20-b From Gdr?

[Christian Husmann]

Hello and THANKS to

Marien and Dan!

 

The two threads will help me getting started! I will see how much information I will be able to get.

 

And yes, bandonion information will be easy to receive ´cause these machines turn up virtually everywhere - I´ve got one (far beyond being able to play it) but sometimes you get them for almost nothing. I think I payed something around 20 € for mine...

 

But the "real" concertinas do fascinate me.

 

Greetings

Christian

[Theo]

Hello Christian,

 

Have you seen this thread:

this thread

 

It shows good quality English concertina's that have been made in Germany a long time ago. Also I heard from a Bandoneon maker in Belgium that in history, German made anglo's exist with english types of action and individual reed frames (far before Suttner's time).

Marien

 

It would be untrue to describe the Schuster concertina in that thread as a "good quality concertina" . It was clearly a copy of an early Wheatstone, but the materials and the workmanship were far inferior to a real Wheatstone, even an early one. It was not very nice to play. It almost made me think that it had been copied by a crftsman who knew about working in wood and metal, but did not understand that the function of the object that he made was to make music!

[Daniel Hersh]

Christian--

 

For more info, take a look at the site http://www.concertina.de/ and at the posts by Klaus Guhl on this thread.

 

BTW, from my point of view a bandoneons are real concertinas, part of what Ted Kloba calls the LSGC family (for Large Square German Concertina). They're directly descended from Uhlig's original bisonoric and diatonic concertina, as is what we now call an Anglo concertina. But perhaps you mean something else by "real"...

 

Daniel

 

Hello and THANKS to

Marien and Dan!

 

The two threads will help me getting started! I will see how much information I will be able to get.

 

And yes, bandonion information will be easy to receive ´cause these machines turn up virtually everywhere - I´ve got one (far beyond being able to play it) but sometimes you get them for almost nothing. I think I payed something around 20 € for mine...

 

But the "real" concertinas do fascinate me.

 

Greetings

Christian

[Marien]

Okay, I'll strike out the word good quality. All the same somebody suggested that they have english type reed pans and reeds in individual frames, and that are quite uncommon features for a german concertina. I also do not know about the levers, are they the usual wooden type levers? Do you know these things of the copy you saw?

[Theo]

Hi Marien

 

I did indeed see the inside of the Schuster. It was built exactly along Wheatstone lines, reedpan, reeds, levers, pads etc. The only difference was the quality of materials and workmanship were poor.

[Christian Husmann]

Christian--

 

For more info, take a look at the site http://www.concertina.de/ and at the posts by Klaus Guhl on this thread.

 

BTW, from my point of view a bandoneons are real concertinas, part of what Ted Kloba calls the LSGC family (for Large Square German Concertina). They're directly descended from Uhlig's original bisonoric and diatonic concertina, as is what we now call an Anglo concertina. But perhaps you mean something else by "real"...

 

Daniel

 

Thanks again for the information.

 

Hm, "real" concertinas - in my head the bandoneons wouldn´t be called as well a concertina, even if they do have the same button layout and so on. With real I just ment the concertina in shape, size, range and so on as most of us now have at home.

What attracted my interested was probably the picture of the Schuster box because since I have started looking for wind instruments I never came across a German brand that looked like that one shown on the picture...

 

Greetings

Christian

[Stephen Chambers]

BTW, from my point of view a bandoneons are real concertinas, part of what Ted Kloba calls the LSGC family (for Large Square German Concertina). They're directly descended from Uhlig's original bisonoric and diatonic concertina, as is what we now call an Anglo concertina. But perhaps you mean something else by "real"...

Hm, "real" concertinas - in my head the bandoneons wouldn´t be called as well a concertina, even if they do have the same button layout and so on. With real I just ment the concertina in shape, size, range and so on as most of us now have at home.

We're getting onto tricky ground here, and I think that I would describe what Christian appears to mean by "real" concertinas as being "of traditional English construction", as German makers did sometimes build hexagonal Bandonions and Chemnitzers (just to confuse his definition ) and conversely, Wheatstone's did build some instruments they described as "Bandonions" (actually Chemnitzers!)

 

And it may be worth mentioning in passing that Uhlig initially announced his new instrument in 1834 as a new kind of accordion ("Accordeon nach neur Art"), and later as a Harmonika, but never (to the best of my knowledge) as a "Konzertina", though he seems to have used "Concertina" to describe the English-style instrument.

 

What attracted my interested was probably the picture of the Schuster box because since I have started looking for wind instruments I never came across a German brand that looked like that one shown on the picture...

Most of the business of the merchants in Markneukirchen was in exporting musical instruments, so I expect that the majority of Schuster's English concertinas went out of the country ...

[Christian Husmann]

We're getting onto tricky ground here, and I think that I would describe what Christian appears to mean by "real" concertinas as being "of traditional English construction", as German makers did sometimes build hexagonal Bandonions and Chemnitzers (just to confuse his definition ) and conversely, Wheatstone's did build some instruments they described as "Bandonions" (actually Chemnitzers!)

 

Well, we´re getting on confusing ground actually...

So, what is now the difference between a Bandonion and a Chemnitzer? With my deepest respect to the

English language and the inventors out of GB, since I read the last post, the confusion is now perfect...

 

And it may be worth mentioning in passing that Uhlig initially announced his new instrument in 1834 as a new kind of accordion ("Accordeon nach neur Art"), and later as a Harmonika, but never (to the best of my knowledge) as a "Konzertina", though he seems to have used "Concertina" to describe the English-style instrument.

 

I never heard or found the word "concertina" on instruments that weren´t actually concertinas.

Reading through ebay.de adds of (no no, I not using any of these words now) the big square things, they often have the word concertina within the description, but only there and (if I remember correctly) since selling concertinas became popular at ebay´s. It´s only a guess but maybe international buyers should and shall be attracted.

 

Most of the business of the merchants in Markneukirchen was in exporting musical instruments, so I expect that the majority of Schuster's English concertinas went out of the country ...

 

I will have to keep my eyes open even if the chance may be little - I´d love to see and play one of those!

 

Greetings

Christian

[Robert Booth]

Interesting to see where this conversation has gone; a small seed has grown, indeed.

At any rate, on the strength of this discussion, I went and bought the little Scholer, as Stephen has assured Us that this is what it is. (That's a bad sentence, but I think you get what I'm saying).

 

I am pleasantly surprised, for, although it fairly reeks of cigarette smoke, it plays far better than I would have imagined - at least as well as my Stagi W-15 20-b. The tone is pretty good, albeit a little muffled and not very strong. I doubt that I shall play it very often, but is is a pretty little thing and looks nice alongside her sisters on the shelf. Maybe I'll bring it to school and let some of the kids play on it.

 

That makes four concertinas, two melodians, and a PA. My wife has threatened dire consequences if any more bellows are spotted in the house.

 

How about it, my co-dependents...any ideas for getting rid of the nicotine reek?

 

Robert

[Daniel Hersh]

Christian--

 

This is an (American-made) Chemnitzer concertina.

 

This is a bandoneon.

 

This is a Carlsfelder concertina, though the seller calls it a "bandoneon concertina".

 

I'm pretty sure that this is a bandonika, though the seller calls it a bandoneon.

 

The difference is in the button layout.

 

Daniel

 

We're getting onto tricky ground here, and I think that I would describe what Christian appears to mean by "real" concertinas as being "of traditional English construction", as German makers did sometimes build hexagonal Bandonions and Chemnitzers (just to confuse his definition ) and conversely, Wheatstone's did build some instruments they described as "Bandonions" (actually Chemnitzers!)

Well, we´re getting on confusing ground actually...

So, what is now the difference between a Bandonion and a Chemnitzer? With my deepest respect to the

English language and the inventors out of GB, since I read the last post, the confusion is now perfect...

And it may be worth mentioning in passing that Uhlig initially announced his new instrument in 1834 as a new kind of accordion ("Accordeon nach neur Art"), and later as a Harmonika, but never (to the best of my knowledge) as a "Konzertina", though he seems to have used "Concertina" to describe the English-style instrument.

I never heard or found the word "concertina" on instruments that weren´t actually concertinas.

Reading through ebay.de adds of (no no, I not using any of these words now) the big square things, they often have the word concertina within the description, but only there and (if I remember correctly) since selling concertinas became popular at ebay´s. It´s only a guess but maybe international buyers should and shall be attracted.

Most of the business of the merchants in Markneukirchen was in exporting musical instruments, so I expect that the majority of Schuster's English concertinas went out of the country ...

I will have to keep my eyes open even if the chance may be little - I´d love to see and play one of those!

 

Greetings

Christian

[Christian Husmann]

Christian--

 

This is an (American-made) Chemnitzer concertina.

 

This is a bandoneon.

 

This is a Carlsfelder concertina, though the seller calls it a "bandoneon concertina".

 

I'm pretty sure that this is a bandonika, though the seller calls it a bandoneon.

 

The difference is in the button layout.

 

Daniel

 

Ok, that helps!

I´ve got one question left and than I will stop asking, promised.

 

You mentioned the button layouts - is there as well a difference in pitch like on Anglos?

 

Thanks and nice week-end

Christian

[m3838]

You mentioned the button layouts - is there as well a difference in pitch like on Anglos?

Thanks and nice week-end

Christian

 

Oh, that's a good one.

I guess there is, and I'm interested in answer too.

I noticed that bandoneon has Anglo-like layout of core

28 buttons, but the pitch is in A?

However these instruments are fully chromatic, and played 'not' in the home key along the rows, so it makes it difficult to establish whether they are in D/G, or A/E and such.

And why? I guess pianos, concertinas, Accordions are mostly Cmaj centered (at least historically). Why then large square concertinas are not?

And why are they bi-sonoric? If historically they derive from small push/pull instrument, now they have all notes duplicated on push and pull, so there's no benefit in bi-sonoric layout. Considering most of the time they are played on the pull, why not take the pull layout and make it uni-sonoric?

 

Does anybody know where I can get Karlsfelder's Concertina layout?

[Daniel Hersh]

So far as I know all the ones that I provided links to are all bisonoric (different notes on push & pull) like an Anglo. There are unisonoric bandoneons as well (set up like a chromatic button accordion) but they are pretty rare. There's an even more unusual one called a Kusserow system that I believe is also unisonoric (I believe something like the Hayden/Wicki setup) but I know almost nothing about it.

 

The only one of these systems that I know much about is the Chemnitzer, which I've been on and off trying to teach myself to play for a year or so. Describing the key of a Chemnitzer can be confusing. Mine would be considered to be in C, but the home rows are actually in G and A and part of a third row is in E. Perhaps it's considered to be in C because the lowest note on the treble side is middle C, or perhaps it's because sheet music for a Chemnitzer in C is read as written (parallel to, for example a C clarinet, as opposed to a clarinet in Bb or A).

 

I too have occasionally wondered (especially while trying to learn and retain the location of two notes for each of 52 buttons!) why someone hasn't just taken the notes from either push or pull and made the instrument unisonoric. One reason might be that not quite all of the notes are duplicated, especially on the bass side--but adding more buttons could take care of that, and there are variants (e.g. the einheitskonzertina and the "Nicky's" Chemnitzer) that do have more buttons. Perhaps Ted Kloba will weigh in with more information on this...

 

And the Carlsfelder/Karlsfelder layout can be found here. I don't know if the Carlsfelder layout is 100% standard, though, and I don't know who would know.

 

You mentioned the button layouts - is there as well a difference in pitch like on Anglos?

Thanks and nice week-end

Christian

Oh, that's a good one.

I guess there is, and I'm interested in answer too.

I noticed that bandoneon has Anglo-like layout of core

28 buttons, but the pitch is in A?

However these instruments are fully chromatic, and played 'not' in the home key along the rows, so it makes it difficult to establish whether they are in D/G, or A/E and such.

And why? I guess pianos, concertinas, Accordions are mostly Cmaj centered (at least historically). Why then large square concertinas are not?

And why are they bi-sonoric? If historically they derive from small push/pull instrument, now they have all notes duplicated on push and pull, so there's no benefit in bi-sonoric layout. Considering most of the time they are played on the pull, why not take the pull layout and make it uni-sonoric?

 

Does anybody know where I can get Karlsfelder's Concertina layout?

[Theodore Kloba]

Perhaps it's considered to be in C because the lowest note on the treble side is middle C, or perhaps it's because sheet music for a Chemnitzer in C is read as written (parallel to, for example a C clarinet, as opposed to a clarinet in Bb or A).

I've always assumed it to be the latter, so that bands with wind instruments could be on the same page, so to speak...

I too have occasionally wondered (especially while trying to learn and retain the location of two notes for each of 52 buttons!) why someone hasn't just taken the notes from either push or pull and made the instrument unisonoric. One reason might be that not quite all of the notes are duplicated, especially on the bass side--but adding more buttons could take care of that, and there are variants (e.g. the einheitskonzertina and the "Nicky's" Chemnitzer) that do have more buttons. Perhaps Ted Kloba will weigh in with more information on this...

Nothing really to offer. If you're going to mess with it though, why not make it uniform. The only benefit of the layout is that the right hand is "context sensitive" based on bellows direction as dictated by customary chord fingerings in the left in the keys of G, D & A. When I get a chance, I'll post some "theoretical" uni-sonoric layouts I've come up with that still make for easy diatonic playing.

And why? I guess pianos, concertinas, Accordions are mostly Cmaj centered (at least historically). Why then large square concertinas are not?

The (plausible) explanation I've heard is that they were originally played in groups with strings, where the "sharp keys" are more prevalent, especially in folk music, due to the tuning of the open strings.