Air tight: how important?

[a4naught]

As a new player since Dec, I've been looking at Robert Tedrow's vids of concertinas. He demonstrated the air-tightness check. How important is that when evaluating a concertina? My McNeela Phoenix, which has been so fun to play and learn on, doesn't pass this test. A very slow decent when held aloft, bellows retracted. Just curious. Saw a comment earlier after trying to search for this on the forum, and the poster declared that most concertinas are not absolutely air tight. Comments?

[Richard Mellish]

What matters is the amount of air that leaks in proportion to the amount that does something useful in making the reeds sound. If it's a small proportion I wouldn't worry about it. If it makes a significant difference to how many notes you can play before you run out of air it's worth investigating.
 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

It helps to have as little air coming out as you can; however my own concertina, over a couple of decades use, and over that time of openings up to service it, is by no means perfectly air tight, but still plays well. I find it can also depend upon the manner in which you play.. and, at least I have found, whether you rest instrument on knee, sitting, or standing .. 

Just my own experiences over 3 decades of playing🌝🌝

[DaveRo]

10 hours ago, a4naught said:

He demonstrated the air-tightness check. How important is that...?

I've wondered that. My secondhand Peacock duet (6-fold), if I hold one end, falls open in 10-15 seconds. I've had the offending end off - to fix something else - and the cause is not obvious.

 

9 hours ago, Richard Mellish said:

If it makes a significant difference to how many notes you can play before you run out of air...

I'd have to fix it to find that out. I do find the the highest reeds on the right sometimes don't sound if there is a simultaneous low note on the left - as there often is.

[Stephen Chambers]

16 hours ago, a4naught said:

As a new player since Dec, I've been looking at Robert Tedrow's vids of concertinas. He demonstrated the air-tightness check. How important is that when evaluating a concertina?

 

It took me a while to find it seeing that you didn't provide a link, so here's one for anybody who's interested to see Bob's video: Tedrow concertina bellows drop test

 

And I notice he says himself that "I'm only showing this because it's a pretty good job" - so it's above average in terms of expected air-tightness.

 

But personally I don't believe in drop-testing of concertina bellows because the heavy weight of the dropping end is creating a not-inconsiderable vacuum inside the concertina that's potentially harmful to delicate glued structures of thin leather, felt, fabric, and cardboard. I prefer to make a pressure test by holding the instrument in a playing position and briefly pressing the bellows to make sure there is resistance, and that I can't hear a hiss of escaping air, or the sound of a note ciphering. That should be enough.

 

Quote

Saw a comment earlier after trying to search for this on the forum, and the poster declared that most concertinas are not absolutely air tight. Comments?

 

 

Too much is made of being "absolutely air tight", especially by beginners, when it isn't really possible to achieve without making the instrument unplayably stiff in the bellows and the springs.

 

Whilst seasoned musicians like the renowned uilleann piper Seamus Ennis could play the most sublime music on an instrument that leaked like a sieve...

[hjcjones]

My first concertina wasn't the most airtight.  It taught me how to use the air button so not to run out of air.

[richard]

Hi

 

My pondering:

If the topic is really "running out of air" an interesting question to consider is how many push notes is one using vs. how many pull notes. The direction used should always benefit the music, phrasing, rhythm, pulse, feel. I think somewhere in between all that there is room to include a consideration of the balance of push to pull notes.

 

Richard

[Little John]

10 hours ago, DaveRo said:

I do find the the highest reeds on the right sometimes don't sound if there is a simultaneous low note on the left - as there often is.

 

This is a separate issue from airtightness, but one that seems often to affect duets. A well set-up duet (or any other concertina, but it seems to be more critical on a duet) will have all the reeds start to speak at the same air pressure. When they don't it could be the set of the reed tongues within the frame or the wrong sort of valve leather.

[a4naught]

@Stephen Chambers thanks for the alternative air tightness check and perspective. Even though I have had my Phoenix open to clear a stuck button, and seen the crazy fiddly interior bits, it would not have occurred to me that such a drop test might damage any of that. As for player vs instrument, as usual, a fine player can invariably overcome what average players cannot.

[DaveRo]

2 hours ago, Little John said:

A well set-up duet (or any other concertina, but it seems to be more critical on a duet) will have all the reeds start to speak at the same air pressure. When they don't it could be the set of the reed tongues within the frame or the wrong sort of valve leather.

The CC Peacock is a hybrid. Does that affect the likelihood that the reeds will speak at the same pressure, or the difficulty of adjusting them?

[d.elliott]

I second Stephen in this, the drop test is fairly spurious, the vacuum caused during the test pulls the pads hard onto the pad holes, where as the pressure pulse test not only checks the bellows etc, but also tests the pad seals under the influence of the springs. A weak spring causes a pressure loss and a hiss sound. Much more diagnostic. If the pulse test feels a bit 'spongy' then you know that the bellows/ pad board/ pads/ springs may need  a strong dose of looking at.

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Next time you open your concertina make sure you take a few photos for reference, as to how it looks, then you can learn how it is constructed, should yo need to consider servicing it in future.

 

[Little John]

18 hours ago, DaveRo said:

The CC Peacock is a hybrid. Does that affect the likelihood that the reeds will speak at the same pressure, or the difficulty of adjusting them?

 

I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to these questions. What I do know from experience of traditional concertina reeds is that having an instrument set up properly makes all the difference to playability.

 

You will have to ask the maker/maintainer specifically to do this but you can easily check before whether it's the problem and afterwards to see if it's been done properly. Just choose a random pairs of notes, one high and one low. With no pressure on the bellows depress the two buttons. Now slowly start to put pressure on the bellows and increase it. The two notes should start to sound at the same time if it's well set up. The likelihood is, though, that the low note will sound first. Increasing the pressure will make the high note sound too, but increasing the pressure also makes the low note louder so it still dominates the sound.

 

From my experience of four or five Crabb duets they are usually well set up. I suspect this is because the Crabb family actually played duets so understood both the problem and the solution.

[d.elliott]

Little John,

 

No matter how well set up, the test you describe is cruel, big reeds need more air flow than small reeds, small reeds are stiffer (relatively)  than big reeds, the excitation from one reed can initiate a second reed. You have too many variables, many of which are outside the control of the repairer. What the repairer can control is voicing, but that my not be enough.

 

[Bob Tedrow]

So here is another clip demonstrating both “airtight-ness”  as well as bellows “compliance-ness”

 

https://www.facebook.com/Robert.Earl.Tedrow/videos/6015107245222179/?idorvanity=809436883276884

Edited April 7, 2023 by Bob Tedrow

[Little John]

16 hours ago, d.elliott said:

... the test you describe is cruel, big reeds need more air flow than small reeds, ...

 

Greater air flow doesn't equate to higher or lower starting pressure. I don't pretend to understand all the variables that go into making all reads speak at the same pressure, but I know from experience that it can be done. Both my Holden Crane duets pass the test I describe admirably, and so do my Wheatstone baritone English and my Wheatstone single-action bass (both from around the 1900s). My modern CBA passes too. Obviously the latter uses accordion reeds. My hybrid miniature anglo fails. I don't see why the test is cruel.

 

It seems to me not only reasonable to expect a set of reeds to start speaking at the same pressure, but actually pretty much essential if you are to be to play with expression and dynamics, or quietly to accompany singing.

[d.elliott]

It is cruel because of the many variables, anything from the stiffness of valve leathers to the physical geometry of the reed vents and the chambers. Obviously the closer to all reads exciting at the same pressure, the better. Given that such a high proportion of older instruments will have to have been re-pitched as well the possibility of all the reeds in an instrument having been treated the same way  through out their life is remote. I would not be surprised if relative pad hole dimensions had an influence. 

[springer52]

Ted, that link seems to be dead.