MatthewVanitas

@Łukasz: I'm seeing different stuff in other inside shots; perhaps the one in the article is a 3D-printed prototype? Check my links below for more and more detailed photos of the guts. More info and images: - https://www.facebook.com/proyectopichuco - http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/m2/10-2176-2011-11-19.html(interview, more internal shots, etc) - another detailed photo gallery at bottom of page: http://www.unla.edu.ar/index.php/noticias/199-novedades-destacadas/1279-el-bandoneon-pichuco-gano-el-premio-innovar-2012 An internal shot from their Facebook page: If anyone sees anything that they want to understand, and aren't getting a clear answer in GoogleTranslate, let me know and I'll summarize it for you. Also, I added a small mention of this project (and footnote to the BBC article) into the Wikipedia "Bandoneón" article. Thanks for pointing it out!

Wow, that's exciting stuff! I'd wondered in the past how they were keeping up bandoneon culture given the lack of affordable new production, and apparently "they weren't" is the answer. I'm curious as to what kind of price point they're going to get on those. Geuns has single-voice student bandoneones for €2600, but I imagine even that is pretty pricey in Argentina. So make that "intensely curious" as to how economically they'll be able to make these. To one degree a little surprised they're not offshoring more of it, but then again it is done as a university project, and also Argentina has high unemployment and presumably reasonable labor costs, so maybe making it in-country is pretty practical. Me being me, part of my reflex was "I wonder if they'll end up ever making Hayden bandoneones". Clearly not as part of this initial university program, but maybe if this helps get the ball rolling on a new generation of bandoneonistas, that will build the market for a few other folks to start making high-end instruments in the Southern Cone. I still have the intent, once work and finances stabilize a bit, to find a Latin American accordion tech and have him build a reedless body/action so I can MIDIfy it, and I've been plotting bandeoneon-shape just for simplicity of construction. No bandoneones in any of the countries I'm working in so far, but I figure a decently skilled accordion tech might be able to whip up a basic frame/action bellows. Fwiw, similar to the bandoneon situation in some ways, Colombia relies heavily on imported Hohner 3-rows, and there are few folks that make any indigenous accordions.

Hayden player here. I just never got the hang of Anglo (despite playing 1-row melodeon passingly okay), and when I briefly tried English a couple months back when I got one uber-cheap on eBay, it kinda hurt my brain at first. However, when I got a small 35b Crane for travel, I found it surprisingly intuitive. When switching back and forth between the two in one practice session I had some smalll stumbles, but no big problem. I've been playing only Crane since I moved to Colombia, but a few days ago tried one of those apps where it's a Hayden layout on my laptop keyboard, and had no problem playing Hayden-format tunes on that. I'm seriously tempted to get a small/inexpensive Maccann just to see how that effects my brain. My very vague intial impression is that, for me personally, changing systems confuses me, but layouts isn't too bad. Kinda like playing guitar and going from Standard to DADGAD doesn't cause me much trouble, but wrapping my brain around banjo was a huge undertaking. Do we have any Duet players here who have at least basic competence in multiple (or all?) Duet layouts?

Were there only a few thousand each of Maccanns and Cranes ever made? I wonder when the Hayden will become the clear most-produced Duet ever. There must be over a thousand Elises floating around (or is that too optimistic?), and between Morse and Wim a hundred or more quality hybrids. Toss in another few dozen for high-end Haydens from Wim, Dipper, Crabb (?), and Wheatstone. And then Bastari/Stagi had a total of, what, 50-100 examples produced? Possible that in the next 10 years there might be more Haydens than Maccanns floating around? And Maccann is hands-down the most-produced system so far, yes?

I've only seen a couple used Stagis Haydens on eBay (though never a square bandoneon one), and the occasional Elise, but I'd never seen a used Peacock before. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Peacock-Hayden-Wicky-Duet-Concertina-and-case-/161481367514?ssPageName=ADME:SS:SS:US:1120

Reviving a post from a half-decade ago, but wanted to share a neat article in a Bolivian paper I ran across, which I intend to use to flesh out the depiction of English concertina on Wikipedia. I can translate Spanish just fine, but using gTranslate here since I'm lazy:

This is covered pretty extensively at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources Basically, they want something that's been signed-off on with people with something to lose. That is, publications in peer-reviewed journals are good, since not only the author, but the peers and the journal staff are putting their butt on the line for quality. Same for newspapers, etc. Someone's Angelfire page might have some outstanding research, but at the end of the day it's just one guy who's staking any rep on the facts he puts up. @Wayman: The photo quality is good, but does the from-behind positioning make it harder to get a feel for scale, shape, etc? I'm happy to help add in whatever photos the community finds helpful, so we have some time to bounce around ideas on image to maximize educational value to novices. @Ruediger and Steve: On "English concertina" I hadn't done much more than just split it off to its own article, but I'll take a closer look now, remove some awkwardness and technical rambling, etc. As an example of footnoting, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duet_concertina; note the History and Systems sections have footnotes for pretty much every major fact, allowing any readers to trace those facts back to a citeable source. "Anglo concertina" is going to be a bit more of a mess, as is the History section of "Concertina". Anyone have any suggested facts/phrasings, sources, etc? What I want to ensure is that the overall History section gives a balanced view, not leaning too much to one niche or the other. I also really want to ensure that the articles aren't too Anglocentric, that there's sufficient mention of Boermusik, Zulu squashbox, Latin American English concertina, things like that. Would like to give the reader a good feel for how prevalent the concertina was in the past, not just the pieces that have survived to the present. EDIT: For "Duet concertina" I have the patent dates for Maccann, Crane, and Hayden. Anyone have the patent date for Jeffries? EDIT: We could also use a biography article on "John Hill Maccann", if anyone wants to give that a shot. Again happy to help any novices learn the basics in a low-key way. EDIT: Made some big changes to the History section for "English concertina". I wanted to capture both its art-music uses for classical and music hall, but also mention its limited role in folk music, particularly its (somewhat ahistorical) adoption into the English Folk Revival. Speaking of which, we also lack an article for Alistair Anderson, if we have any other fans here.

Okay, made some big chops today. I split English, Anglo, and Duet off into their own articles (which will later need polishing), leaving short sections explaining each variant in simpler terms. Cut out some of the excess technical stuff (best left in the more detailed sub-articles), added in some proper footnotes, noted the date of first patent of a Duet concertina, etc. Note, we could rather use a biography for Carl Friedrich Uhlig (inventor of the German concertina family). I could knock it out in about 10 minutes just checking works freely available on GoogleBooks, but if anyone here has been intending to try their hand at writing a Wikipedia article, let me know and I can walk you through it in a "sandbox" (tryout page) on Wikipedia, so that you can get it polished up at your leisure, and submit it for publication only when ready, nice and easy. We could also use a good primary photo for the top of "Concertina", and we could use a decent end-view of a Duet concertina since there appear to be no such images yet available on Wikipedia. If nothing else, I can take a photo of my Crane, but if someone has a nice, clear photo showing the end of a Duet and its layout (whatever system) in a cool-looking photo, we can just upload that.

First I've heard of that rule. Then again, I've never tried to post anything to Wikipedia. Aside from the fact that I'm sure I've seen many things on Wikepedia that violated that rule, are they really saying that if I compile a discography of Peter Bellamy's recordings I would be forbidden to post it, but it would be perfectly fine for me to plagiarize someone else's discography... or for them to post mine, if I first happened to "publish" it somewhere on a non-Wikipedia page? Whatever the original purpose of that rule, it seems to me that its potential for damage far outweighs its potential for good. But, as hinted at above, maybe there's a way around it? We could use this thread to develop a mutually acceptable article for Wikipedia, then refer to this same thread when posting the finished result to Wikipedia. After all, when it comes to concertinas, this is as close to a peer reviewed journal as can be found, and it's probably more rigorously reviewed than most academic journals. The rule actually makes a lot of sense, in that it instills a certain level of quality control. "Stuff everybody knows" is often wrong in life, and though published works are not always right, at least we can track the error back to a specific author and publisher. For your example of a Bellamy discography, the fact that Album X or Album Y exists isn't controversial, so discographies don't really have to be sourced per se. However, if you personally happen to know, becaues Bellamy once told you, that Album X was heavily influenced by his love of Pablo Neruda's poetry, we can't just put that in. Nor can we put it in "Ref: Jim Lucas from personal discussion with Bellamy in 1979". It needs to be a documented fact that the average reader could access; optimally online, but it's okay to cite things that only exist in print, old back-issues of whatever magazine, etc. If we just allowed anyone to put anything, we'd have no way of verifying the facts, "Verifiability" being a core policy. Yes, there are a goodly chunk of articles on Wikipedia that lack proper sourcing, but over time as it evolves the standards are getting stricter, and unsourced articles are getting either cleaned up, or if nothing in them at all can be proven (or be proven to be significant), the article is deleted. We're not going to delete "Concertina", clearly, but a lot of facts in it are of little use unless they can be verified somewhere, and there's a *lot* of technical stuff that takes even me a moment's pause to parse out, much less a layman. I'm going to start out by sectioning out Anglo, English, and Duet to their own articles so we can deal with the minutiae of those in due course, but I want to get the main article trimmed down to something more accessible as first-thing. We also need a better pic for the top; the current photo is from 2004, low-res, poor lighting, and the model is wearing dark clothing that blends in with the instrument. The overall composition is decent in that it gives a feel for size, and also the angle allows one to see both part of the button layout and the bellows, but we need something more visible. Perhaps too it'd be smart to pick something a little more common like a 48b hexagonal English? In contrast, Ted Kloba's photo lower down of a Chemnitzer is great: good lighting, shows both body and ends, great sense of scale, etc.

I do a ton of work on Wikipedia (under this same username) and off and on I've noticed that the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concertinacould really use some improvement. The current article is written rather densely, and mixes major details up with a lot of minutiate not really applicable to the layman. I think the article doesn't really do good service to the general reader who might see concertina in a movie, or see it mentioned in the liner notes of an album, and wonder what the creature is all about. I imagine we have at least a few Wikipedia editors here, and a larger number of folks who are familiar with the body of published books and articles discussing the instrument, and others who might have access to good images (current or historical photos and drawings) that we can use to improve the article. I have my own ideas, but I'd invite y'all to take a quick look at the article as it stands and let me know your impressions. Where is it too dense for a layman? What huge facts/issues does it miss? What detailed material might be better used in a separate article ("English concertina"?) linked off from this main overview page? Remember, we can only include facts which are attested in published works. "Original research" is expressly forbidden on Wikipedia, since it's a "tertiary source", so we can't submit things like a personal analysis that X movie really brought a lot of players to the instrument, unless we can cite a particular published book or article that makes that direct observation. So we really need to "clear our heads" of personal knowledge and focus on documented facts which we can cite. Hopefully with the combined smarts of folks here, we can get the article into a easy-to-digest yet informative piece with clear images to inform readers wanting to know more about our passion.

I would listen to some clips if you can; the Beaumont being a "hybrid concertina" uses accordion-type reeds, so the resulting sound is mellower and less nasal than traditional concertina reeds. If you want that sharper classic concertina sound, a vintage Duet is the way to go (and Maccann are the most available, easiest found in large sizes, at decent prices, etc). However if you find the mellower more organ-y tone of a hybrid pleasant. I feel a little bad that I've failed to record anything for YouTube on my Beaumont; I've had it for a year now and just not gotten around to it, and now I'm on a different continent while a friend babysits my Beaumont. I'd have though that by now somebody else would put up some Beaumont clips, but to my knowledge the only such clips are on The Button Box's website. Definitely check out those clips though. Buttonbox's instruments are very light while very durable, and the key action on mine is fantastic. Though in the big picture one can argue that Duet systems are much of a muchness once you internalize the layout, the Hayden system is really intuitive, which makes it particularly easy to use for jamming, improvisation, etc. Though if you get a Maccann I'm sure you'll be just as fine with it's quirky layout once it becomes second nature. You might also sort of get a feel for how a Beaumont would sound for song accompaniment by checking out YouTube clips of people singing with a Geordie or Albion, the English models from Morse/Buttonbox. I also got a Duet to do song accompaniment (though my singing needs a lot of work) and to do more complex multi-part stuff, and I've regularly advocated for the Duet as a good box for self-accompaniment. EDIT: If you haven't seen forum-member Geoffery Lakeman's clips of singing with Duet concertina (he uses a Crane), definitely check out his clips: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb0RPKsGLVEEC6OqFjxplwA

"Easier" is subjective, really she's best to just try a little of each and decide. Definitely ask around her Morris contacts, surely there must be dozens and dozens of Morris concertina/melodeon players in London, maybe hundreds. Through such contacts you can get some friendly advice, as well as help finding an instrument. So far as size, a standard beginner melodeon probably weighs about 6lbs, a Rochelle concertina 3lb (and finer concertinas a bit lighter). So a weight difference, but neither is a lead brick. There are some lighter melodeons that some Morris players favor that are as little as 4lb, though those are pricier than a beginner probably wants. In any case, the same basic advice applies for either: your daughter will want to spend some time on YouTube looking at music played by both melodeon and Anglo concertina. She'll want to meet with some other Morris musicians and get some hands-on practice, and whatever you buy you'll want to buy it from a reputable dealer who knows squeezeboxes well and backs their product, and is the right instrument in the right key. So resist any urge to grab a "good deal" of getting an Acme Brand key of Bb/F melodon from a flea market. You don't have to spend a lot to get a good starter, but you want to make sure you do get a good starter since it's a miserable experience to try to start on a shoddy instrument. Hope all goes well in your girl's quest!

I'd imagine bushing makes a big difference. The wobbliness of the keys was one of my primary gripes about the Elise. Overall I really like the Elise as a starter Hayden, and for simple folk-music stuff I found the limited range to be usable. The tone isn't actually bad at all; different from but not necessarily "worse" than my higher-end Beaumont. I mainly upgraded because of the wobbliness of the action, and somewhat its slowness, but I still find the Elise usable. I guess other main gripe is it's kinda chunky for 35 buttons; crazy to upgrade to Beaumont and have the same size body but 52 buttons! Elise is just big enough to sort of get a feel for the advantages of the Hayden's uniform layout, but on a bigger keyboard the easy transposition and regular reaches for intervals is really remarkable. Like any layout, it has its compromises, but the regularity makes improvisation/jamming so effortless, and really makes the relationships between notes very clear.

Funny you should mention: here's his recent thread showing what he does to a Rochelle (and presumably about the same to an Elise). http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=17104

At the risk of heresy: if she's into Morris dancing, has she also considered a melodeon? Broadly speaking, melodeon differs from Anglo concertina in that melodeon is slightly larger/heavier, generally a little louder, and instead of all buttons playing individual notes, the right hand buttons are individual and the left-hand buttons play chords. Here are three melodeonists and one concertinist in a Morris side: With your daughter's interests, I'd say an Anglo concertina or a two-row melodeon in D/G (standard Morris item) would be the way to go. Again, totally a personal call as to which is best for her, in terms of ergonomics, playing style, and sound she enjoys. Pricing is relatively similar for starter levels, broadly around the £300 range. In contrast with concertina, there are more Chinese factories that have puzzled out decent melodeons, so there are a few more "safe" foreign-made options that are decent starters. As a contrast in sounds: - Morris tune on concertina (played by a US member here): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFhTavv9uI4 - Same tune on a melodeon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr9bPoObTHU Note that the melodeon has a bigger sound for having multiple reeds chorusing on the same note, and the bass/chord in the background is a heavier bounce. Whereas the concertina is a little smaller with a "cleaner" and purer sound, and a lighter touch. Both are great, it just depends what she finds appealing. If her interest is specifically Morris, I'd suggest asking around your Morris community, as it's very likely you have a few folks who play both concertina and melodeon for Morris, and would be able to sit down with her for a bit and let her try them out. If she should happen to lean melodeon instead after doing her research, I suggest going to the very good http://forum.melodeon.netand asking similar to what you asked here, just now knowing to specify her interests/style in the post so everyone knows what page you're on, and probably mentioning "Morris" and "London" in the subject line so you draw the right experts. Now, if she watches some clips and finds concertina the appealing one, we have a number of experienced Morris concertinists on this board. In such case, again a fresh thread in General for "Teen starting on Morris concertina in West London?" might get you exactly the folks you need to talk to! Hope all this is giving you a path forward. Even if she ends up going melodeon, feel free to pop back into this thread to let us know how it all worked out. EDIT: as a minor sidenote, either concertina or melodeon would also work well for playing pop covers and any other such interests your daughter has, they aren't purely applicable to folk. As a minor example, here's Beatles on concertina (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC-2R_3fIwM) and on melodeon ( ). "Pop" tunes from way before my time, but one could pretty easily knock out some Lorde, Lily Allen, or other popular singer pieces on these instruments as well.

morrisminor, so far as purchases, a very popular starter line is the "Concertina Connection" line of instruments. They run about £399 in the UK, sold by shops such as The Music Room in Yorkshire: http://www.themusicroom-online.co.uk/index.php/cPath/244_250. Though that may not be convenient to drop by. Really the only options you'd want to consider for a starter would be: - Concertina Connection (Rochelle, Jack, Jackie, Elise models) at £399 new, sometimes £299 used - You might be able to buy a vintage (in good tuned condition) 20-button Anglo or small English for £300-400 or so. The good thing about vintage is that if you get at all a decent price on it, you'll be able to get most/all your money back if you ever sell it. - While there are some cheaper Chinese-made models, mainly Scarlatti in the UK these days, if you buy one new for £189 it'll lose about half it's value when you sell it, and if she sticks with concertina at all she'll outgrow a cheapie in 6 months or less. So I really wouldn't advise going cheap-cheap, pennywise/pound-foolish and all. So overall, whatever system (English/Anglo/Duet) you get, I'd suggest getting a Concertina Connection, new or used (used ones should be fine, they're pretty durable) or a basic vintage one from a reputable dealer in concertinas. So far as which type, I'd strongly agree with others that letting your daughter read up on the types, watch YouTube clips of folks playing each, etc. would be the best way to go. If she wants to play Irish folk music or similar, 99% chance you want an Anglo. If she's more into classical, jazzy/bluesy stuff, etc., 90% chance she wants an English. I love Duet, but I wouldn't necessarily suggest it to a young novice who's not already strongly musically inclined, since it's a much smaller scene. A few follow-up suggestions: - To decide what system, YouTube research and reading older posts on this forum is great (try googling "english anglo site:concertina.net" to see the many times this has been discussed, ultimately a personal choice), hands-on experience would be the best way to finalize the choice. If you ask around the forum (perhaps in the General section), you could post "Seeking concertina lesson on English and Anglo for teen beginner in London", and very likely a helpful member here could let you and your girl drop by and walk her through their collection of instruments, whether for £25 for the hour, a bottle of drink, or maybe even free out of kindness. That way she could see what feels best for her, and also get a feel for what a good instrument handles like. - Once she's decided which type she wants, you could also post a "WTB: inexpensive English concertina for teen beginner in London" ad in our Sales forum, and quite likely someone will have a used Concertina Connection instrument, or affordable vintage one, especially if they know it's for a young person starting out. Just a few ways to ponder on it.

Roger, have you looked into getting something like a 26-button? If you don't need absolutely all the buttons of a 30, Anglos between 20 and 30 are somewhat more expensive than a 20 but notably cheaper than a 30. If you want to do really jazzy stuff, 30 might be needed, but if you're playing more trad stuff, and just want to be able to play in more keys, a 26b Lachenal might be a good compromise. Still quality, holds its value, compact frame, and gives you a good number of chromatics.

If Bruce is enjoying the process and experimenting, and the cash isn't a terrible dent, this at least sounds like an interesting project. Though, as mentioned in last thread, though 3D printing might work for prototypes, would not 3D milling end up being a more durable way to go about it? Not at all an engineering guy, but my impression is that 3D printers take specific (and a limited range of) printing plastics, while with 3D milling you could get a block of Delrin or whatever plastic composition you like, and have a 3D mill carve out the bits. My initial concern would be the reeds: are you considering hybrid (accordion) reeds for the long-term plans? If not, again a lot of very smart folks have tried to figure out a way to mass-produce concertina reeds, but between methods and scale nobody's had a plausible solution yet. I personally don't doubt someone will eventually solve that riddle; if nothing else when we have really good 3D scanners that can get tons of tiny nuances right, CAD out existing reeds, and auto-mill them, but even those would take a lot of skilled labor to tune. Unless, of course, 3D scanning becomes so precise that a fully pre-tuned reed/shoe can be dropped into perfectly formed chamber. But in whatever case, affordable concertina reeds don't sound to be on the 3-5 year (or maybe even 10 year) horizon. Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm still of the belief that if we're mass-producing affordable concertina options, MIDI is a way to go. And as conzertino notes, Hayden is arguably an easier MIDI sell as being less tied to tradition than English or Anglo, lacking the available/affordable vintage market, etc. MIDI avoids all the reed issues, opens up a lot of neat modern options for interface, etc. I would like to see an increase in quality-yet-affordability of Chinese models though. The Chinese make those little 7-button melodeons (button accordions) which are suprisingly okay for $20-30, and with $100 of reedwork are actually pretty decent. If the Chinese made something parallel to those, rather than those huge celluloid monstrosities of 20b Anglos they make, that would also be a step forward for the concertina community. All that aside, if you're having fun designing and aren't blowing the rent money, I don't see it as being any more directionless than any number of hobbies. I've never understood the whole "building a ship in a bottle" thing, and being able to replace any part of a concertina seems a valid hobby endeavor.

a) that's "may not" as in "maybe not" as opposed to "shan't". (Is that a dialect nuance?) it's not necessarily singling out the US; likely it's noting you're in the US, noting the seller only checked the box for UK or UK/Europe so it's telling you "hey US customer, this guy hasn't said anything about shipping to the US, so maybe we won't ship to you, best to check."

Remind me, from the Crewdson pulley-"bellows" concertina from a ways back, are the "push to make" buttons he mentions the same as one of the options we've already considered? See: http://crewdson.net/ ---------- ---- So far the most appealing options to me are get something like an Elise 7"carcass, but with a lot more buttons (65?) since they just need to lead to a pad/hole and not a reedblock, and add a basic off-the-shelf Hall sensor accordion settup to it Something pretty much like what S-Wave does, but a licensed/approved copy done in Hayden.

Found another interesting MIDI bandoneon clip; can anyone tell what sort of buttons/sensors he's using in here (you can see the keys a little bit in): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H218YO5VMMc Here's more video of a more traditional MIDI bandoneon in tango action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb8SE7MUeJA

I'm a bit different from most, I believe, as my interest in learning concertina wasn't particularly influenced by anyone's concertina playing. Only partial exception being seeing Australian singer-songwriter Danny Spooner back himself up on an Wheatstone English on his ballads at a show in Newfoundland. For me it was more the specific capabilities of the concertina, being basically a portable polyphonic keyboard. Not to much any particular concertina-playing tradition. I've always been pretty melodically strong but not great on chords and harmonies, and I wanted to challenge myself with an instrument that could do more complex harmonies. The style of music I want to play was more exemplified by things like multi-part singing, organ/harmonium pieces, etc. I wanted to play some nice droney low-end stuff, basso continuo, etc. underneath a higher part. I debated Anglo though the bisonoric thing wasn't quite what I wanted. I considered English as being more capable of playing any given note combination (weird dissonant chords, etc) but was concerned about having to juggle between hands, or what happens when all the notes I want happen to be on one side and I run out of fingers. But right when I was shopping for a concertina while working in Afghanistan, I saw that Wim Wakker had his imported "Elise" model Duet concertinas, and those seemed the most organ-like in terms of low left hand and high right, unisonoric, capable of any kind of note combination. I got one of those, played it just casually a couple years, then brought my Elise to a house-party once and ended up jamming the whole late evening with the host's guitarist boyfriend, and thereafter played their parties and others for the rest of the year, upgraded to a Morse Beaumont, and currently working in South America with a little 35-button Crane Duet concertina since it's smaller and cheaper than my nice Hayden.

Would brass be a lot easier to cut while still being weather-resistant? Or is stainless hands-down a better option for doorbell plates?

Glad to hear you're keeping the tuning traditional, and that it's in such good shape overall. So Lange was Uhilig's son-in-law, did they keep Lange's name even after his death, or does that help date this? What kind of music are you fixing to play on it? I had a Chemnitzer at one point, but gave it up because I just never warmed to bisonoric concertinas. But when I did play, I liked to do a lot of organ-like music, as befits the original intent of the instrument. My humble suggestion would be to try some Sacred Harp tunes on it; they're heavy on fourths and fifths as harmony, so a lovely bass-end swell sounds great with them. I'm not a huge fan of piano accordion, but here's a decent rendition of the Sacred Harp tune Idumea on accordion. Imagine how it would sound better on Chemnitzer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMd2yEjEw7s . Here's the same tune in four-part acapella harmony ("shape note"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU_QFvkPJvw Here's the dots, the third line down is Tenor, and that's the melody line:

Wow, looks pretty nice! Are you noticing a specific problem with pads/valves, or just want them serviced on general principle? So far as tuning, is it actually out of tune entirely, or is it tune with itself at something other than A=440 and Equal Temperament? Just one man's opinion, but I would keep it as close to the original tuning as possible, unless you have a strong need to be able to play it in ensemble with other fixed-pitch instruments. But if you're more playing for personal pleasure, or with something that can tune to it like a fiddle or guitar, adjusting it just enough to get it shipshape should be cheaper, and less futzing with the reeds. If it's in non-Equal temperament, that'd also mean it'll sound sweeter in some keys than an Equal box would.