Two Reeds Per Note

[Nick]

I know this may be off topic a little (maybe not). I am a beginner, and would like to get an anglo concertina, but my favorite sound is a melodeon with at least two reeds working per note. Are there any anglo instruments out there that you can recommend that have two reeds per note? I know that Stagi makes some, but I hear that their quality is not that great. Thanks-

[Chris Timson]

This may seem obtuse, but have you considered getting a melodeon? Sadly for anglo players, melodeons have a strong price/quality advantage over concertinas.

 

Chris

[Daniel Hersh]

If you don't mind a 20-button, there are new German-made ones sold under the names Castiglione and Silvetta (and perhaps other names too) that are not bad. I've got a 20-button double-reeded G/D Castiglione that's a good instrument for the price and has had no serious quality control problems.

 

Daniel

 

I know this may be off topic a little (maybe not). I am a beginner, and would like to get an anglo concertina, but my favorite sound is a melodeon with at least two reeds working per note. Are there any anglo instruments out there that you can recommend that have two reeds per note? I know that Stagi makes some, but I hear that their quality is not that great. Thanks-

[meltzer]

This may seem obtuse, but have you considered getting a melodeon? Sadly for anglo players, melodeons have a strong price/quality advantage over concertinas.

 

Chris

Yep. I've just got a lovely vintage declubbed Hohner IIIM* for only a little more than a 30 key Chinese anglo. Or, to go to the other end of the price range, £1000 will get you into the "best melodeons currently being made" bracket, as opposed to the bottom-to-middle end of the vintage anglo market.

 

* Sorry, chaps.

[Richard Morse]

I am a beginner, and would like to get an anglo concertina, but my favorite sound is a melodeon with at least two reeds working per note. Are there any anglo instruments out there that you can recommend that have two reeds per note?

Yes, a few - though all the ones I've heard have notes an octave apart where all the double-reeded melodeons seem to have same-octave notes (with little to wildly wet tremolo).

 

If you're looking for the tremolo sound you'll probably not find it in a concertina. If you're liking a small squeezebox with a tremolo sound, there are several makes of small melodeons with tremolo which are about the size of a concertina.

 

-- Rich --

[Ray]

How about an English concertina with double or multiple reeds per note? Is there such an animal?

 

Much as we love the single-note sound of the concertina most of the time, there are occasions when this EC player would love to make a noise like an accordion. (And please don't suggest getting and learning an accordion - I already play too many instruments for sanity!)

 

Ray

[Mikefule]

I know this may be off topic a little (maybe not). I am a beginner, and would like to get an anglo concertina, but my favorite sound is a melodeon with at least two reeds working per note. Are there any anglo instruments out there that you can recommend that have two reeds per note? I know that Stagi makes some, but I hear that their quality is not that great. Thanks-

 

I have been in forums relating to a whole range of subjects from concertinas to fencing (with swords) to unicycles to motorcycles. A very common refrain is, "I am a beginner and I think that the standard item for my hobby would be better if..."

 

In all cases, there is usually a good reason why it's like it is already.

 

In the particular case of the Anglo:

 

If the two notes are slightly out of tune ("wet") to give that mushy/vibrato effect, that might be fine when playing a single melody line, but what happens when you are playing chords, broken chords and arpeggios? All that mushiness multiplies and you will lose something important.

 

My first instrument was harmonica. I'm reasonably good at the single note style with occasional "percussive" vamping, and using my hands and my mouth cavity to mould the tone. I have from time to time experimented with vibrato or tremelo tuned harmonicas. It's fine on the single notes, but sounds awful as soon as I start vamping an accompaniment. I lose more than I gain.

 

I suggest that you start with what years of other people's experience has bequeathed to you, and think about how to make it better when you're very good yourself.

 

(I started Anglo about 18 months ago, and have sought lessons and advice at every opportunity, and I find most of my early attitudes to the style and sound were shaped by my limitations as a player, not the supposed limitations of the instrument.)

[Chris Timson]

How about an English concertina with double or multiple reeds per note? Is there such an animal?

Yes, but they are desperately rare. See here. Believe me, it's an extraordinary sound.

 

Chris

[Mikefule]

Yes, but they are desperately rare.

 

As anyone who buys compilation CDs of rockabilly music will tell you, there is usually a good reason why rare things are rare.

[Chris Timson]

there is usually a good reason why rare things are rare.

Couldn't agree more. But the Accordeaphone failed and is consequently rare because it was too good. Colin Dipper once told me he keeps his under his workbench as an Awful Warning against the perils of over-engineering.

 

Chris

[Mikefule]

Couldn't agree more. But the Accordeaphone failed and is consequently rare because it was too good. Colin Dipper once told me he keeps his under his workbench as an Awful Warning against the perils of over-engineering.

 

I can't pretend to have an informed opinion on that, but that sounds very much like the probem with the Moulton bicycle: a whole lot of effort went into making a revolutionary machine with sophisticated (for the time) suspension to negate the adverse effects of the small wheels. The Raleigh brought out a bike that looked the same to the uninitiated, but had fat low pressure tyres instead of suspension. Cheaper to build, and only the cognoscenti could tell the difference, and there weren't enough of them to support manufacture at a reasonable price.

[Nick]

Thanks everybody, this has been a lot of help. As for two reeds per note, I agree that in the beginning it's easy to do the "if only" thing, and want things to be different, but I realize that there are reasons for everything, including single reeds in concertinas. But there are those few exceptions, and exceptions are always the most interesting part. If any of you who have in mind small melodeons that may be about the size of a concertina, please let me know. I may have to look at them, since my main goal is to get an Anglo instrument, with at least 20 buttons, two reeds per note and small. Some folks accross the fence (Melodeon.net) suggested a hohner preciosa, but I'm open to any thoughts on melodeons from you all who mentioned them. But I'm still set on finding a concertina. I'll keep looking for one, and keep my eye on the fourm for your advice...

[Chris Timson]

I can't pretend to have an informed opinion on that, but that sounds very much like the problem with the Moulton bicycle: a whole lot of effort went into making a revolutionary machine with sophisticated (for the time) suspension to negate the adverse effects of the small wheels. The Raleigh brought out a bike that looked the same to the uninitiated, but had fat low pressure tyres instead of suspension. Cheaper to build, and only the cognoscenti could tell the difference, and there weren't enough of them to support manufacture at a reasonable price.

Be fair. The Moulton bicycle was invented here in Bradford on Avon and is still being made here. Admittedly it is a hand made and expensive item costing 4 or 5 thousand pounds but it performs beautifully, far better than its cheapo competitors made in the far east.

 

This all sounds familiar somehow. What can I be thinking of?

 

Chris

[m3838]

To claim that two reeds tremolo tuned will give mushy effect in chords is very inacurate.

100 plus years of accordion develomplent with much superior results (musically, recorded and composed) is a prove to that.

Concertina with multiple reeds per note is not rare, is well and wider spread than small 6-sided one.

They are called Chemnitzers and Bandoneons. But for such lush sound you pay with size and weight. That's all.

[klaus guhl]

I know this may be off topic a little (maybe not). I am a beginner, and would like to get an anglo concertina, but my favorite sound is a melodeon with at least two reeds working per note. Are there any anglo instruments out there that you can recommend that have two reeds per note? I know that Stagi makes some, but I hear that their quality is not that great. Thanks-

 

I play a silvetta and it has a big sound.There are some tunes published here.

 

Cheers

Klaus

[Stephen Chambers]

Be fair. The Moulton bicycle was invented here in Bradford on Avon and is still being made here. Admittedly it is a hand made and expensive item costing 4 or 5 thousand pounds but it performs beautifully, far better than its cheapo competitors made in the far east.

 

This all sounds familiar somehow. What can I be thinking of?

Dunno , but the pricing sounds 'bout right...

[Mikefule]

Be fair. The Moulton bicycle was invented here in Bradford on Avon and is still being made here. Admittedly it is a hand made and expensive item costing 4 or 5 thousand pounds but it performs beautifully, far better than its cheapo competitors made in the far east.

 

"Still" is not quite accurate. The original Moulton was aimed at a general market and (compared to the average modern bike) wasn't ridiculously expensive, just too expensive to be accepted by the mainstream. The later Moultons with the space frame design were deliberately pitched at the high end of the market. As I remember it, they were a relaunching of a concept that had failed commercially rather than technically. The first version was was an idea ahead of its time. You still see the originals around, though.

[Anglo-Irishman]

To claim that two reeds tremolo tuned will give mushy effect in chords is very inacurate.

100 plus years of accordion develomplent with much superior results (musically, recorded and composed) is a prove to that.

 

Seems funny to have to point this out here, of all places - but a concertina and an accordion are two differnet things!

 

An accordion has ready-made chords in the bass, hence the name. And from what I've heard of accordions, the basses seem to be tuned "dry". It's the descant side of accordions that has that fluttery, "wet" tuning that drags them into triviality - but this is only one of several registers. The "dry" unison or "dry" octave (Bandoneon) registers sound really powerful, and permit intricate polyphony (Bach, Scarlatti, etc.) In the "worst case" of an accordionist using the "wet" descant register throughout, it's mainly a single melody line that flutters, the chords being steady.

 

The concertina, as we know, has no bass/descant distinction. Any note, left or right, can be part of a melody line or part of a chord. And there are no registers on our familiar Englishes, Anglos and Duets, so you'd be stuck with your "wet" tuning all the time.

 

My first concertina was a cheap German 20-button with double reeds, which sounded fine until some of the reeds went slightly out of tune, and the notes started to flutter. Not nice!

 

If you want an accordion sound, play an accordion; if you prefer the concertina sound - which is, presumably, why you want to play a concertina - don't try to water it down!

 

Cheers,

John