The Concertina Capo

[Jeff C]

I've conceptualized a capo for the concertina. It is in no way practical but I think it would work. I invite everyone to try to guess what my solution is or to come up with your own. The only rule is that it must be theoretically possible.

 

Bonus points for making me laugh.

 

Bonus points for actually making one.

 

The first person who guesses my solution wins.

 

The first person who comes up with their own solution wins too.

 

Anyone who comments at all wins as well.

 

Anyone who reads the comments wins.

 

Everyone wins except my cousin Mark. He owes me money.

 

Jeff

[Larry Stout]

Wheatstone patented a device with rollers on the reeds to change their pitch. I suppose one could add a ratchet so that the change was predictable in half steps. It's not clear he ever made one.

[Dave Weinstein]

Platinum Card.

[Jody Kruskal]

Helium

[Jeff C]

Jody wins! (so does everyone else of course)

 

I figure if you used one of those isolation chambers they use in laboratories to handle dangerous substances where you can put your arms in through rubber gaskets you could put the concertina inside and vary the concentration of helium to get different pitches. I think I will patent it and make a millions of dollars. I now have a retirement plan.

[Dirge]

If you played it in a denser medium that would slow the reeds and lower the tune, wouldn't it. So what about filling a large fish tank with petrol and playing in that? (Clearly you couldn't use water or the 'box would dissolve...)

 

Much simpler than getting an isolation chamber.

[Jody Kruskal]

If you played it in a denser medium that would slow the reeds and lower the tune, wouldn't it. So what about filling a large fish tank with petrol and playing in that? (Clearly you couldn't use water or the 'box would dissolve...)

 

Much simpler than getting an isolation chamber.

 

So... what dense and harmless or inert common gas might we use to lower the pitch of a concertina?

 

I know what happens when I breath helium and sing, but does that really work with concertinas? Hmmmmm. There must be some way to try it out. OK. Get a tank for balloons. Put the helium nozzle next to the air intake hole. Open the tank and the concertina air button and expand the bellows, sucking in a bunch of helium. Play a note into your tuner and see what you get. Should work, I guess.

 

So what's my prize?

[JimLucas]

I've conceptualized a capo for the concertina. It is in no way practical but I think it would work. I invite everyone to try to guess what my solution is or to come up with your own.

Helium

Bonus points for making me laugh.

Then instead of helium, shouldn't that be nitrous oxide?

 

Jody wins! (so does everyone else of course)

 

I figure if you used one of those isolation chambers they use in laboratories to handle dangerous substances where you can put your arms in through rubber gaskets you could put the concertina inside and vary the concentration of helium to get different pitches. I think I will patent it and make a millions of dollars. I now have a retirement plan.

I hope you have a Retirement Plan B (see next).

 

The only rule is that it must be theoretically possible.

Unforunately, I'm pretty sure that won't work. The pitch change of the human voice (and flutes and such) between air and helium is due to the differing speeds of sound in those gases and the fact that the pitch is determined by a resonant chamber (the mouth, etc. in the case of the human voice). If the sound wave travels faster in the chamber -- which it does when you replace air with helium, -- then then the resonance is a higher frequency... hence "chipmunk" voices. I've experienced a similar effect from belching carbon dioxide (from a carbonated beverage) while playing the tin whistle... the next few notes were changed by about a half step.

 

But a concertina reed works on a completely different principle -- the vibration of a metal "spring", -- with the function of the gas (air, helium, CO₂, etc.) being merely to provide through its flow the driving force to keep the reed vibrating. Gases of different densities might affect the strength of this driving force, but you can get that same effect by varying the strength with which you push and pull the bellows, and the result is a change in volume, not pitch.

 

A pity, perhaps, since if your idea did work it might have been fun trying to design an isolation chamber with acoustic coupling adequate to let the sound out and collapsible so that a performeer could carry it from gig to gig as easily as a second concertina.

[Woody]

What you need are replaceable ends in differing keys e.g. C/G, G/D, etc.... When you want to play in a different key the quick application of a screwdriver will allow you to fit the ends with the key of choice. You could even fit bicycle technology quick release levers to speed up the process. Given two keys per set of ends you should only need 6 sets of ends plus any additional ones for "specials" such as bass. Cheap, simple & effective

[JimLucas]

What you need are replaceable ends in differing keys e.g. C/G, G/D, etc.... When you want to play in a different key the quick application of a screwdriver will allow you to fit the ends with the key of choice. You could even fit bicycle technology quick release levers to speed up the process. Given two keys per set of ends you should only need 6 sets of ends plus any additional ones for "specials" such as bass. Cheap, simple & effective

Cheap???

Woody, your profile says you live in Wiltshire, not Oz.

[Simon H]

Just one word, Autotune.

 

It could do it, the sofware now exists (God help us all) to do autotune on the fly. With a miked up concertina and Autotune set up and a big amp and speakers to drown out the concertina, you can play any tune in any key and transpose to your heart's content.

 

All that said, Autotune misused, as it so often is, by vocalists is one of the worst scourges of the current "pop" industry IMO.

 

No prize please, I should be scourged for even raising it here.

 

Simon

[RAc]

I've conceptualized a capo for the concertina. It is in no way practical but I think it would work. I invite everyone to try to guess what my solution is or to come up with your own. The only rule is that it must be theoretically possible.

 

Bonus points for making me laugh.

 

Bonus points for actually making one.

 

The first person who guesses my solution wins.

 

The first person who comes up with their own solution wins too.

 

Anyone who comments at all wins as well.

 

Anyone who reads the comments wins.

 

Everyone wins except my cousin Mark. He owes me money.

 

Jeff

 

Actually, there would be a theoretically possible way - "all you would need" would be 12 reed plates on either side and a rotary system that allows you to bypass all but one of the reed plates. While the "pure" system would be doable for an engineering (or more precisely nerdy) mind, it's the follow-up implications that will turn out costly - for example, the resulting gizmo would have a wing span that either requires two players (possibly in different area codes) to play the instrument or major surgery to extend the arms of the player. Also, I believe the world supply for reeds at any given moment wouldn't be enough to satisfy the needs of such a thing...

 

Nah. I need my time to actually practise the instrument I have instead of envisioning others - and since mine is a Crane, I can play in almost any key anyways...

[Woody]

Woody, your profile says you live in Wiltshire, not Oz.

As I'm sure any Moonrakers out there will testify, the two are very similar.

[Robin Madge]

All you need to do is to place the performer on a moveable stage. When you want to lower the pitch accelerate away from the audience!

 

Robin Madge

[TomB-R]

You didn't say which system, so English.....

 

Twelve sided bellows, al la Edeophone, that transition to completely round ends.

Radial reed cells are all the same size.

Half an octave, at the top and bottom of the range, of "redundant" reed cells at nil transposition.

Action laid out to give chromatic semitone progression of reed cells throughout the range.

 

...and getting to the important bit.....

 

....connection from action assembly to bellows and reed pan is solely through a central bolt.

Sprung click stops at each alignment of action holes and reed cells.

 

To transpose up a semitone twist the bellows/reed pans, relative to the action, one way to the next click stop, vice versa to go down. More clicks for more than one semitone.

 

[small edit for clarity, I hope]

Edited November 8, 2010 by TomB-R

[Jeff C]

Now we have people thinking outside the squeeze box!

[TomB-R]

I guess what I've described is a transposing concertina rather than a concertina capo.....

[JimLucas]

To transpose up a semitone twist the bellows/reed pans, relative to the action, one way to the next click stop, vice versa to go down. More clicks for more than one semitone.

Reminds me of a concertina I bought back in the early '70's. It was a brand new Wheatstone anglo, 20-button C/G in a New York music store I won't name. Concertinas weren't in fashion then, and it wasn't on display, but I was looking for one (having had to give back the one someone had loaned me for 6 months), so I asked, and they brought this one out. They warned me, however, that it needed work... some buttons didn't produce any sound, while some others produced more than one. I verified this by trying it.

 

By then I had learned enough about concertinas that I thought I knew what the problem was, and I tried to tell them, even though they said that if it was working properly they would be charging twice the price they were offering me. But no, they didn't want anything to do with repairs and refused to even hear what I thought was needed.

 

So I bought it, and then...

ME: "It's mine now, so I can do what I want with it, yes?"

THEM: "Yes."

So right there in front of them I took out my screwdriver, unbolted both ends, gave each 1/6 turn, bolted them back on, and... I had a perfectly functioning concertina!