maze wrote:
Thanks all for your input so far! Does anyone know the push/pull layout on the B/C and C#/D in order for figure out which is a smoother scale?
More keyboard layouts than you could ever want to look at:
http://www.melodeon.net/info.html
Scroll down for the Irish ones.
Smoothness depends on what key you're playing in. It also depends, as I said in your quote above, on whether you're playing linear passages or arpeggios.
Take the key of D: on a B/C box you can play the part of the scale from A through to E (going up) without changing bellows direction - on the pull. On a C#/D you'd have to play push pull-pull push pull. (Or push pull push-push pull.)
Now on your B/C try playing an arpeggio or a figure such as DF#A DF#A - you are changing bellows direction for every F#. Not so smooth my friend! Whereas on a C#/D these notes are all in the same bellows direction.
Let's face it, the button box is a perversion and will drive you nuts for the first few months until it has your brain tamed. After that you settle down to learning its ways as best you can and then it doesn't much matter what system you have. Read what Peter Browne (B/C box player) says in this discussion: he says, it's a bitch either way you look at it!
http://thesession.org/discussions/display.php/4345
I'd say you should take up the B/C. The system is losing ground so fast to C#/D that soon nobody will be taking it up. (All Jackie Daly's fault!)
Failing that, borrow a B/C or C#/D box somehow and experiment with the two fingerings. Pretend it's one, then the other. You'll soon find out what speaks to you.
A final thought: if smoothness is what you want, why don't you look into a continental chromatic button accordion? Seriously... they have the great advantage that you can use the same fingering for any scale (as long as the box has 4 or preferably 5 rows of buttons - the last 2 are duplicates to allow you to use the same finger patterns) and therefore transpose instantly. You can back up singers beautifully or play jazz. And you won't fry your brain with the old pull and push.
Another final thought: get a D/G box. Yes you'll be stuck in same keys you can play in on pipes or whistle - but you'll have nearly every note (except D and the Cs) in both bellows directions. Potentially much smoother than a B/C.