Fingering the jammer key field

A Critical Test passed
One of the critical little make-or-break things for any instrument is fingering.  If you can't push the keys/buttons/valves fast, consistently and easily, the shiny new instrument "jes ain't gonna make it".
The worry was small, but nagging: in any design of something new, there's always the chance something was overlooked.

Jammer Basic fingering

After 3 months of practice on a variety of songs (about 30) I've found no show-stoppers: the fingering is easier than the piano's, and perhaps the easiest of any instrument yet developed.
I've also found that some accordions and concertinas use this fingering, Further, all the world's fastest accordions players use this system, so it the theory does indeed translate into practice.

But! ... Its different.

For those readers trying the thing out, this what I believe works: 

This fingering works for both relative minor and major scales. It's simple and almost always works - the fingers seldom conflict with each other.
The index finger and the little finger are also easily able to reach notes that come up frequently in the simple popular music pieces tried, the Bb (Minor 7th), F# (tritone), and even C#. This agrees with what music theory predicts.
The Bb especially turns up a lot.

The other accidentals take a bit more care, but reaching for them is becoming automatic and easy.

I don't recommend ...
Putting the index finger on the root seems more natural at first. However I found this causes many more fingering problems and it's hard to reach the F and Bb.

A seminal moment
Recently my wife (an expert pianist) was surprised that I could play a rangy, two octave song on the first try. On a piano, a novice of my skill level would have to watch one's fingering most carefully. On the jammer it was a no-brainer.

Downsides?
Naturally, there are some.
- Occasionally, the fingers will end up so that there is not a handy finger free to press the next note without having to use a finger already holding a note. This causes a slight gap in the playing.
- sometimes a whole group of notes outside of the key center pops up. In this case, it's usually easiest to move the whole hand, and pretend the key has changed. That's why I built a unit with a wide span.

Comments

[MusicScienceGuy]

Sorry about the truncation of your msg. I'll complain to Vox management. :)

RE: prone concertinas: see my making-and-selling-a-jammer-conversion-kit posting. It will take time to set up: a summer project?
ken.

[MusicScienceGuy]

Sorry about the truncation of your msg. I'll complain to Vox management. :)

RE: prone concertinas: see my http://musicscienceguy.vox.com/library/post/making-and-selling-a-jammer-conversion-kit.html posting. It will take time to set up.
ken.

[MusicScienceGuy]

Opps - where's the rest of your posting? I hope you complete it.

I find it's not a big deal to extend the little finger to press the 5-flat (tritone), and it indeed comes up a lot - on my jammer, I had some reflective plastic, so I put it on those keys.

I also find that having the middle finger on the root allows the index finger to play the 4th (sub-dominant), and the ring finger the  5th (dominant), this pattern comes up a huge amount to, so it's handy to be ready for it. But with the index on root-it's a small shift to putting all fingers as above - do you find you do this?

The minor 7th (one to the left of the root) comes up a lot in the newer songs my choirs sing.

How do you find chording? On the concertina, can you press two or 3 keys at once? As I learn chording, I find this is useful, but not as common as I thought might happen. Time will tell.   ... and thanks for the posting.

[Richard Morse]

[this is not good] The fact that my message was truncated. Maybe there's a field character limit on messages? Maybe Mr. Jammer can increase that to a decent length?

[this is good] The continuation of my message:

With the  IFR that note is available to the pinky "naturally" as if it were a part of the system.

Not only does this note get played often in tunes as a *part* of the tune, but it is often used in rolls (ornaments) from the 5th. And there are rolls from the 6th as well. If one used the Middle-Finger-Root method those "outside" notes are way out of position. Not so with the IFR method.

I do note that my W/H is a concertina format which constrains ones hand position so that a prone version as the "Jammer" would open up other fingering possibilities. One that I'm quite keen on exploring is the use of the thumbs. I already use them to a limited extent on concertina (and they come in extremely handilly in certain situations!) and can see how they could be used on a prone system (though I've benn done "paper" playing such. One of these days I hope to make myself a prone system.

-- Rich --

[Richard Morse]

[this is good] It's my experience that most Hayden players use the fingering pattern in which the index is used for the root. That is the way I ended up playing - though no one had told me "how" to.... I *do* note here however, that Brian Hayden, the patentor of the system plays with this middle finger on root.

This has been fodder for some debate amongst us Wicki/Hayden players. After realizing the BH fingers *his* system differently I gave it a serious go but it didn't "go" anywhere. At least for me. But it did give me some insights to why people may prefer one over the other.

I think it has mostly to do with the type of music one plays. I play predominantly traditional English/Irish dance tunes... plus some ragtime and a smattering of popular tunes and classical.

When playing trad tunes the notes are overwhelmingly diatontic (no matter what mode) which augers well for either fingering. Fingering anomalies happen either when successive notes are "wanted" to be played by the same finger or a note is wanted which is outside of the diatonic.

I've found that anomalies aren't a big deal and seem to happen with either fingering... and that they are easily dealt with. My usual is to fudge the initial pair of notes so that the subsequent on falls "on pattern". So in that regard I would consider both systems to be equal.

OTOH, the outside-of-diatonic notes are do present fingering challenges. In trad music I find that the most common (by *far*) outside note is the 5-flat (a whole tone above the 3rd). This is probably so because of the circle of 5ths which modulates though this note (which happens in a huge percentage of trad tunes!). With the Middle-Finger-Root method one must shift fingers to get that note. With the