Language

[bill_mchale]

Ah, but I'm a database man. Couldn't we have an entity-relationship diagram instead?

 

Chris

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What about an object-oriented Database?

 

--

Bill

[JimLucas]

What about an object-oriented Database?

Most inappropriate!

At least in design, neither concertinas nor accordions are oriental objects.

Shengs, on the other hand....

It does seem, though, that some of the details of the recent oriental production are more accidental than occidental.

 

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[Stephen Chambers]

It does seem, though, that some of the details of the recent oriental production are more accidental than occidental.

 

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You can't beat that good old "Italian engineering". (Made in China)

Edited January 11, 2005 by Stephen Chambers

[Stephen Chambers]

From Grove Music Online

Concertina

(Fr. concertina; Ger. Konzertina; It. piccola fisarmonica)

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And speaking of Italian (above post), I cannot help but be amused/bemused by the Italian translation for "concertina" according to Grove : "piccola fisarmonica" means "small accordion", or even "small piano accordion".

 

Ciao !

[JimLucas]

the Italian translation for "concertina" according to Grove : "piccola fisarmonica" means "small accordion", or even "small piano accordion".     

Not "small F# accordion"?

(Most Europeans seem to refer to F# as "fis". )

((But since I don't know Italian -- though I do know a few Italians, -- I could guess that "fis" might mean "fizz", or "air", and simply distinguish the accordion from the "glass harmonica".

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Now for my next attempt at linguistic obfuscation.... ))

[JimLucas]

One more time: It is my fundamental belief that communication is of primary importance and that terminology is of no importance, except to the extent that it aids or impedes communication.

 

The point I was making here was that any any definition of concertina and any definition of accordion that is necessarily broad enough to include all the instruments that are recognized as being accordions or concertinas necessarily leaves the distinction between the two so narrow as to result in larger differences between instruments within the class than between the classes themselves.

But one of my main points was to dispute your "necessarily", because I don't believe it's necessary -- or even useful -- to have definitions that are that broad. And I don't think it's even possible to have all-inclusive definitions on which everyone -- or even all the widely recognized authorities -- agree. It seems possible that there are instruments you would call accordions that I or someone else might call concertinas. And there are definitely instruments for which I wouldn't use either term, without qualification.

 

The franglo is one. I personally think of it as a concertina, but I would describe or classify it as "a concertina with a keyboard that imitates a French diatonic accordion", or "a cross between a concertina and an accordion (though one that I feel is closer to a concertina than to an accordion)". It is certainly not a prototypical "concertina". But to a customs agent, I would insist that it is a "concertina", not an "accordion", if that would save me a few hundred dollars in import duty. Once again, communication -- and therefor what one wants to communicate to whom -- should and does determine usage.

 

Stephen Chambers has given some other excellent examples. The Bandonika is one. To me it's more concertina-like than accordion-like, and it's definitely more like a bandonion or Chemnitzer than like a Morse or anything made by Wheatstone (though there is at least one 8-sided "bandonion" in the Wheatstone ledgers). But I think that being aware of its features, and how it differs from the various more common instruments is what is important, and that giving importance to whether one calls it an "accordion" or "concertina" is not only a waste of effort, but potentially harmful.

 

never mind "hybrid" (that word again !) Bandonions which have their keyboards on the front instead of on the ends (designed by a Tango player, built by a Bandonion maker, to function as a Bandonion),

Hybrid Bandonion (from the website of Harry Geuns)

so are they not concertinas ?

I don't know, and I don't care.

I don't think it's for me -- or for Concertina.net -- to determine, though everyone is free to form their own opinion, if they wish.

 

Harry Geuns, whom I would consider to be more of an authority for that particular instrument than any member of Concertina.net, seems to consider it a bandoneon, though he doesn't actually call it one on his web site. Instead, it's on a separate page, "Free Reed Hybrids", while he has pages for two other classifications, "Bandonions" and "Concertinas". The latter page currently refers only to the 48-button English, though he also makes anglos. I find nothing there about Chemnitzers, and he doesn't seem to refer to bandoneons as "concertinas". (What does Grove's dictionary say about "bandoneons"?) If I were discussing that instrument with Harry or another bandoneon player, we might initiate the discussion by calling it a "Gabla bandoneon", but we'd spend most of our time comparing it to other bandoneons, and none at all on whether it should be classified as "concertina" or "accordion".

[Stephen Chambers]

((But since I don't know Italian -- though I do know a few Italians, -- I could guess that "fis" might mean "fizz", or "air", and simply distinguish the accordion from the "glass harmonica"

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Now for my next attempt at linguistic obfuscation....  ))

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I think the origin of the Italian name "fisarmonica" probably lies with the German "physharmonica" (or "physharmonika" if you prefer ), an early (1821) reed organ. It is said to derive from the classical Greek "phusa" (bellows) and "harmonikos" (skilled in music/musical), thus a "musical bellows".

 

However, Ben Franklin's glass harmonica would be seriously implicated in the application of the word "harmonica" to describe free reed instruments (and the Germans use it to describe all free reeds), as early writers, struggling to find a way to describe the sound of them, tended to compare it to that of a glass harmonica.

 

Edited to correct somebody else's Greek !

Edited January 13, 2005 by Stephen Chambers