To play, simply tip to the left for a bellows push note, or to the right for a bellows pull note, and press a button. The PUSH/PULL display shows which direction the bellows is going.
You may reverse the bellows while pushing a button simply by tipping in the opposite direction.
Multiple buttons may be pressed at the same time to play chords.
Learning mode (touch the ‘?’ icon) shows the note names for each button when pushed or pulled.
Adjust the tilt sensitivity and volume on the settings page.
The button layout is based on a 16-key modified Jeffries style for playing traditional Irish dance tunes in the most common keys.
Uses extremely high-quality audio samples recorded from a high-end Anglo C/G concertina.
Just submitted to the iTunes App Store for review, when available it will be $0.99.
After a while practicing with the app, it really starts to feel like playing the real thing. This will be a great way to expose people to the instrument and will create, I hope, a whole generation of people able to play Anglo and looking to buy real instruments.
Great idea! I had no idea the concertina
layout was so all over the place. It’s not
linear like a harmonica…
Here’s something I’ve wondered since using
a touchscreen phone: does muscle memory
catch up to the lack of tactile feedback?
i.e., Have you ever been able to play
without looking?
It is linear. Look top-down on the left side, and bottom-up on the right.
On the Left Side, the far left row is the G row. The right one is C.
On the Right Side, the right row is the continuation of the G row, the middle row is the continuation of the C row and the left row is the accidentals.
Take a G harmonica. Stack a C harmonica on top of it.
Slice the stacked harmonicas in half and put the low half on the left, the high half on the right. That’s essentially the layout of an anglo concertina.
Take a look again at the layout and imagine the half harmonicas stacked vertically with the high end of the harmonicas on the bottom left, and the low end of the harmonicas on the bottom right.
Don’t worry about those two extra buttons on the right, those are for the C# and D# that aren’t on the C or G harmonica, but are required for tunes in D, Em, and Amix.
It may be a week or two based on what I hear, so hopefully by Christmas, assume I don’t have to change something to get approval, then the clock would start over.
By completely rewriting the multi-touch code, I figured out how to make the app at least 5-10 times faster to respond and also added G#s in both octaves as a 17th button! Waiting for Apple to approve the new version, probably around Christmas. It’s really come together nicely.
Here’s the new layout with 17 buttons:
Button notes can be displayed by pressing the ‘?’ icon, there’s now G#s in both octaves:
I want to start out with a very good user experience, I promise, unless I find some killer bug or Apple requests changes, this is it until the first free update some time in late January after the 1.0 version is for sale.
Too bad you can’t turn it sideways and get more room for your fingers, along the long edge. Screen too narrow to move without your hands running into each other, or no tilt in that direction for push/pull?
