (October 2003)
  • Brian Hayden on the Reuther Uniform System and other self-transposing systems (November 2005)
    
• Visit Homewood Musical Instrument Company with Jax
• Original Sheet Music
  • Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C Major arranged for the Bastari 67 Hayden Duet
    

Table of Contents

• What is a Concertina?
• How is a Concertina different from an Accordion?
• What is Duet Concertina?
  • Major Concertina Fingering Systems
• What is Hayden Duet?
  • 46-key Hayden System layout
  • What about larger Hayden Duets?
    • Bastari 67-Key Hayden
      • 67-key Hayden layout
    • Homewood Music 52-key Hayden
      • Homewood Music Hayden 52 Images
      • Brief review of Homewood Hayden Duet
    • Marcus 65-key Hayden
      • 65-key Marcus Hayden layout
    • Button Box 55-key Hayden
      • 55-key Button Box Tentative Layout
      • Button Box Hayden Update 2004-01-31
        
    • Haydenovskaya 64-key Hayden
      
      • 64-key Haydenovskaya layout
    • Geuns Hayden/Wicki Bandonion
      • Geuns proposed Hayden/Wicki Bandonion layout
      • Why it called "Hayden/Wicki"?
      • Wicki layout right
        
• More Links of Interest

Musical inventor Brian Hayden playing the prototype Marcus Music Hayden Duet 65 at the Kilve weekend 22 March 2003 (image courtesy of Marcus Music )	Playing a Stagi Hayden Duet 46 Concertina in "airborne" or "free air" style. The precise expansion shown I have come to feel is a bit extreme for the bellows. Nowadays I draw the bellows more moderately.	Jax plays a Stagi 46-button Hayden system Duet Concertina

What is a Concertina?

How is a Concertina different from an Accordion?

• On an accordion, the right hand presses the keys or buttons against the fingerboard which is oriented to the player's chest.
  • Concertina buttons are pressed inwards towards the bellows, as are the buttons on the left-hand side of a modern accordion.
• The traditional concertina has the reeds laid radially in the reed pan, rather than mounted on a reed block like an accordion.
  • However,
    • Many modern concertinas, especially Hayden duets, have accordion-style reeds.
    • Some modern concertinas have a reed plate on which the reeds are mounted orthogonally and flat, unlike the radial or reed block constructions.
• The fingering of most Accordion systems differs greatly from the right side to the left side
  • Whereas the two sides of a concertina are fingered very similarly.
• Accordion tends to be heavier physically and musically thicker and more powerful than concertina.
  • Whereas concertina is delicate and expressive.

What is the Duet Concertina?

Concertinas are generally in one of three fingering systems:

• Anglo-Irish is designed for modal melody and simple harmony.
• English is deisgned for chromatic melody.
• Duet is designed for chromatic melody and complex harmony. There are four major subsystems of Duet concertina:
  • Hayden system
  • MacCann system
    • (Note: often erroneously spelled "McCann" on the Internet and in print; see the Concertina.net article "Maccann, MacCann or McCann?" for what should be the definitive word on this controversy.)
  • Crane/Triumph system
  • Jeffries system

Note: there exist other concertina types, notably the Chemnitzer and Bandonion/Bandoneon. For a fuller (if not entirely complete) treatment of the types of concertina, please see the excellent Squeezebox 101 by Chemnitzer enthusiast extraordinaire Ted Kloba.

That which characterizes and defines the Duet system is that all its variants are:

• unisonoric (same note press/draw)
• chromatic
• bass-left, treble-right

What is Hayden Duet?

The Hayden system was developed (and patented) by Brian Hayden. Brian Hayden was interviewed some years ago by Concertina.net and also interviewed in 2003 by the author of the present web page . The Concertina.net article has some great fingering system charts from various Duet systems, including the 46-button Hayden and 67-button Hayden. There are also PDF's of several interesting Hayden Duet articles here on the Maccann Duet Page.

As a longtime accordion player, I was attracted the Hayden as the concertina fingering system most suited for modern music and probably the easiest to learn for an accordion player. I have since learned English and Anglo fingering also, which led me to the following observations:

1. While the English system is ideal for melody, many chord changes are practically impossible to finger.
2. Anglo is the fastest fingering system within its tonal limitations but is not at all suited to richly chromatic music.
3. As a musician who performs a wide range of styles, from classical through folk and ethnic to show tunes, pop and jazz, I find myself committed to Hayden system.

• Stagi Hayden Duet in an illustration on Concertina.net .
• Wheatstone Hayden Duet in an illustration on Concertina.net .
• Picture of a Bastari 67-button Hayden repaired by Bob Tedrow of Homewood Music .
• Pictures of the "Haydenovskaya" 64-button made in Russia by a master Bayan (chromatic button accordion) builder.
  • Note: The Haydenovskaya is referred to as a 65-button concertina in all the links I've given above, but apparently it is 64 buttons reed buttons plus the bellows release button.
  • Here's a review of the "Haydenovskaya", the Russian-made Hayden 64.
• Here's an excellent article comparing the Hayden Duet with the Maccann Duet.
  • Executive summary: although author Robert Gaskins finds the systems equivalent in playability, the general availability of high-quality refurbished Maccann Duets for roughly the same price as new consumer-grade Hayden Duets and the general non-availability of a professional quality Hayden Duet brings him down on the side of Maccann Duets.

An important part of the Hayden system is the spacing and staggering of the columns of buttons. That spacing and staggering is shown in the chart above, but not to scale.

What about larger Hayden Duets?

• a low C# and D# and a Bb above middle C on the left;
• a C# and D# above middle C on the right.

You might wish for some wraparound on each of the basic row patterns, i.e:

Gb Ab Bb C D E F# G#
Db Eb F G A B C# D#

Bastari 67-Key Hayden

The 67-button Hayden Duet fingering system adds those wraparound buttons and stretches the range downwards another fourth. There are 33 buttons on the left and 34 buttons on the right.This increase in the size and weight of the instrument must be weighed and balanced against the value of the added buttons. In the chart below , just as in the previous chart, the right-hand side has a bellows release which is not shown in the chart, and middle C on both sides in the diagram below is noted as <C> . Again, spacing and staggering of the buttons is shown but is not to scale.

Homewood Music 52-key Hayden

• On the left-hand side
  • the instrument goes from Low C to High C (second button top row)
  • includes the Middle Bb (first button top row) that is so obtrusively missing on other Hayden designs
  • includes the Low C# and Low D# on the partial row at the bottom
    
• On the right-hand side
  • the instrument goes from Middle C to Second High D (third button top row)
  • includes the Middle C# and Middle D# on the partial row at the bottom
  • as shown possesses no bellows release button, but Bob subsequently added a bellows release on the right-hand side which is now part of the design

Left hand	Right hand

Brief review of Homewood Hayden Duet

Update

I recently visited Homewood Music and played this instrument again (jamming with Bob Tedrow on guitar!), which was in for some rework. I was more impressed than ever with the instrument.

Marcus 65-key Hayden

Marcus Hayden 65 left-hand side layout Click on the image to see the layout chart at full size.	Marcus Hayden 65 right-hand side layout Click on the image to see the layout chart at full size.

Button Box 55-key Hayden

The 55-button Hayden Duet fingering system being developed by The Button Box adds wraparound buttons and stretches the range downwards another fourth. There are 26 buttons on the left and 29 buttons on the right. This is a tentative design and has not yet been finalized. In the chart below , the right-hand side has a bellows release which is not shown in the chart, and middle C on both sides in the diagram below is noted as <C>. Again, spacing and staggering of the buttons is shown but is not to scale.

My current feeling about the design of any prospective 55-button Hayden is that wrapound buttons like the extra middle-Eb on the left hand in the chart below , and the extra high-Eb on the right side are less useful than the missing 2nd-high-D# on the right hand, and the missing middle-C# and middle-D# on the right hand, ibid . I have instead proposed an alternative interesting 55-key Hayden Duet Layout which may or may not be practical to construct someday.

Thanks to Richard Morse of The Button Box for permission to post this chart.

Button Box Hayden Update 2004-01-31

Haydenovskaya 64-key Hayden

Samantha Boorer tells me about the Haydenovskaya , a Russian Hayden by a master Bayan maker:

"The range is from F, G, and A then it gets chromatic but there is no top Eb"', and is divided between left and right like this:

• from F below viola C (i.e., the space below the bass clef) to B above middle C in the left hand
• and from G below middle C (low G of the violin, mandolin, etc.) to E almost 3 octaves higher."

Left hand	Right hand
hi Eb F G A B Ab Bb <C> D E F# G# Eb F G A B C# D# Bb C D E F# G# F G A B C# lo Thumb	hi Bb C D E Eb F G A B C# Ab Bb C D E F# G# Eb F G A B C# D# Bb <C> D E F# G# G A B C# Thumb lo

Geuns Hayden/Wicki Bandonion

Harry Geuns, Belgian concertina/bandoneon maker, has provided the following information about a proposed Hayden/Wicki layout  for a bandonion he is thinking of building, This instrument is laid out in a version of the Hayden system we have been describing here. Visit the "Harry Geuns Free Reed Maker" website for more information about this and his other fine bandonions and concertinas. There are also pictures of  some unusual Harry Geuns bandonions on the Jax RCFB Button Accordion Page.

Geuns proposed Hayden/Wicki Bandonion layout
Click on either image to see larger.

Geuns proposed Hayden/Wicki Bandonion layout, left side	Geuns proposed Hayden/Wicki Bandonion layout, right side

Why it called "Hayden/Wicki"?

Harry Geuns writes:

 The "Hayden" lay out principle is originally patented in Switzerland in 1896 by Kaspar Wicki , as System Kaspar Wicki  which again is based on the "Janko" principle. Here is a chart:

Wicki layout right
Click on the image to see larger.

Wicki layout right

More Links of Interest

• Concertina.com Hayden Duet Page (<<== quite well done!)
• Concertina.net Hayden Duet Resource Page
• See our Free Reed Musical Instruments page.
• A partial Hayden left hand chord chart has been provided by James Woodruff.
• MIDI controller shaped like a Hayden Duet Concertina.
  

Table of Contents