melplot

Plot melodeon¹ layout diagrams

Notes

Inspiration

• standard 21-key D/G with acc. notes highlighted and piano-key octave numbers marked: http://forum.melodeon.net/files/site/keyboards/2%20Row%20-%20D_G%20-%20with%20accidentals.jpg
• standard 21-key D/G with notes on stave, from Mel Forum: http://forum.melodeon.net/files/site/DGwithStave.pdf
• as above, with ABC notation labels added, from Daddy Long Les: https://www.daddylongles.com/_files/ugd/2a4ead_6501161c36fa470fbb1f64d24261ad9d.pdf
• Dipper blank 30-key Anglo concertina scheme, with push/pull "pills" and piano keyboard with octaves highlighted: http://www.johndipper.co.uk/downloads/blank-scheme.pdf
• 20-key Anglo concertina with fancy buttons and octaves notated, from concertina.com: http://www.concertina.com/fingering/images/anglo20-W1000H300.gif
• Rick Mohr's layout, described here, simple and clean, effective use of colors: http://rickmohr.net/music/3row.pdf
• standard 12-key G/C with notes on stave, fixed solfège, and octave numbers, from Mel Forum: http://forum.melodeon.net/files/site/keyboards/GC_with_accidentals_showing_notes_on_stave.pdf
• 3-row D/G/acc with fixed solfège coloring treble buttons by octave, by Bob Ellis: http://forum.melodeon.net/files/site/Ellis3row.pdf

TODO

and ideas

• basic diagram using mpl
• different ways to indicate octaves (e.g. color; piano key notation or wrt. root)
• different options for pitch labels (ABC, piano key notation, scale degrees)
• plotting notes on stave
• CLI
• first PyPI release
• HTML/CSS output option
• fancier button style option (some 3-D-ness)
• draw connections in bellows direction for consecutive notes or chord
• docs build with layout library

Input format

ASCII representation of the layout.

Ideas:

• notes in ABC notation, push/pull separated by / or |, push/pull pairs separated by whitespace
• for each row, specify horizontal offset in the layout (zero implicit; e.g. 0.5 for the second row in a typical 11/10 layout)
  • maybe like x0.5 instead of just 0.5, to emphasize just space
• bass chords also in ABC notation, but maybe also support the common +/-?

Layout sources

• Mel Forum 2-row
• Mel Forum 2.5-row
• Mel Forum 3-row
• bass layouts from Squeezehead
• various layouts and notes from Orest ²

Footnotes

1. Diatonic button accordion (DBA) / melodeon / "box" / accordéon diatonique / diato / etc. Also may later extend to plotting the layouts of other button accordion family instruments like concertinas. ↩

2. Be careful opening this link on mobile browsers, I've gotten annoying / potentially dangerous pop-ups. ↩