Wow your friends with your very own MIDI concertina

All of the little music nerds will be so jealous of you and your homemade MIDI concertina. They'll be all like "oh man, look at that awesome MIDI controller that looks like a Hayden Duet Concertina, an instrument well known for its easy playability and chording. We're so jealous." And you'll be all like "yeah, I know, it's awesome. I built it based on the design by Paul Everett, and though it lacks the actual accordion type velocity control of an actual Hayden Duet Concertina, it is still quite playable and responsive." It's going to be so great.

[Via Make]

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 7:31AM]

I will!

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 2:27AM]

While this may be appropriate for the Make sect, it seems engadget readers would be more attracted to the equally bizarre thummer. If you're going to do the concertina piece you might as well include the one with dual analog control sticks. http://thumtronics.com/

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 2:35AM]

rad!

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 6:11AM]

i will probably have this conversation

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 3:26AM]

hell yea!

Still keepin my M-Audio o2

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 4:36AM]

An electronic accordion that can fit in your pocket?! I think Weird Al Yankovic just got a raging boner.

JR

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 9:43AM]

This was probably the most amusing article I've ever read on Engadget. Not as much the subject matter as the commendable satire.

^_^

[Meltz Posted Jan 3rd 2007 1:45PM]

Agreed. Very well-written.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 12:02PM]

Hmmm. I'm not sure who this Hayden guy is, but Haydn ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Haydn ) sure wrote some nice music for conertinas.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 2:22PM]

David Boroditsky -- Brian Hayden invented this particular concertina fingering system (http://www.well.com/~jax/rcfb/hayden_duet.html) in the 1960s. The first concertina (credited to Sir Joseph Wheatstone) wasn't built until 1829 (http://www.concertina.info/tina.faq/conc-his.htm), 20 years after Joseph Haydn died.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 3rd 2007 12:42PM]

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who thought of Weird Al. "My Bologna" began playing in my head as I was reading this.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2007 8:50AM]

As a concertina player (but of the English keyboard system), this is interesting...though I saw the same thing some 3-4 years ago, with a wider keyboard at the Squeeze-In...you can learn about that and concertinas in general at
http://www.buttonbox.com
The Hayden system is definitely the superior tina keyboard, thoug, being devised recently, it is uncommon, and real Hayden tinas are very rare though the Butto Box people look to change that.
It works like a guitar with a capo or Irving Berlin's piano with the keyboard crank...you can play in any key, just be starting in a different place. Amazing.
Real tinas are quite compact, durable and powerful...alas, good ones are $3-4K as these rally good ones are at least 75 years old.
You can hear my music at
http://www.sdean.net/ECDmusic/ECDtune.htm
For a real, full house, MIDI tina:
http://www.concertinaconnection.com/wakker%20midi.htm
This one is built by a man whose family has been doing model shop work for years for the Phillips Electronics people (who invented the CD) of the Netherlands.