Dana Johnson

Over the last 12 years, I've listened to Noel play in different circumstances and watched him change as a player. It is interesting to me to see how much his playing has changed since I first heard him play. Most of what I've heard has been out of the concert setting in more casual circumstances, and I notice that when he is infront of a larger audience, he tends to do something a bit different with the music. On his Irish Concertina 2 album, he plays The Mountains of Pommeroy. It is very public in style, as if he were an orator speaking to a large crowd. It has it's musical face outward ( I can't find a really good way to express this ). I have a recording of him playing this air that I vastly prerfer, not for any difference in the quality or taste expressed, but simply because it is of Noel playing completely lost in the piece, more fully expressive and introspective, not of himself but of the piece of music. I am fortunate to hear him like this more than any other way in front of people who he has nothing to prove. I prefer Noel's private face to the public one. Over the years I've watched him move through the music always finding something different in it, changing his style, sometimes in ways that take me a bit to get used to, or in directions I wouldn't have gone, but he is who he is, and I find that knowing his character makes it easier to follow the musical journey which I find immensely interesting. Noel isn't the only concertina player I listen to, or the only one I consider to be as good a musician. While he is technically excellent. That is the least of what he is. For me he is an inspiration to always look deeper into the music, and someone I can talk to who gets how deep and far it goes. Dana

I find your first point here a very good one and I love the second image! but I also find that the kind of vibrato you generate by doing what Noel does ( it isn't really shaking, but a very rapid and controlled expansion and contraction of the belows ) generates a vibrato in loudness, instead of pitch which is what we are used to in voice and string instruments. I don't think of it as the same thing, simply something the concertina is capable of. I like it because it can be done with any degree of intensity at low volumes or higher ones. It really reminds me more of a piping ornament, but with more control available over volume level and overall shape. Regarding string vibrato, I was pleased to find a wonderful baroque violinist who did a couple really wonderful CD's of Bach, but with no vibrato at all. Rachel Podger is her name, but I really loved hearing the instrument free of the constant vibrato that most modern violinists use. Gosh she is good! Dana

I'm sure you have some company, but I for one appreciate the fact that he can find more in a tune than most people will ever realize is there. Noel once said "Music without emotion isn't music." You may not appreciate the way he chooses to express what he feels in the music. Taste is an individual thing, and if it doesn't resonate, I hope there are other players who do connect with you better. What you find Ghastly though, I find exquisite, and don't find how he leans or tilts his head remarkable or understand why it would be comical. But then what do I know . Dana

I saw an add with the thing running, and it didn't actually seem suited well to much besides relief carving. signs etc. I think any gantry style set up would be better, and some people use small CNC mills to do a lot of work from reed pans to cutting end plates and shoes. My machines all run on Windows, though I personally hate it. I do not connect those computers to the internet and live with the fact that they are not up to date. They work, and that is what I care about. Any time I really need to update something or install something, I download it on my Mac and put it on a CD since Macs can write in PC readable format. CNC can really be a boon, but it isn't a silver bullet either. For doing things like reeds, the CNC is the cheap part of the machine. Getting one that will give the required accuracy is the expensive part. The biggest benefit I've found is in uniformity of parts. Holes are always lined up, everything is interchangeable, If I want to adjust something, it is easy to do and easy to go back to the original if it was better. It has saved me a lot of time, though good jigs and templates for a fixed design can be as fast. The flexibility is the real benefit. Sadly it doesn't help in the time consuming part of reed making, so no matter what time it saves, you always get backed up behind reed making. Sigh Dana

I have a remarkably similar problem Ross, though it was at least partly of my own making and a border terrier rather than an Aussie. Fortunately he doesn't mind concertina playing as long as he is allowed to be close by. Otherwise he... "sings" . Fortunately, he is also remarkably obedient, and seems to accept our choices of things he is allowed to destroy. Dana

I am not a fan of equal temperament. I doubt anyone really is, but it is so difficult to build many instruments with the ability to follow music wherever it goes. I've played some "Just tuned" concertinas and in the right keys they were a delight. If all music were to sound as sweet... Possibly we wouldn't appreciate the value of dissonance. Some of the most expressive and heart wrenchingly beautiful music I've heard has pulled notes deliberately out of tune. Still, equal temperament is not much more than a compromise. As such it has it's uses and it's failings.

Being both a concertina player and fiddle player, I long ago noticed that as a fiddle player I tended to adjust all my intervals to be essentially in tune with themselves. nice beat free harmonies. It is natural to gravitate in that direction, it just sounds better. When I started playing concertina a lot, I got used to the equal temperament. I found it made going back to the fiddle quite difficult. The fingering I was used to no longer sounded "right" even though it sounded "in tune". Now when I play the fiddle, I simply adjust to whatever other instruments are playing. I have no problem playing with my wife's concertina of my friends flutes or button accordions. No frets means I can tune to them and it sounds fine. I wouldn't want to do it from a cold start though, but after a couple of seconds I have it sussed out. Flutes are a variable pich instrument. They vary with temperature, and lip position, and players are always compensating. Flutes with their relatively pure sound are also intolerant of any out of tune intervals since they beat strongly and obviously with them (unlike a fiddle with it's rich overtone coloring that tends to hide slight variations as tone color ). Concertinas being stuck where they are in equal temperament for the most part will always be at odds with the flute players desire to avoid other than perfect harmony. The trick there is to keep buying them another pint until they no longer care. Just practice enough so they all want to play with you more than you do with them and they will come around. Dana

Find as nice an instrument as you can and buy it. Forget about working your way up unless you absolutely can't afford better. Concertinas are very variable instruments with ones of the same vintage being often quite different in sound or playability. Still, there are many with name brands to stay away from if they are late vintage, though I have heard a rather nice mid 1900's Wheatstone Aeola that put a number of earlier instrument s to shame. Don't just go by the name, but buy it on a trial basis if possible. If you really like it, likely you'll be happy with it for years, if not, you'll just be out the shipping. Dana

In reply to the initial post, Just another note, When I started playing the concertina years ago I had a similar problem with similar neck vertebra / disc problems. I switched to playing my fiddle with a high shoulder rest for a number of months and then slowly got back into the concertina. I found that the inherrent unbalance in playing with the left side anchored and moving the right side. (Left isometric exercise, right kinetic exercise ) made it so that all the left side shoulder / upper back / neck muscles were either pulling things out of whack and causing the pinching, or actually doing the pinching themselves. When I mixed my exeercise up and built my concertina playing muscles up more gradually, it al sorted itseslf out nicely, and I can play for hours now with no problem. Part of the process was in learning to relax whenever I didn't actually need to be applying bellows force. this happens hundreds of times in a tune and makes playing much less tiring, as well as making direction changes much quicker. This is related to Irish anglo playing, but may be applicable to other tinas and styles as well. My problem only started when I started the concertina, so I started looking at what there was about my playing that might have caused it. The discs and arthritis in the neck vertebra might have been able to do something they couldn't in my youth, but in my case it was the unbalanced exercise that tipped the scales. Dana

My Bb/F Jeffries has a Dipper case (doubt if it is his latest type ) with the handle on the side with the latch rather than on top. It is the only case I have had nearly open up on me while carrying it when my thumb brushed the latch. I am careful to pick it up with my hand going the other way now. I think for security it is hard to beat double latches. Handle placement isn't much of an issue then. A concertina can get dumped out if the lid opens regardless of where the handle is. Only thing I avoid like the plague is a box with the handle on the end like the old hexagonal cases Jeffries cases. Dana

I actually have a 72 +air button Lachenal Edeophone McCann #3275. In reasonably good condition if someone is interested in such a behemoth. It is completely playable as is, though I suspect new valves are in order. One button has it's cap missing ( why they went with soldered caps rather than drawn ones I don't know.) Sound is clean and quite nice. It is a large instrument (about 10" in diameter ) and boy does is go low! ( and high ). It looks very similar to the 61 button one mentioned earlier but larger and slightly more ornate on the ends. I am in no great hurry to sell it, but I'll never play it, ( my duet days are over ) and it would like a good home and to be played. Dana

One thing nobody has mentioned so far is that making good reeds is a tedious repetitive job requiring long hours of continuous concentration and careful attention. As part of the whole process where you get to see hear and play the result, it is a great reward for the hours of hard work, but I have a hard time imagining much reward to making them day in and day out and then just sending them off to someone else. My reed grinder is idle for most of the time, and it wouldn't take me that much more to set myself up in the biz, but then I'd just be a factory worker for the people out there who got the reward of the completed instruments. They would have the mark up on the reeds without the work, I'd have no control about the quality of the instrument they went into. Not my idea of a good time. As part of the whole process, I really enjoy reed making. When a concertina is finished, I have a sense of accomplishment knowing that the effort involved was not trivial, and that I have provided my reeds with the best home for them I can make.

I tend to be more in agreement with m3838 regarding children and quality. I don't feel like it is necessary to get the best instrument possible as a starter instrument, but a poor instrument can easily turn a kid off to that instrument or music entirely when they discover how unrewarding it can be. Guitars and clarinets are not good comparisons. Even really cheap guitars are remarkably better made these days than they were 20 years ago, and you can get a good playable reasonable sounding one for little more than a hundred bucks. As long as it is fitted with the right reed and isn't actually broken or in need of new pads, a cheap mass produced clarinet is vastly closer in quality to an excellent instrument than the case of either of the cheap instruments you were looking at is to even your lachenal. If there is any concern about interest or commitment, why don't you loan your lachenal wit the proviso that if she really likes playing it it's hers. After all you say you do have better instruments. That you continue to play the lachenal indicates that it is enjoyable to play, which is the main criteria for a starter instrument. I got my first banjo at 11 and it opened up the world of music to me for which I feel in the greatest debt to Pete Seeger and my first banjo teacher. To get a concertina remotely similar in quality to the cheap guitars and clarinets available today, you really can't go below the Morse or your Lachenal. I would never give a child a Jacky and feel I'd done them a favor. A truly driven child would take it and get all they could out of it, but an entry into the world of music, it is not. Dana

Gee, has it been that long?( I remember that instrument well since US customs decided to hassell us over it for no good reason ) But down to business, Given the look of those valves, before I'd replace them, I would try lightly scraping over the back of the valves from root to tip either with a fingernail or simialr device. this slightly stretches the grain side on the back more than the underside and causes the valve to flatten out. Valves can curl like that even seasonally as they dry and relax as they get damp. I think, but am not absolutely sure, that the curl is more indicative of shrinkage of the back surface rather than from simply being bent up for too long. I find valves that have lost their spring tend to stay straighter, but bend mostly at the point where they are glued. If the valves were really high, I'd replace them, but yours aren't. I think you can still get more life out of them as they are. It also depends on how much they affect your playing. if you play softly, they will slow the response somewhat, but if you play with a bit more volume, they close so fast that you might barely notice a difference. The important thing is how they affect your playing. Try the scraping thing first to flaten the valves. then see if you notice a difference playing. If you don't then you can wait a long time to replace them, if you do notice a difference, then replace them as soon as scraping ceases to remain effective. Some valves due to the nature of the leather will curl like that in a few weeks even if they are new. Others will last many years and still seem like new. Getting really good valves is one of those black arts. Dana

I use three different tuners. For initial tuning of reeds, I use a virtual tuner called Syaku8 t. As long as you calibrate it each time you use it, it seems to do quite well. It provides a "needle" cents as well as numerical frequency readout, and also has different available top window displays. the one I use the most shows the various harmonics. It seems pretty good at picking out the fundamental, though for some notes, I find I may need to make sure the mike is places properly near the instrument since the fundametal may not radiate in as focused a manner as the next harmonic or two which can be quite strong and give a reading a 5th up in the scale or so. Basically though if it can hear the fundamental well, it knows to go for the lowest note of the series. My second tuner I use for measuring the amount the finished instruments tuning or lack of it as the case may be, is a Korg MasterTune 1000. It is an analog tuner with both auto and manual note selection. On manual, you can select the octave you want it to listen to which is handy for the lower notes since it is quite easy for other tuners to happily pick out the first octave instead of the relatively weak fundamental. Tuning that harmonic doesn't guarantee the fundamental will be in tune. I like it because it is relatively fast to use to generate a tuning chart and self calibrates each time you turn it on. So far it remains quite accurate. You can't read it better than one cent, but realistically, other playing factors make reeds deviate while you play them often by a bit more than that. Temperaments also make tuning to higher accuracies more of an academic exercise than a musically valuable one. My third tuner I use for final tuning. it is basically a strobe tuner ( Sanderson Acutuner II ) but has a bunch of great features that make accurate tuning easy. It is a high quality piano tuner, and only is manually operated. You have to select both the note and the octave you want it to listen to, which makes using it a little slow. For a piano or other completely sequential instrument, it has a foot switch that steps it through the notes of the scale. For a reed pan, that isn't all that helpful. It is excellent at mesauring exactly how far off a note is and then can be offset so that you re tune by what ever amount you need to within a 10th of a cent or less. The digital readout in cents only goes down to 0.1 cents, but whe the strobe is stopped it is supposed to be accurate to 0.02 cents. Totally useless accuracy, but the strobe makes it pretty easy to control. Both the Korg and Sanderson are expensive. That model of Korg is out of production, but they may have a better one out there. It was well over $100, but works pretty easily and fast as well as being octave selectable. The new Sandersons are over $1000, but reconditioned ones are available ( they have a trade in policy ) that are cheaper and still work just as great. Wouldn't bother for a few concertinas, or keeping one in tune, but I am glad I got it for my work. The measure and ofsett functions are indispensable for me for final tuning. Comes with a number of built in temeraments as well as the ability to load any temperament you want if you know the note values. it has a bunch of piano related features that don't count on the concertina, but there isn't much you cant tune with the thing. The Shaku program (for PC ) ( Rich knows some other good shareware tuners ) was freeware. It's visual reference and auto or manual option are useful, and the large screen image makes it much easier on the eyes for day after day of tuning for reed making. Since I don't use it for final tuning, I haven't bothered to check it's accuracy outside of making sure I recalibrate each time I start it since it always seems to start about 5 cents flat. ( just checked all the tuners against the accutuner which was recently services and had it's calibration checked to a proper standard at the factory, and all the tuners are on the money. The Shaku ( look it up under "Syaku8" ) turns out the calibration is for the tone it can generate. It was exactly on for reading a frequency both before and after the calibration process, but the reference tone it generated was initally off (if you were tuning another instrument to it by ear). that is both cheap and easy to use and now it seems more than accurate enough for reed work. I don't know how other virtual tuners measure up. but I'd rather go with this one than a pure strobe anytime. Rich Morse had one he likes. For the price, and probably even if it were a pretty good price it is hard to beat. You can also ofsett this one as well. Dana

Ditto on Rich's comment. Many years ago, I worked on a hayden type layout using an essentially identical arrangement to this patent ( different in that it was single reeded ). Tuning of the reed wasn't a problem, but I found the volume output was poor compared to the normal orientation of the reed on reed pan, or even accordion style reed block mounting. I made the assumption at the time that the more convoluted the airflow, the less volume you got out of it. While this may be true, I simply may not have tried an appropriate arrangement. Getting a "rectified" ariflow seems invariably to add a separate air space to the design, and my experience is that it eats sound. Unless you could equal the volume of any current standard, Any gain by using one reed would be lost by needing more reeds for added volume. I don't know what the Blue meanie sounded like, but I also made a similar arrangement as an experiment. Vastly inferior to the afore mentioned, but again, I found mounting the reeds perpendicular to the concertina axis cut down the sound compared to the direct output horizontal chamber. Never know what poor design and excecution on my part may have contributed to the result. Had considerably more success with an early Hayden conversion. Same materials, different orientation. Dana

You make plenty of sense. Sometimes a concertina reed will sound the same pitch in the concertina rather than out, but it is vastly more common for it to be out a few cents in either direction. The reasons for this can be many, but if you have the reeds still in the reed pan, It narrows the field a bit. One likely reason is the relative support of the pan installed versus out of the box. If the reed pan can move / vibrate at all, the reed's effective vibration time increases and the reed goes slightly flat. when supported by the blocks and tight up against the action board, the pan doesn't move and the reed sees it's actual vibrating length and plays sharper. There are other factors that can affect it, but there is no way to really know in your individual circumstance without a lot of testing. In any case, knowing why won't help much. Your thought about how to deal with it is correct. Most of us generally make a tuning chart, measuring the deviation for each note, then using that information, with the reed out of the concertina, we measure the reed again, and tune it by the required amount, not to the actual note. Once back in the box, it generally is right on unless the reed is loose in it's slot, or something else has changed. Because of their design, I find it most convenient to tune all my reeds while they are still in the reed pan. ( It is a little quicker in my case, but for the standard dovetailed reeds, they come in and go out so easily that most people take the reeds out to tune them. Accordion reeds are usually tuned in the pan n the press side since whatever fastening method is used is not so easy to work with The Draw side reeds on a concertina of the more common of the Hybrid styles are difficult to tune without removing them and re waxing or screwing them back down. I don't know what you've got, so I wont go into more detail, and the Hybrid makers might be better to talk to about that. For tuning in general there may be other threads on the subject. Make sure you have a very thin slip of shim steel tapered to a dull edge at one end to slide under the reed to support it while tuning, and be exceedingly careful not to remove more metal than you need. On rare occasions where I find a reed that is both sharp and weak, I might add a thin film of low temp silver solder to the tip, overshooting the pitch and scraping off whatever is neded to bring it back. The low temp stuff doesn't effect the reed temper, but any flux must be effectively neutralized with a solution of baking soda, and completely cleaned and dried or it will rust. Sounds like you'll only need the tiniest amount of change, so go very lightly. I use a tiny piece of very fine abrasive stick ( you could make something like it by gluing a piece of 400 grit wet or dry sand paper to a piece of popsicle stick( like polishing a Japanese sword ) rubbing paralell to the reed axis, and just polish off a little where it is needed, but if you use a file ( much more common) go on the diagonal not straight across the reed. Remember, long reeds are less sensitive to metal removal, while short ones are extremely sensitive to it, and it is astoundingly easy to over do it and find yourself in an oscillating struggle between sharp and flat with the reed soon ruined. If you are working with no experience, and it sounds as though you are, get some scrap reeds from a defunct accordion and practice on them. you need to get a feel for how much material gives what effect. For the change you are trying for, you shouldn't do more than raise a just visible amount of dust, and for the high reeds, you shouldn't be able to see what you did. Removing steel near the root of the reed (don't localize it but spread it out a little ) lowers the reed stiffness and pitch, removing material near the tip reduces the vibrating mass where it moves the most and raises pitch. Leave the center 2/3 of the reed alone, since any tuning effect is less to none there depending on how close you are to the neutral point, and that area is used only to control the reed's initial stiffness and bending curve / efficiency. There are a dozen ways or more to ruin a reed, but if you go very carefully and lightly and check pitch constantly you'll likely do ok. Likely others will weigh in here, and you probably should wait for a bit more of that before you start in.

I have a quart size electric glue pot as well. When I was making violins, I used to use it as sort of a double boiler with a cover that had a hole in it just the right size for a one cup stainless mixing bowl. I kept a cover on that to keep the small amount of glue in it from drying out too much ( Need thinner glue for gluing the top plate and fingerboard on than the rest of the instrument. when I needed smaller amounts, I would put a cover on with a hole the size of a test tube and put the glue in that. I never did the volume of work with it that justified having a full size pot going all day, and the glue starts to degrade afrter a while under the heat even though it lasts nigh forever in dry form. I have found that in dry climates hide glue can get quite brittle and won't put up with differential shrinkage of poorly oriented corner blocks and the like. It is also pretty heat sensitive. I've been handed more than one violin that was ENTIRELY reduced to it's component parts after having been left in a car trunk for just a little too long in warm weather. ( Of course we all know that is nearly certain death for child / dog or violin / concertina alike, but some people don't stop to think when they are going to a session and just want to hop into the store "for a second" to get something to bring to the party. ) Dana

I'd like to call more attention to a point that Bill made earlier regarding the playability of some of the more available concertinas. I've had a chance to play an number of them, and found that while some were less responsive than I'd like, some were in fact quite responsive and equal to the task of playing any tune out there at dance speed if you were up to it. You might need to adjust your playing a bit, but the real issue with them is the kind of sound they produce. I know what my preferrences are, but they are only personal, and I also know that most of these instruments produce a good sound of their own perfectly acceptable for most any sort of playing. They all sound less like accordions than button accordions, and a good accordion player doesn't have people turning their nose up at them in Ireland. I've also heard plenty of Jeffries, Wheatstones, Dippers and Suttners that have left me cold as well as ones (including Crabbs ) that thrilled me. Too often though people think the music comes from the instrument. It doesn't. It comes from the player or if they are really lucky, it comes through them. Some of the best music I've heard has come via inferior and sometimes downright crappy instruments ( anyone listen to old Spider John Koerner records lately? ). If you really love the music, it is great to aspire to having the clearest path possible for it, but while it may take a real master to produce great music on a Stagi, you don't need the best instrumnets to be able to play great music. We all need to leave our egos at the door when we play. You can usually tell the difference between those who are trying their best to bring you the music and those who are "demonstrating their ability". I invariably prefer the former to the latter no matter what their skill level. Dana

Just a general note, Having made violins and violas prior to having started on concertinas, (One good enough for my teacher, though not implying that I was experienced enough to be any master) and being fairly familiar with that world, There are a good number of fantastic violins being made today which over years may end up sounding even better than many of the Strads ( and sound as good as many right now). The tools used are still quite similar, but there has been such a concerted effort over many years to understand the effects of it's construction on sound and playability that while making fine violins is still an high art, it is no longer a lost one. great luthiers exist now and good ones abound. A concert violinist may still lust after a Strad or Guarneri, but should still be able to find a violin that will allow full expression of their talents. Dana

The great thing about Noel's workshops is that you have to be incredibly good ( few people are that good ) to not find a wealth of information in his classes. I've been going for the last 12 years, and have become quite proficient in the instrument, yet I never fail to find some new aspect of playing I hadn't been able to appreciate before. Noel teaches to all levels and "professional musicians" take his classes. Unless you can play as well as he can. ( that doesn't mean as fast ) with all the nuance and exquisite care he takes in bring the music to life, you have something to learn from him. Most of the early beginners in his classes have long since been able to out play the instruments they started on, and a fair number of them can out play the run of the mill Jeffries or Wheatstone. To second Rich's message on the finances of concertina building, It is a very capital intensive endeavor. I am one of those who was able to get started when I had the good fortune to have a lot of capital at hand. To do more than make a few concertinas, to actually make enough to be able to afford to work full time at it takes a large investment up front. as Rich has said before, it isn't something any bank will loan to you. To make a really good concertina takes a lot of experience as well. Colin Dipper once told me about eight years worth. I found that reasonably accurate unless you can apprentice to a good maker. The reason there are a lot of pipes and accordions available is because it takes a lot less to get started making them. ( really good pipes Like David Quinn's or Mark Hillman's still cost a lot of money and aren't that much more available ) Over time if the interest in the instrument continues to grow, more people will find a way to make them, but it will be slow. My advice to anyone serious about learning an instrument ( concertinas are no exception ) is get the best playing and sounding instrument you can afford. The pleasure you will get from you playing will increase your learning speed and practice time. If you find it isn't for you, sell it and don't leave it around unplayed. I'll be happy to give anyone all the help I can if they want to start making concertinas. Their scarcity is a real and serious issue. Other people I know have begun the process, but there is a lot more involved than meets the eye. The least of you problems will be selling them. Dana

Reply to the overall thread. There are a few issues I have with the idea of LTD as people are measuring it, being of much use for comparison of concertinas, or judging their worth. I think the basic idea is a worthy one and might well be persued, but some time shoud be devoted to working out a testing method that puts people on the same scale, otherwise a half deaf person with a great concertina might compare poorly against a poor concertina played by someone with acute hearing. The other thought I have is that we would need to understand how this can relate to actual musical needs. Reed starting pressure for instance, is very important for determining the speed of a concertina, and consequently how it can be played. It doesn't matter if a reed will go on forever when nearly silent if you can't start it playing except at a substantial volume level. It also matters what volume level a given airflow through a reed will produce. This is a measure of the reed's efficiency ( and the concertina's ability to support the reed ) Reed design has a large effect on air usage. Sometimes there may be a trade off between going with a reed of larger area over a smaller reed to gain more volume to help balance an instrument, or to increase the back relief in a reed shoe to make the reed feel easier to play even though it increases air usage. Try as I might, I am having a hard time figuring out what I could really learn from LTD as it stands. If you want to tell if your bellows or pads are leaky, you can do that best with no buttons pressed. Knowing how long you can play a musically useful note might be important if you were buying an concertina and knew your style demanded a lot of chords, or octave playing etc. and that a concertina would need to have a certain capacity to work for you, but you can test that on the spot, and unless you have a lot better measuring standard, you couldn't ask a prospective seller to measure it for you. Any ideas of what else you might find out from measuring this? and how we could simply get on the same measuring page? Unless we can do that, comparisons are nearly meaningless.

Was the thinning of the cards at the top done for any reasons other than aesthetic ones..? Chris Thinning helps to reduce the radius the top strip of leather wraps over as well as allowing the the increase of thickness toward the center of the strip in the skived leather to be countered by the decrease in the skived card top, leaving something less bulky and essentially paralell sided. As the bellows closes, the leather over the peak tends to be stretched, and the thicker the upper portion of the card there the more the stretch, and hence difficulty of closing the fold completely. This can be accomodated in different ways ( grain orientation of the leather, or gluing the top strip on when the fold is nearly closed ) but having thin card at the top reduces the opposite effect of resisting opening as the leather tries to bunch at the top. In any case, the top of the fold should have a peak of some degree at least rather than being squared off card to help create a nicely rounded peak once the leather is applied. Also the leather at the very top should be in contact or nearly so with the inner hinge ath the peak joint to bring the bending radius as close to zero as possible to reduce the stretching on closing of the fold. Dana

When air enters a hole between two areas of different pressures, it does so primarily from the sides while it exits as a stream that then diverges. Mounting two reeds like that blocks like that really would need the air entering from the center gap in order to produce the same effect on the reed. I believe some of the designs for double acting reeds have had a special port near the reed tip to let bleed air in to facilitate starting. I actually tried almost exactly the thing you suggested many years ago with no success. (perhaps I should have continued trying ) Doubling up on the reed shoe ends up not saving much but a little space. The work involved is essentially the same. I always thought of double acting reeds as primarily a cost saving venture, since you can really accomodate plenty of notes on existing instrument formats. The expense of the reeds is such a large proportion of the cost of the instrument that being able to do without half of them would be a boon (if they cost no more) Dana

Here is a short clip from a modern Sheng player, Astounding virtuosity only hinted at in this short section at the beginning of this piece entitled weaving Fishing nets. If you can find the album this is on in a chinese music store, buy it! sheng_sample.mp3