Saturday, April 9, 2011

Getting the most out of a 3-row box

This clip is amazing -- I could watch it a thousand more times! (Video from YouTube.)


     I am not sure what kind of treble layout Marc Perrone is using in this clip.  My understanding is that he had eventually made it easier to play chromatically on the 3-row diatonic (which is already actually chromatic, just not "easily" played chromatically) by replacing redundant notes on the inner rows with "accidentals."  Thus, on a G/C/F box, where there are 'pressed' G's on the G row and the C row, one can replaced the C row's G's with G#, and likewise replace the F row's C's with C#.  There are also some redundant 'pulled' notes, which can be similarly substituted.  For instance, subbing Eb for some of the pulled E's, perhaps on the F row? (Addendum: indeed, the inside (F) row contains Eb's instead of E's!)
     At one point, someone (probably in France) had this layout posted on a website, and now I can't find it and am clearly forgetting the details.  If anyone finds it, please let me know and I will edit this post, or create a new post about le maitre, Marc Perrone.
     In the meanwhile, enjoy this old clip of some truly marvelous box playing!
 

2 comments:

  1. Andy,

    No sign of Perrone's own layout (mel.net archives indicate that it may have been offered by Castagnari in the past) but this site has 9 3-row layouts, including several French 3-row systems here, all designed for increased "chromaticity" - Bruno LeTron's looks interesting.

    http://www.geocities.ws/kozulich/3rowGC.html

    Chris

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  2. I believe that Perrone's layout was posted on the French website, trad.org, which is no longer up and running. I'll try to figure out if it can still be found somewhere...
    -Andy

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