Dissonance

So the consensus is likely that all the old reeds are brass that is work hardened to some extent. I made some replacement reeds out of both and had a much easier time getting the phosphor bronze to match the sound of the originals.

Are the reeds we are talking about really brass reeds? Could they be phosphor-bronze?

Interesting! You guys think that a leak like that would affect the reeds outside the chamber more than the ones inside? Certainly worth exploring.

Hello Reed Geeks, Instrument: Wheatstone model 22 Problem: I have a hand full of mid range push reeds that drop pitch a bit with high pressure. -The problem is unchanged when reeds are exchanged with their opposites. (Problem doesn’t follow the reed). -The problem also does not follow the reeds to a different concertina (at least on the ones I can fit in a different instrument. I think the chamber baffles are unmolested and in their original positions. Valves seem in good shape. Anyone have any idea what is going on there.

It is worth pointing out that both fixes in the video have the potential to change tuning of the reed somewhat. 1. Narrowing the reed gap often can result in a sharper reed. (I suspect it might have something to do with work hardening the reed by bending it). 2. A less flexible valve = flatter note.

For what it is worth. In the 70’s a folk revival band “Fiedel Michel” played it. I assumed it was from the flat lands of North Germany, so Flemish would be entirely believable as well. I have since heard it from a bunch of different sources almost identically played and mostly a Norther European source was claimed. However a kid I played with recently was calling it “Dance Urso (SP?) and had learned it out of a Mexican tradition on the button accordion. I know there is a solid German-Mexican connection in Tex-Mex accordion tradition.

Wow, you have a lot going on there! It would take me a life time to learn not just which duplicate button to play for which key, but also get the right direction for the key. I grew up tuning a harpsichord to just temperament for whatever key was most commonly played at the time. This is triggering some post traumatic stress of my father yelling “TAKE TWO MORE BEATS OUT OF THAT THIRD”!

Alex, You are correct in theory the difference should be much more noticeable with an accordion. But then accordion reeds seem to be designed to work at lower pressures and larger air volumes, so I find it hard to compare them 1:1 with concertinas.

Jim, Ideally you would be able to use your phone (or a click of a button) to switch from your concertina setting to your voice/pub setting. See my post above for what I believe to be “the concertina setting”. Clive, The bluetac won’t especially help with the concertina sound. However it should reduce feedback of all kinds, which is typically done with fitted and closed earpieces. People with significant amplification need those. While feedback can be controlled electronically it comes at a price acoustically and it is far better to just get proper ear pieces. Side Note: I have lots of deaf people in my family. Half of them are in Europe. I have found that in Europe decades old technology is sold as new at full price. I have yet to find a technician/seller in Europe who had more than a rudimentary knowledge of what hearing aids can do or how to do it. So be wary if you are told something can’t be done. We seem to be slightly better off in America although nobody is prepared for concertina players here either.

My model 22 and my TT seem to have the same scale reeds. I am not sure the reed set and valves etc. are exactly the same but I still think I can make a comparison. The TT being significantly larger requires very noticeably more pressure to play at the same volume. On the other hand it seems like there is very little bellows movement necessary with the TT. Simple physics! A concertina is a high pressure, low air volume instrument. The accordion is a low pressure high air volume instrument. A big concertina is head in the direction of an accordion.

Hello fellow deaf folks! I have a concertina setting on my hearing aids. The answer is to keep going back to the hearing aid folks and NEVER take no for an answer. The solution is actually very simple, but your audiologists have never encountered anyone who’s quality of life depends on hearing concertinas. Build a concertina setting/program! 1. Turn off top end dB cutoff. The vibrato you are hearing is actually your aids trying to dynamically limit volume many times per second. If amplification actually gets too loud, just turn down the volume overall. 2. Get rid of all the speech optimizing settings. Your audiologist will be horrified. 3. Considered amplifying all frequencies equally and then work backwards if the resulting tone is odd. Probably what you think is normal is already odd. Conclusion: You are going for the simplest possible amplification, which is something these devices do not default to and your audiologists are not trained for.

Tiposx, I too have a friend who uses those two note triplets exclusively. I would say there is a place for those and a place for the others depending on the tune and how the people you are playing with are approaching the tune.

DickT, I think using two fingers instead of becoming insanely fast with one is in large part about the emphasis and maybe not as much about speed. Those Irish triplets are typically forward weighted. While I bet there are people that can pull off Irish triplets with a single finger it is a whole lot more intuitive to use two.

Hello, A fellow EC player recently asked me how I do those single note triplets at speed so I slowed down and examined what I do and didn’t like what I saw. 1. How do you folks do triplets on the lower right hand F sharp. I tend to do “ring, middle, ring”. However I find that the pinky rest is in the way (I don’t mean to trigger anyone with the mention of this “obsolete” device 😀). Do you folks that play Irish at speed do “ middle, index, middle “ for that lower F# to avoid entanglement with the pinky rest? 2. My brain seems to inexplicably pre-plan whether to use “middle, index, middle” or “index, middle, index” based on what the following note in the tune is and what finger needs to be free to play it. Any failure to pre-plan produces a nasty rhythmic disturbance for me. I wonder how many of you pre-plan the order versus play the same order regardless of the following note?

The Concertina Fire! This is was most unexpected and in retrospect very entertaining. Through the help of counseling I am now finally able to tell the story ? I got ahold of a Stagi Anglo, you know, inexpensive, steel ends white celluloid acetate buttons. The problem was that someone in the distant past thought it was a great idea to hot glue the buttons to the levers in lieu of the rubber sleeves. Well it wasn’t a great idea because all the buttons were just getting stuck (this system relies on flexibility). I did just about everything I could think of to remove those buttons, nothing worked. That darn hot glue had way more strength and integrity than the cheap aluminum mechanism. As a last resort I decided to use a heat gun to try to soften the hot glue to the point that I could take the button off the lever. Starting with a warm setting I carefully increased the heat incrementally and .....BANG!!!......the button I was working on flared up like a firework. Literally In under a second and before I could reach for a rag to put out the fire it had spread to three other buttons and singed a couple more. Let that be a warning! After the smoke cleared (and there was a surprising amount of it) I checked the temperature of the heat gun. I was able to hold my hand under it for quite a while. What this means is that these old Stagis are a lot more flammable than gunpowder. I think I may have stumbled upon the secret Stagi self destruct mechanism.

Hello Clunktrip, I apologize, I think this didn’t go the way I intended at all. I have found very few EC players that believably play Irish tunes. You are definitely one of them and I was looking forward to hearing a lot more. As a lifelong tenor banjo player, playing EC like a tenor banjo was really a compliment though I can see now that it might not have sounded one. Oops! I guess not everyone loves banjo like I do. I would love to have a more extensive discussion with folks about Irish technique. I have been thinking of the EC more like a fiddle and the bellows as a 10 foot bow that you only use tiny portions of. My goal has been to try to emulate the fiddle bowing and try to use the same ornaments the fiddler does where they line up well. It didn’t occur to me that you could essentially drive the tune with doublings.

Who is this EC player playing Irish. What is interesting to me is that he is doing all this without bellows reversals. He/she is basically playing tenor banjo on the EC. The rhythm is based on doublings. I like it and would like to hear more. https://m.vk.com/video-70097560_168377833

Yes, tenor treble EC. You are right, my experiment is modifying too many parameters, to be a decent scientific experiment. I plant to make two moves that I think shift towards brighter and louder.

I probably need to add that I am taking about a 56 key EC, although the number keys could be altered easily in the design.

Hello, I am am planing a little experiment. I am going to make a set of metal sides for my wooden ended 1918 aeola and see how the sound changes. I have no illusions about how much effort this is going to take, so it might as well end up looking right. To that end I would like to ask if anyone might be able to share a good line drawing of metal fretwork for an aeola of this period? I am shooting for a design that is quite open. I suppose if I can't get a line drawing, a true head on picture of both sides might make a good starting point as well.

Thanks Geoff and Theo, The instrument is extended up. No reedpan leaks that I found. 48 button ECs seem to not be valved on the highest 4 or so. Therefore I am betting that everything higher than those should be valveless on mine. No reedpan leaks that I found. I will take Geoff's advise and try a couple notes with thinner valves.

Hello Folks I acquired a 56 key 1918 Aeola recently. It is a really nice instrument and I have been putting lots of miles on it. Comparing it to friends instruments of similar years with identical scroll work, mine seems to have a darker tone above "violin e string". Also I use a bit more pressure for the high notes in order to get equal volume with the low notes. Mine has the heavy white valves all the way up except for the last two notes which don't have valves. What I expected is: The thinner brown leather valves with the last octave or so left without valves. The instruments I am comparing mine too seem to have all thin brown valves. Could the thicker white valves explain the darker tone? The logic would be that they disproportionately effect the high note.