Dana Johnson

If I had a C/G already, a D/A would be one of my next choices, not for the keys, but for the brighter character of the instrument. I am completely comfortable in D and almost as comfortable in A on a C/G 30 button, mostly requiring some practice for it to feel natural ( transposing your G tunes all into A is a good way to practice it.) but to have the same bright sound with more room to move on the keyboard is a great thing. I often play alone and choose my keys as much for how I feel at the moment as for the "standard" key a tune is played in, then it is fun to see what new possibilities come up in the different fingering. the D/A 20 button sounds like a good project. Good luck with the reeds. Dana

The stuff I'm using was single thickness "Black on Black" mounting or presentation board Bainbridge Letramax 229 single thick Black on Black. unfortunately it only comes in smaller "14x20" sheets, but it is hard and dense and doesn't take up the space of the thicker mat boards (which have always been too soft in my opinion ) to hold up well since they are made to cut easily and cleanly and provide a decorative surface and core. There isn't much weight savings in the thinner stuff I'm using, but the extra hardness and stiffness makes getting a less bulky bellows that is still strong enough more practical. I've used baking soda solutions to neutralize and remove acid flux with good sucess, but recently found some rosin core no lead solder that works well and doesn't leave a corrosive flux behind. I clean it off with a little alcohol. On the note of solders. Lead melts at a bit over 800 degrees F, tin / lead solders melt considerably below that ( some less than 500 degrees F. Low temperature tin /silver or tin / silver /copper solders melt around 431 degrees F. The blue temper seen on spring steels is created at about 600 degrees F with a light straw color( much harder ) being generated down around 400 degrees. Careful soldering won't bring the reeds back up to a range that will alter their temper, and since the reed tip experiences the least bending stress of the whole reed, any change in temper there wouldn't affect the reed anyway. Just make sure to use a small soldering iron (preferably temperature controlled ) and don't apply heat any longer than needed to get the solder to flow. Dana

If you are only talking about most of a half step, that amounts to a miniscule amount of metal added to the reed tips, actually it should only be a thin layer at most ( a few thousandths of an inch ) on the lowest reeds. The medium low and mid range reeds should all stand that much metal removal nearer the reed root to drop the pitch and the high ones you will have to be careful not to take off too much they are so sensitive. Avoid lowering by removing material near the center of the reed since that area controls the reed stiffness much more than it's pitch and it is easy to make a reed too soft by thinning there to change the pitch. Just spread out your metal removal a bit so you don't focus the bending right at the root of the reed ( over about 1/4 of the reed's length from the root ). I offer a Low D on my anglos in place of the low draw F and use the same reed with a little weighting. The tone remains wonderful, but again even from F down to D it only takes a little metal. Where the tone can be a problem is for reeds that are much sorter than ideal, weighted to make a low reed, then the tone CAN be overly dull with a big blob of solder, but a better method here is to solder on a block of brass and then taper it to a wedge shape with clean square sides matching the reed tip. This tends to preserve the cutoff characteristics of the reed passing through the window and maintains more crispness of tone. These comments are presuming you have some experience in reed tuning. While it isn't something too complicated to do and learn, it is easy to screw up ( see the thread on high reeds ) if you don't really understand how it works and how different low reeds are from high reeds in their shape and the relative amounts of material removed to change pitches. Dana

The identity of a person isn't really contained in a name, but is certainly expressed in their communications. I dare say many of us would recognize each other even if we used a different pseudonym each post. I guess I've been fortunate to receive only kind e-mails from those who've seen my name here. Perhaps if we are resolving to do anything, it should be to remain respectful ( as Alan certainly is )of each other and to assume that regardless of what someone has written, that they never intended any lack of respect for us. I am often surprised at the things people take offense over when it is nearly always a misunderstanding or a fair difference of opinion. All in all, I think the people posting on this site are a fine bunch of people. Dana

Theo's remarks about the hand lens (order from www.scientificsonline.com ) should be your first step. especially at the smaller sizes, trying to judge by eye how the light is passing the reed can be terribly misleading unless your eye is exactly perpendicular to the reed. From the sound of it, you may be doing a couple things wrong to generate your results. The shorter the reed the less material you need to remove to change pitch, so if you go for a number of strokes of your file (I vastly prefer abrasives for tuning the small reeds ) with no results, one of two things is happening, either your file isn't cutting, or you are removing metal from the neutral zone which doesn't affect the pitch of the reed only it's stiffness. When the pitch all of a sudden jumps way too high, either you just took off a good swipe from the reed tip (already very thin ) and took off a lot more than the dust required, or more likely from the sounds of it, you got a chip or burr lodged very near the root of the reed and it effectively shortened the vibrating length of the reed. You can see this with the hand lens easily ( I do all my reed work under a microscope now ) To raise the pitch of a small reed a lot,( a semi tone or more ) if there is enough extra length to the reed, I will take a few thousandths in length off the tip of the reed and slide the reed forward in the slot until it has the proper ( nearly no gap )gap again at the tip. This increases the stiffness of the reed and raises the pitch quite a bit without thinning the often very thin reed tip. Then I carefully thin the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the reed near the root with abrasive or file depending on how much metal needs to go to lower the pitch. This preserves the profile of the reed pretty well and avoids getting a paper thin tip which doesn't bend evenly and is easy to damage. When thinning to raise pitch ( like if you over shoot the lowering process ) You need to restrict yourself to the 1/6th of the reed closest to the tip especially on small thin reeds, the neutral point is more forward ( depends on the profile ) and filing farther back gets progressively less results and weakens the reed. If you are having to re-make your reeds, the smallest ones have fairly thick roots and taper to the tip. They need to be flexible enough though so will have a curved profile that nearly levels out around the neutral zone. A good reed will sound slightly when you blow gently on it ( like you'd blow on a hot spoonful of soup ). A straight slope can give you a reed of the right pitch but it will be much too stiff. If you aren't aware already( not entirely clear from your comments and results ) thinning near the tip raises pitch and thinning near the root lowers it. Tip thinning lowers mass at the point of greatest motion allowing the tip to move faster, while root thinning reduces thickness at the point of greatest bending stress, reducing the spring power needed to maintain the reed's velocity. Along the length of the reed there is an area where the weakening produced by thinning is balanced by the weight reduction and nothing happens. This is the area where you control the reed's overall stiffness. A reed that is thicker here will be stiffer, more powerful and less responsive. A reed that is thin here will be sensitive and weaker sounding. The neutral point is usually forward of the center of the reed a little, but changes depending on the reed profile at the time. It is important when filing a reed's profile to keep it bending in a smooth curve, so you always have to blend your thinning forward and back of the area you are focusing on. Side clearances on a reed should be around 1 to 1.5 thousandths of an inch per side. You can do less, but run more risk of the reed hitting if slightly misaligned 2 thousandths will noticeably slow the reed's response,and more than that will pretty much spoil it. you still have to get the right set for your reeds which for a good reed at that pitch range will be almost no set at all ( height above the frame the tip of the reed sits ) I'd file the feeler gage you are using to a shallow taper coming almost to a knife edge at the tip so you can avoid having the reed bending over the corner of it when you are doing your filing. If the reed is curved when you are filing, the curve will affect the profile you are trying to cut and the file will focus more cutting on the part bending over the tip of the feeler gage. Dana

I wish I could shed some light on this. Reed steel does develop tensions when manufactured that are balanced until half the steel is removed from one side while filing. The vibration of playing gives these stresses a chance to equalize over time. ( common practice in manufacturing of certain metal parts is to subject them to strong vibration for a while to de-stress them. ( they also tend to de-magnetize ) That this happens in new reeds I do not doubt, but as to how it affects the sound, I'd be shooting in the dark, and I don't have night sights. Perhaps eventually one of us will figure it out, but it is worth noting that the experience is a common one for reed makers. Dana

Too true...............and think of those lucky people, with both sides of the brain connected who, play duets.......they get magnificent concertinas at rock bottom prices. Robin PS.I posted on a different thread about uninformed buying on eBay.This may be another example. I think some people just get over-excited or impulse buy. The new add campagin for e-bay goes something like It's aways better if you win it. Implying that the pleasure derived from ownership is enhanced by beating out other buyers. Let's face it, auctions are designed not to set a fair value for a product, but to inflate the sale price. e-bay could be providing a real service by creating a great way for people wishing to part with something to find a good home for it at a fair price, instead, despite their on site advice about how to be a good bidder, they play up the emotional part that gets people to overbid and eventually watch the prices for types of items just keep going up and up. Thank god when you go to a store you aren't forced to bid against other customers for your items. I've pretty much sworn off bidding on e-bay. Not much different than organized gambling. Dana

In an interesting side note, the (ancient and modern ) chinese Sheng uses pipes that are tuned to the fundamental of it's free reeds which differ only slightly from western reeds in that they are cut from the plate and have zero set. they are affixed at the bottom end of the pipe which has a small hole in the side above the wind box to destroy the resonance. To play the reed, you stop the hole with your finger reestablishing the resonance and the reed jumps to life. Here though even the highest reeds easily equivalent to a high english reed. ( can't remember the high note on a treble )have tubes that measure in inches, nothing like the tiny chambers of a small concertina reed and the medium notes are vastly longer than the longest low duet reed chamber. Each reed is double acting with no set, but require the resonance to start. Very cool instruments still popular in modern traditional orchestras. There are also free reed flutes called Bawu's that have similar reeds cut in the reed plate but have a set. they are played in the overblown mode ( high pressure ) and have a single reed that responds to all the fingerings of the flute. Here the reed is coereced ( and can be played on the draw as well as blow, but not as easily ) by the higher pressure and doesn't really follow the same physics as a normal free reed which are determined by air flow forces, mass and stiffness. It behaves more like a pressure controlled valve similar to a clarinet or double reed type instrument. Here's a link to a quick pic I googled: <http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Music/mus-sheng.html>

One note for you button plating enthusiasts, Make it thick enough. It is soft and does wear off with lots of playing A little bit more than enough and it'll last a lifetime. Dana

Looked at the blowup, Are those plated, or drawn glod sheet? but seriously, I just love the little cut out details near the rivets on the levers! Reminds me of the best kind of metal work. You'll need clear saphire ends to show off the innards. Lovely work! Dana

Ditto all that. Remember though that the reeds themselves work best with a small chamber mounted with a connecting hole about the size of the normal pad hole on top of a larger box, then the breathing tube of bellows (which can be the box ) connected to the box not the reed chamber. The impedance of the box needs to be subsatntially bigger than the impedance of the reed chamber. The reed chambers are about the size of your reed plate and can vary in depth from 1/4" or less on high reeds to much deeper on bass reds with a lot of swing. Make the "pad" hole across from the root of the reed, not the tip. Too much pressure can choke a reed as well if it it is set to low for it's surroundings. Occasional resonances in the whole system can interfere or weaken the sound of reeds pitched at that resonance as well. The bellows is less subject to that than a box since it's volume (soft walls and all) is constantly varying. Dana

Seems there are some misapprehensions here. Irish music involves a good number of different keys to play in. While the most common ones are G and D, there are many tunes in other keys and some areas of Ireland where most of the tunes are in other keys. I've been playing for a while now and find that even though I play Noel Hill's style / method, I use all the buttons. (so does he) It is true that the basic fingering Noel teaches involves a minimum of notes, but if you want to do any of the less basic stuff Noel does, you need a lot more than that. Noel teaches all the stuff he does. If you go to his classes for long enough you'll be needing those extra notes. What you can do on a standard 20 button is much more limited than what you can do on a 30 button, while the difference between a 30 and a 38 as far as capability is not nearly so large. I designed a small concertina for my daughter with 23 buttons that has 4 note rows and is suited for learning Noel's style on. It still misses some important accompaniment notes, but by the time she needs them she'll have large enough hands to handle the 30 button. It is a lot more capable than a 20 button, but is nothing more than an instument for very small hands. From a concertina maker's perspective, we tend to make what most people are asking for since in the long run that gets us as much work as we can handle. Wim Walker is one of the few people I know who is able to keep enough irons in the fire to really provide a wide range of instruments, and I haven't a clue how he does it. Practically speaking, the cost of a concertina body including reed pan buttons etc. is not where the major cost of the instrument is (at least in traditionally reeded concertinas) . For the Hybrids, the cost of the reeds while not insignificant, is much less, and the rest of the instrument is a larger portion of the effort / cost. But for concertina reeded instruments, Making the reeds is the majority of the work, and the difference between a 20 button and a 30 button is significant. (20 reeds ) At the moment, there are more than enough people wanting 30 button instruments rather than less expensive instruments with fewer buttons to keep everyone completely busy so there is no incentive to spend your time on an instrument that most players will quickly outgrow. It is unfortunate that concertinas are relatively expensive instruments, but it is a measure of the work involved in making them. Most of the makers do try to do things as efficiently as possible and are working towards improving output. If we wanted to make a lot of money we wouldn't be making concertinas. Dana

"It's not irrelevant, it's a hippopotamus" ( Flanders and Swan ) Dana

Harold's square concetinas were the first production (since a long time ago ) concertinas I saw, and much due to Harolds enterprising nature! However, they weren't the first being made. Others were working at the same time or earlier to develop some good instruments ( notably the Morse line ), but it took them longer to finalize what they were doing and offer for sale. The results were worth the wait. Besides Harolds ability to make a decent instrument, he has an ability to focus hard on his work and perhaps that helped him get to market before some others. Some of us owe our knowledge of free reeds not to Mr. Stinson, but to the generous sharing of information and time by Steve Dickenson who gave me more understanding of the important aspects of concertina reeds than any other person. To this day I have had no quibble with anything he ever told me though I have found out more on my own. I doubt if I would have had as good an idea of where to look without his generous time shared. Unlike Mr. Stinson, He did/ does make his own concertinas and some very fine ones. Dana

The harmonic content of a concertina is what gives it it's sound character. a good tuner will lock on and tune the fundamental ( or in the case of a piano or other specialized tuner)or will listen only for the pitch you want to tune. If you try for a purer sound you will end up with a concertiha that is trying to be a flute. ( generallly close to sine wave ) Tunit should show the fundamental, and if it is doing that, it doesn't matter for tuning purposes what the other harmonics are. If you notice it is starting an octave high or a fifth or some other interval indicating that it is not picking up the fundamental, then you need to change your mic position until you get the low note strong enough to register. Cheap electronic tuners can't deal with this and only go for the loudest pitch, but Tunit shouldn't have that problem. It is normal and natural for even the best concertinas to have strong harmonics. If you are a maker and going for a specific sound, think about your reed profiles ( and the rest of the intrument which has a big effect on the timbre ) but for a casual tuning, leave the reeds alone as far as their profile goes and get some pretty good advice on the tuning process before you wreck the reeds you have. Dana

There are a number of fine musicians who drape the concertina bellows across the knee, and push or pull from both ends ( Father Charlie Cohen for one ) It is how they learned to play and provides pretty good bellows control. Regardless, there is still the bellows wear to deal with, and the key here is what is moving against what. Many people who play the draped style open and close the bellows with a twisting motion which focuses most of the opening and closing on the top of the bellows. This limits the motion of the bellows on the knee and the wear, (and also the maximum bellows usage), but since most good players hardly ever use more than a few inches of the bellows, the wear from the occasional long chord is pretty small. In the long run, the end frame on the knee and the rest of the bellows free will outlast the other, but the difference depends as much on the quality of your technique as anything. Dana

Hey, when did we get those cool little people icons by our names, I presume when they are not greyed out it means we're logged in? Now that I look there are a bunch of little changes. Maybe that is why I couldn't use the forums link to get here a few minutes ago.

Jim about covers it, but I will mention that the end you hold on the leg is stabilized somewhat by that, which is useful for keeping the bellows from moving in non-useful directions. To this point though, it is important to have the non moving end's hand keep the concertina end still, rather than trying to push or pull notes played on that end. If you are of the one end anchored school, keep it anchored and let the other hand do all the pushing and pulling. The still hand 's job is to resist the push and pull in isometric fashion. My experience is that the pushing and pulling is more tiring than holding the end of the concertina ( and my free arm ) up and have no trouble playing for hours on a good concertina. but everyone's muscles are differently developed, and I can imagine some people who's upper arms are a bit thinner might have trouble holding the extra weight for a long time.

Leather valves should lie flat. curl happens, too much will causes slow response. when it is causing a problem, get them replaced. Accordion / melodieons often have (modern valve materials ) ie plastic of different sorts. new Accordions do as well, even good ones. Works in them, so I wouldn't sweat it. In concertinas, the sound of valve slap is a problem, and I prefer the cushioning of the soft leather valves. for the Melodeon, from the sound your descritption, I 'd get new valves, but using a lot of air when the note is playing isn't always a valve problem per say. but can be caused by leaks of different sorts, especially if it is one note only. Problem should be diagnosed separately. Poor valves cause air loss as the note starts, but not after unless they never close at all. (with a lot of curl this can happen easily and it is always on the reed for the other directional note ) Dana

Once you get one button set to the corect weight, I think you'll find that your own fingers provide an adequate and accurate force gage. In the end it is your fingers that do the judging not a gage when you play. I have both an accurate dial gage and the weight on a post type, and while they work fine, My finger feel is much faster. Having a uniform keyboard is a great thing, and on an english is pretty easy to do. some anglos because of radically different lever lengths are harder to make even andd some compromise must be made. Dana

I used to own a Bastari Hayden, which while a far sight from a good instrument was still not hard to play at all. I learned a lot of fun tunes on it before I converted a big McCann to Hayden. I'm curious as to what Stagi did to the instrument when they took over the company to make it so much worse to play. I find it is worth making a good investment in a musical instument. A "starter" instrument like the Jackie will do the job for a while, but won't give you half the playing satisfaction of a more expenisve instrument. Skip that and go for the Albion or something equivalent. You'll still get your trade in, and you will find the reward of playing a better instrument will dramatically increase your learning rate. and if you decide it isn't for you, you will get real money back for it since the demand is very good for these instruments. I have a student with a Rochelle, which as far as I can tell is the Anglo equivalent of the Jackie, and while it gets the job done, I always wince a bit to watch her work against the over large instrument and it's slow response. A beginner shouldn' have to fight the instrument as well as the difficulty of developing the skills in the first place.

Jim really is right here. As much as can be done to change things, there isn't a good reason to do it. Perhaps I was misguided in even mentioning what can be done. Still, it isn't my choice to make. Dana

The different parts of a bellows are generally all the same from fold to fold. Sometimes the end fold cards are trimmed slightly smaller to fit into a rabbet in the bellows frame but this is not always the case. There shouldn't be anything different her from the normal process of replacing a bellows except that the bellows is already made. Generally the end leather is replaced and the bellows frames cleaned for a smooth gluing of the new leather when a replacement bellows is made and you'd have to do that on both ends to have it match. It may be possible to unglue the old leather from the bellows (depending on what glue was used, and re glue it once the bellows is reattached in the shortened form if you really wanted to keep all the old stuff, but no guarantees here. The best thing is to talk to the people who would do the work and see what they have to say. As I said, I don't do replacement bellows (except for myself) but If I did, I doubt if I'd hesitate to tackle the shortening. Still there may be something I am missing that someone who replaces old bellows on a regular basis would be familiar with. Just don't start the project yourself. It takes practice o do a good job. Dana

If you play fast music with the bellows fairly closed ( best response range ) you won't notice much difference between 6 and 8 unless the bellows is a very flexible older one. When you open the bellows up, the difference becomes more pronounced both because of side flex that doesn't change the air pressure and because the extra folds provide just that much more give to the bellows body ( think of it as a hardish funny shaped balloon. ) that flexes the bellows walls as it pressurizes the air, taking away some of the energy from the transition and spreading it over a longer time period. These things may not be noticeable to a player that doesn't play a lot of quick triplets etc. And slowness can be overcome to some degree by increasing the playing force unconsciously. If you are playing in the mostly closed range, you aren't taking advantage of the folds regardless, and if you have the bellows more extended, you need to develop a playing style that helps stabilize the bellows. Even on a six fold bellows, you can't ignore controlling the tendency of the bellows to flex and wiggle with direction changes. This can cause much more trouble than the fold number, which only amplifies the effect somewhat. I haven't done this myself, ( though I have made a lot of bellows ) but I don't see right away why if you want to change from 8 to 6 or 7 folds, you can't simply have the excess folds removed and the bellows reattached at that end. (or both ends to match the end leather ) reattaching the bellows would have to be done anyway to put on a new bellows. This would keep the original bellows and save a fair amount on the price by not having to make an entire new bellows. I wouldn't bother with doing any of this until I actually felt the instrument was slowing me down or making it difficult to play cleanly though. I feel like the number of folds is worth considering when you are ordering an instrument, for the kind of music you like to play, but too many people want bigger bellows simply because they haven't yet learned to control their air, and another year or less practice will solve that problem.

You might save a half to one ounce on a six inch across the flats size concertina depending on materials and construction. No point at all in doing it for the weight. If you weren't a big air user AND needed to replace the bellows anyway, six or seven folds gives better control on changing note directions, at a reduction in total volume. More a style issue than anything else. Dana