harpomatic

It is a scam, the guy doesn't have this concertina in his possession, I checked. BTW, "our" SteveFile wasn't too keen on clarifying whether him and Kunder are one and the same person, thanks for nothing Steve!

If it is free, I take it, whether it is Crabb or Jeffries, it doesn't matter when the price is right.

Wolf, i am one of those "multi-instrumentalists, and understanding your remark, simply want to tell you that time after time your understanding and vision of EC and the way you express your observations are just spot-on. I particularly enjoyed your "piano" comparison in this post, as well as guitar parallels that you expressed in the past.

Tom, exactly what Pat says - you didn't pull enough air to activate the opposing reed. What you did is a single reeded bend, in both cases, with and without the finger blocking off the opposite reed. In this case, indeed, valves are even helpful, as that single reed will bend even easier. Double reeded bends are a technique that once conquered, seems to be hard to avoid using, it's such a staple of blues playing that one tends to overdo it. However it is not easy to develop this technique at first, and you're simply not doing it right (yet). Its not just the force of the airflow, but a change of direction. I have seen many beginners struggle with it, though to someone who can do it it seems like there's nothing to it. Try it on a 10 hole harp on inhale, hole 3 is the bendiest, due to exactly this phenomenon - the reed opposite to B there is G, so you can bend down potentially to G, but in practice you can easily get A, and even Ab. Thats how those humble diatonics can play all those missing notes. So, unless you are hitting that A, you are not getting the double reeded bend, but once you do - you will hear and feel the difference. It does take the force of breath that's scary to a beginner, for the fear of damaging the reeds... no worries - these are much more resilient than we think. Ps. About the ability to reproduce the experiment: Pat and I, along with any intermediate level harp player can do it a thousand times out of a thousand tries, it works every time without fail. Pps. listen to the first 2 notes of this track, the first is the bend taken from the extreme bottom (without releasing it back up), just straight start and finish "at the bent bottom". The second is the transition from the initialy bent note up to its normal pitch. I know that Carlos retuned his harp according to the principle in question, just for that note alone, to be able to bend it further than normal... (if I am not mistaken, the title refers to that fact, retuning of the C note to B for the bend)... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E7VWbALgbZA

Alex knew I wasn't kidding.. I have chord harmonica with plastic reeds, works great. Last night I made a reed out of a plastic cup - it gives a bass note so loud and low, that it rattles my teeth if I blow it.

Wolf, this confirms my thinking of EC, in this case (nonET-tuned), as an instrument in C, piano- like. Don, yes, and pedal steel guitar is tuned to A442 -443, and going into various tempered tunings from there(mainly elders are still at it), or tuning Et. But that's the origin of the pitch creep, that took us up to 454 once before... Greg, very informative, thank you for further clarification of this curious topic, you are among the very few who have hands on experience with so many instruments - that's a unique vantage point you got there, much appreciated! On your points about tuning reeds - confirms all my observations about the subject. I want to share a tip, perhaps not so much for your benefit - first you may know this, second - this is not a permanent "trick", can't be used in a professional situation of your kind, but perhaps for easy experimentation, and for friends here that are servicing their own concertinas. Ok, so, in tuning harmonicas (for my own use), I always prefer to go down. This allows for adding weight as a means of tuning down, as Greg mentioned. It's a common technique, has its pros and cons, but it works fine when done right. You can often see some extreme examples of this in accordions. Now, here's my tip, that I discovered while looking for a temporary/reversible way to accomplish this: any sticky matter, in its tiniest of amounts will accomplish the task. I first experimented with adhesive putty. Very effective. The amount, equal to a grain of sand, landed on a reed can take you very far. At first, I thought that surely the putty will "swing off" the reed within a minute of use (harmonica, moisture, extreme bending - conditions that never occur in bellows-driven free reeds). To my surprise, the harmonica that I retuned this way is still good after 14 years of use... At the same time, the action is perfectly reversible, one swipe with a blade. Easy to fine tune by removing or adding tiny amounts. My current favorite is "white out", the office product... Especially in pen form. You can put a tiny dot on a reed, nice and neat. It will stay on forever. Will take you down by a quarter tone, depending on size. Add another dot, on top of the first - go down some more. Much like solder, except it is totally reversible with one scrape of a blade. It stays on forever, but as a commercial/professional operator, like Greg, I would rather do the traditional, permanent and dependable use of solder and other techniques. However, for my own use, where I am my own customer, shipping and handling is much cheaper - my "forever" have been tested for well over 14 years, under most extreme conditions, without a single fail. One nice thing about whiteout - it scrapes off in tiny increments so easily, like chalk. I prefer to land a slightly larger dot, and then finetune by removing tiny amounts.

Thank you, excellent material! So, as I understand, in case of EC (and not necessarily other systems), it is rather tuned to middle C of whatever frequency it happens to be. Will check tomorrow to see how close it really is to modern pitch..

What I don't completely understand yet, is the "zero" note vs the "home" note, to which the whole thing is tuned. Based on what I read thus far, the "zero" note may be, say, A (440 or whatever else), while the "home" note to which the entire instrument is tuned may be some other note, G or C, or D for example. As if an instrument is in a particular key, which with ET, it isn't (talking about EC here)... So, I get the concept, but how to determine my "home" key - a bit confused there. Ps. My guess it's C, red buttons and all, but is it, really?

Steve, based on my understanding of a current situation, 1/5 is preferable, its a bit closer to Et, sweetened chords, but still not too clashing with ET tuned playing partners (given that you're tuned to the same concert pitch.) The genius of EC is that you get both enharmonics, this way the layout makes so much more sence... (correct me if I am wrong, I just started my excursion into this meantone territory)

Thank you fellas, seems like Greg zeroed in on the answer here - upon closer inspection and after reading up on the 1/5 mean tone here on Cnet, it does sound like the correct identification. I was checking with a "better" tuner, but not the best, cents read in increments of 5, so (very) few cents here and there probably can account for "not exact", as Greg put it, but still very convincing temperament identification. Fascinating stuff!

John, thanks for pointing out lack of relevant info (though I know that concert pitch isn't any temperament:), I was hoping that perhaps a given "modern" pitch + just a mere fact of different enharmonics may lead to a quick guess. Wrong assumption on my part, but your advice lead to a good session of more precise measuring on a better tuner (though, who knows, really), and I get a pretty consistent read out for the first time: First, my A is 443 (not 442). All my Ab, Eb, Bb are +15 cents sharp, throughout the instrument. All F#, C#, G# and D# are -15 cents flat. All B's are -5, F's and C's are +5. I never really play anything other than ET, so never got into particularities of other temperaments, though I have a good basic understanding of what's at play. On a retunable instrument, like pedal steel, there's much discussion about temperaments, but I am an ET believer, so just tune to that and "meantone" me not, so to say... However, this tuning sounds very nice, and seems to be consistent and deliberate, which rules out just being out of tune. Got me curious as to what it actually is.

Just curious, how did they stamp those "letter" names on bone buttons? Nice feature, btw, even though I know them by heart..

Friends, what's the tuning temperament in this EC: A442 and doubling as it should throughout the range on those "A"s, while my doubled enharmonics are clearly differently tuned? It's clearly not ET, but not one of those antiquated A 452 or 436, or such, either. Produces nice chords, as expected, seems to work with modern stuff, too - A442 is close to modern concert pitch, currently in use by about half of all tunable instruments, as the modern concert pitch. ?.

How about plastic reeds?

I'd surely try a Wheatstone hybrid before any other, they surely knew a thing or two about making these things....