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Anyone playing the Atzarin?

Joined
Oct 18, 2023
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Hello, Folks. I have borrowed from my kind and generous friend his Atzarin. Yup. That of the strange layout. Buttons, looks like a CBA, but plays bisonorically, yet chromatically. Needs two fingering patterns, mostly, to play in about 8 keys, including the ones I'd likely need. Heavy, compared to my concertinas and smaller diatonic boxes, but only about 11 pounds, so half the weight of full CBAs. I just would like to hear any comments from someone who has at least gotten some tunes out of it....I am probably 2 weeks away from "Golden Slippers" and the like.

Thanks!
 
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I see we’re following a similar journey through various alternative keyboard layouts :D Łukasz from Janko piano FB group here. I looked a bit into Atzarin a decade ago, when I was deciding what I wanted to move to from my first, cheap Anglo. I’ve built an universal MIDI hex based concertina to test various options, one of them was similar to Atzarin, a bisonoric variant of Hayden, but my brain simply refuses to accept bisonority. And as always with niche instruments - the benefit of the layout does not really offset the downside of instrument availability…
 
Well, Hello, Lukasz, and yes we are on a similar journey! That's one thing I like so much about the interweb.....
I came in through the bisonoric window, though, and perhaps that's why I intend to give the Atzarin a few months to see how I do. Although, the Hayden Duet concertina has opened my brain for unisonority, and the Janko has expanded that opening. On one of the other sites, I just noted how the Janko has made a tremendous unintended and positive impact on my left hand, which heretofore only worked sort of automatically on the Anglo concertinas (hard to miss, and the main advantage, IMHO, or bisonority) and not much else....no English concertina, nor much on the Hayden, nor any Stradella on any machine. But the Janko really helps.

By the way, I suspect I've seen mention of your universal MIDI hex based concertina, on some site. Can you kindly remind us where it may be, if you would like others to see it? Of course, if it's just for your private and personal use, then not. Thanks.
 
Well, Hello, Lukasz, and yes we are on a similar journey! That's one thing I like so much about the interweb.....
I came in through the bisonoric window, though, and perhaps that's why I intend to give the Atzarin a few months to see how I do. Although, the Hayden Duet concertina has opened my brain for unisonority, and the Janko has expanded that opening. On one of the other sites, I just noted how the Janko has made a tremendous unintended and positive impact on my left hand, which heretofore only worked sort of automatically on the Anglo concertinas (hard to miss, and the main advantage, IMHO, or bisonority) and not much else....no English concertina, nor much on the Hayden, nor any Stradella on any machine. But the Janko really helps.

By the way, I suspect I've seen mention of your universal MIDI hex based concertina, on some site. Can you kindly remind us where it may be, if you would like others to see it? Of course, if it's just for your private and personal use, then not. Thanks.
You had to see it in a now long forgotten thread on concertina.net, or perhaps I mentioned it on the Janko group, but without any details. I made it in 2010, used until the switches I used for the keyboard started to break and never even build a proper body for it, there was ever only a prototype.
 
Like Łukasz's brain, mine also has problems with bisonority, although with harmonicas I can handle it ...
Started with piano accordion but today all is done on Janko accordion.
Met the Atzarin designer and promoter years ago someplace north of Spain, he's a nice guy and his design seems very good but I didn't think it would be a good option for me.
 
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