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Can you switch the reeds around in a concertina to obtain a different layout of notes, in the way that guitarists can - and do - alter the tunung on the guitar?

 

you could, but I'm unsure as to why you'd want to. As a guitarist (in open tunings) and anglo player I find the anglo is just some patterns to learn and becuase of its size everything falls under the fingers - on the guitar the use of an altered tuning opens up new voicings ie. a string against another that woudln't be available in standard, or to put similar patterns into one fret position. On the concertina, assuming it has enough buttons, then all the voicings are already there and the stretches are never mind boggling, unless I'm missing something?

 

On a technical note - not all reeds or shoes are the same size on a traditional concertina and you could be doing harm to a valuable instrument. On an accordion reeded box the reeds are often two on a plate.

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to a limited degree. in general, you can swap certain notes around or have extra reeds filed to fit, but you can't just change the tuning of the whole instrument, due to reasons gavdav above stated.

 

wally carroll, however, is offering the next best thing: http://carrollconcertinas.com/40.html . he is now offering interchangeable reed pans for his instruments. this means that if you have a C/G instrument, you can swap it out to make it in Bb/F, and soon into C#/G#. time will tell what new tunings he will offer.

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The Zulu were known to rearrange the reeds to their liking. There is some discussion here on that.

 

Alan

 

it has been known to be done, but doing so properly is usually a permanent thing, unlike on a guitar. i know someone who recently got a jeffries in F/C and moved everything around to make it a C/G, and i know of tons of other such stories. brian hayden talks about moving around the reeds in his experimental duet layout so much that the reeds never stayed in and kept falling out when you tried to play it.

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My enquiry was purely speculative.

 

I just wondered whether different styles and interests would be facilitated by a different button layout.

 

It would be a good idea if all reeds were screw-in and easily interchangeable, I suppose. The more versatile, the better, perhaps.

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My enquiry was purely speculative.

 

I just wondered whether different styles and interests would be facilitated by a different button layout.

 

It would be a good idea if all reeds were screw-in and easily interchangeable, I suppose. The more versatile, the better, perhaps.

 

 

if they could make the reed chamber plus reeds into a single unit that was of a universal size and accomadate the air holes and pad diameters to work interchangeably, it could work.

 

In some respects the German style (accordion style) set up seems more lendable to such a re-configurable layout. Its easy to envision and we have tall tales of enthusiasts re-arranging reeds for thier own amusement.

 

The more costly and currently viable solution is to try different layouts/systems which already exist. As a Mandolin and Guitar player, I find the duets layouts actaully appeal more to me than the Anglo or English. But each of those has its strengths and limitations too.

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My enquiry was purely speculative.

 

I just wondered whether different styles and interests would be facilitated by a different button layout.

 

It would be a good idea if all reeds were screw-in and easily interchangeable, I suppose. The more versatile, the better, perhaps.

 

I did try moving a few reeds around on my tedrow - it is all much easier on an accordion reeded box as the plates are all the same size and I wanted to try out having some extra reversals of notes. Part of the problem is that on an anglo you're moving a pair of notes, one of which probably doesn't make sense in a new position. Otherwise on a better box the size of shoe/reed/slot/chamber is not the same throughout the instrument. Conceptually I guess you'd be moving towards a new style of instrument.

 

The short answer to your question is certainly for anglo players, that yes, diffferent styles do like subtly different layouts - Irish platers seem to favour the jeffries layout, whereas a former melodeon player I find I prefer the wheatstone accidental layout. Left hand layout can also puzzle me when picking up someone elses concertina sometimes and there are other people experimenting with new layouts all the time. I guess something like a midi or virtual concertina gives a good way of experimenting with layout before committing to the mechanical facts of building it!

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Anglo players have always moved individual notes around to suit their particular music and style of playing, and you don't have to play someone else's instrument for long to find something that's different from your own. However, once done, that's a more or less permanent arrangement.

 

What you seem to be suggesting is the ability to change fingerings as required, the way a guitarist may change tunings for a particular song. The only way I think that would be possible is with a MIDI instrument which allows you to change the note assignments in the software.

 

I don't think you'd see the same advantages as a guitarist in terms of different musical colour, although it might help you to play a particular tune more easily. It seems an expensive solution to avoid having to practice more.

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Can you switch the reeds around in a concertina to obtain a different layout of notes, in the way that guitarists can - and do - alter the tunung on the guitar?

My answer is "NO!"

 

A guitarist just twiddles a knob with finger and thumb until his ear tells him that he's in tune. At most, six times.

 

A concertinist loosens 6 bolts, pulls action box and reed-pan apart, slips out a reed shoe, puts it on a tuning bellows, files the reed until the stroboscope says OK, then reinserts the shoe, puts the action and reed-pan together, tightens 6 bolts, and then checks whether it's in tune. And that for between 40 and over 100 reeds!

 

So retuning on the fly - or even between tunes - is possible only with fretted string instruments. I get the impression that exploitation of this capability is something of an American thing. It probably stems from the old-time stroke-style banjo, which is frequently re-tuned for different keys, modes or even tunes. The idea seems to be to get the instrument to play the tune with as little intervention by the player as possible. :ph34r: The idea seems to have spread to American guitarists and fiddlers, and to others influenced by them.

Away from the influence of the Appalachian Mountains, even the 5-string banjo is treated as a "normal" instrument: it has its standard tuning (gCGBD), and this is used for practically all classic banjo pieces, like the EADgbe tuning of the classical guitar.

 

Of course there are "alternative tunings" in the concertina world, too - lots of them! EC, AC and Duet, each subdivided into several more: treble, tenor-treble and baritone ECs; C/G, G/D, Ab/Eb etc. Anglos with 20, 26, 30 or 30+ buttons, with Jeffries or Wheatstone accidentals; Maccann, Crane or Hayden duets with varying numbers of buttons; Chemnitzers, Carlsfelders or Bandoneons ...

 

However, I believe that most concertinists decide what style of music they are going to play predominantly, and choose one of these alternatives once and for all. Or they inherit a particular concertina and play the music that works best for it. The vast majority of pieces in their repertoire will then be playable on their "alternative tuning," so there's no need to re-tune.

 

This is just my perception, it would be interedting to hear what others think.

 

BTW, I have always played my banjos in the classic gCGBD tuning, and have never seen any need to re-tune.

OTOH, none of my autoharps (with more than 12 chords) are in their original factory chord configuration - but I have one customised configuration that suits all the music that I, personally, want to play on the autoharp. (Altering the configuration of an autoharp is at least as laborious as re-tuning a concertina, so think twice, reconfigure once!)

 

Cheers,

John

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So retuning on the fly - or even between tunes - is possible only with fretted string instruments. I get the impression that exploitation of this capability is something of an American thing.

 

Not to derail the thread, but alternate tunings for guitar are most definately NOT just an "American" thing - John Renbourn, Adrian Legg, Davey Grahm, Nick Drake, and many others have been doing it since the 60's.

 

and for that matter, tunings for other frettted instruments have always been evloving, just look up how many tunings are/were used by lute and cittern players. True they have solidified to a certain extent, but only because people like to take snap shots of history and blanket apply it to everything.

 

I would say alternate tunings are a "Fretted Stringed Instrument Player's" thing, not any particuluar nationality. Though Fiddle players will sometimes use alt tunings.

 

Think of the poor Trumpet player, if he had a Recorder we could just drill another hole.

 

Personally I think anybody who wants to re-tune the Anglo is really looking for a Duet...

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My enquiry was purely speculative.

 

I just wondered whether different styles and interests would be facilitated by a different button layout.

 

It would be a good idea if all reeds were screw-in and easily interchangeable, I suppose. The more versatile, the better, perhaps.

 

you are right, in that it would be very useful, but it is just not possible. perhaps we did not fully explain our responses. it's not a matter of engineering, but acoustical design.

 

the reeds DO come out of their shoes and CAN be moved around, they just might not work where they are put--and yes, they are "screw-in," so to speak. in a traditional anglo concertina there is around 15 different sizes for the reed frames, and 60 reeds (in a 30 button instrument). the basic idea is that lower notes have bigger frames and bigger reeds, and higher notes have smaller reeds and smaller frame. also, every different set of push/pull reeds (one set per button) has a different sized reed chamber, which follows the same general idea: smaller frames have smaller reeds and smaller chambers, and produce a higher note, etc.

 

so, you CAN "unscrew" a smaller reed and put it into a larger reed's frame, no problem. also, you can sometimes put a lower note into a higher note's frame if it is the same size frame, otherwise you would have to file it down to fit. the problem with this is that it may be too long, and then you would be out of luck as far as FIT goes (though you might be able to make a shorter reed with that same pitch, but that is not what you're asking about), so there is a limited amount of lower reeds you could put into the place of a higher note, even if you had the filed it into shape.

 

so, even with small reeds in big frames you have a problem, which is what i dont think you understand. you could put the smallest reed into the largest chamber, but it just wouldnt make a sound, and if it did, it would be very weak, and here comes the crux of it all: even if the reeds fit in other shoes, they will not be very responsive, if at all. each reed is designed to be at an amazingly tight tolerance: they are designed to fit in their shoe perfectly to be very efficient at causing what is called harmonic vibration, or resonance. if too much air goes by, then the reed is slow to speak, and has a weak tone (or no tone at all). too little air, and the reed chokes, and it will not sound. so, they are already very largely interchangeable (but not completely), but to make them fully would mean you would have a largely unplayable instrument, as no reed would be optimized for it's shoe, and would probably play as poorly as a cheap chinese instrument, as the high notes would have too much air going through, and the low notes too little. and again.... i have never tried this, but the notes might not play at all if they were fully interchangeable.

 

so, the idea is great, but it would require WAY too much engineering... you would have to have each chamber resizable (the wrong size and the air column in the chamber resonates, thus choking the reed), and have each reed shoe also be resizable. it is no understatement to say that it would be a huge engineering feet to have resizable reed chambers and reed shoes, and unbelievably precise manufacturing and a large wallet. i'm thinking that it would make each instrument be around 100 grand to make this possible at current market demand (i.e. zero), as each reed chamber and each reed shoe would be so unbelievably more precise and technical than any moving part i have ever seen in a musical instrument.

 

another way to accomplish this would be to have a rotating reed pan (to have it transpose), or to have switches to change what pad each key lifts up. again... prohibitively expensive as well, and would add a lot of weight to the instrument. every time you add more moving parts, you add more problems, and the tolerances and manufacturing of concertinas is also very precise as far as hand-made things go.

 

to get an idea how expensive making concertinas can be, i have a friend who is a full time (well-respected) irish flute maker, and he said that it would take about $5,000 worth of equipment to get up and running to his capacity. i imagine that concertinas would take at least $15-20,000 to get up and running (though i know of a concertina maker who has ONE piece of machinery that is 4 times that), though i'm sure you might be able to get by with $10,000 worth of equipment, considering you are making your own reeds and shoes. flutes can be made with about $1,000 worth equipment or less, as i have a friend who is really an expert at ebay shopping and making his tools, and probably spent about that much, and actually spent much less if you don't consider his silver-smithing tools.

 

there is a reason that concertinas disappeared off the of the international culture radar--they got replaced by accordions. they are easier to manufacture, and there are more options and possibilities. people were able to design more and more diverse accordions with more features more easily than on the concertina, as well as make them easier to play and more diverse in paradigms. picture a chromatic button accordion, a piano accordion, and a diatonic--all are radically different, all because you are not restricted by having your main melody hand strapped into the instrument, and because the instrument is simply larger and gives you more room to work with. they now make transposing accordions... i have seen john williams play and in the middle of a tune he will click some little levers and all of a sudden he has retuned one row up a step and another up a whole step (i dont actually know how it works). sure it cost more money, but it is just easier to FIT something like that in an accordion.

 

i actually agree with you that it would be helpful, and i spend a lot of time thinking of different ways to overcome these problems, but it will take a major investment to even try out different capabilities.... a normal concertina can take a month or two to build, so imagine how long it would take to design, implement, test and trouble-shoot an entirely new re-think of the mechanics of the instrument.

 

i hope this is a more thorough answer into why you cannot swap around reeds willy-nilly as you please, and that such changes are usually permanent, as they require retuning or reshaping reeds, not just to make them fit, but to make them fit and resonate fully and responsively.

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So retuning on the fly - or even between tunes - is possible only with fretted string instruments. I get the impression that exploitation of this capability is something of an American thing.

 

Not to derail the thread, but alternate tunings for guitar are most definately NOT just an "American" thing - John Renbourn, Adrian Legg, Davey Grahm, Nick Drake, and many others have been doing it since the 60's.

 

and for that matter, tunings for other frettted instruments have always been evloving, just look up how many tunings are/were used by lute and cittern players. True they have solidified to a certain extent, but only because people like to take snap shots of history and blanket apply it to everything.

 

I would say alternate tunings are a "Fretted Stringed Instrument Player's" thing, not any particuluar nationality. Though Fiddle players will sometimes use alt tunings.

 

Think of the poor Trumpet player, if he had a Recorder we could just drill another hole.

 

Personally I think anybody who wants to re-tune the Anglo is really looking for a Duet...

 

many high end, modern accordions can be retuned.

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So retuning on the fly - or even between tunes - is possible only with fretted string instruments. I get the impression that exploitation of this capability is something of an American thing.

 

Not to derail the thread, but alternate tunings for guitar are most definately NOT just an "American" thing - John Renbourn, Adrian Legg, Davey Grahm, Nick Drake, and many others have been doing it since the 60's.

 

and for that matter, tunings for other frettted instruments have always been evloving, just look up how many tunings are/were used by lute and cittern players. True they have solidified to a certain extent, but only because people like to take snap shots of history and blanket apply it to everything.

 

I would say alternate tunings are a "Fretted Stringed Instrument Player's" thing, not any particuluar nationality. Though Fiddle players will sometimes use alt tunings.

 

Think of the poor Trumpet player, if he had a Recorder we could just drill another hole.

 

Personally I think anybody who wants to re-tune the Anglo is really looking for a Duet...

 

many high end, modern accordions can be retuned.

 

I think you missed the point. I'm not sure why you are quoting me. No one is saying Accordions and concertinas can't be re-tuned. They can be but not in an easily accessible manner unless you happen to be an accordion/concertina builder or tuner. The comparison was to fretted string instruments and thier ability to be re-tuned easily at will.

 

Some accordions have stops for turning on/off reed banks, but that's not what the original question is in regards too. If you haven't figure it out, we are discussing alternate arrangements of notes.

 

A statement was made that alternate tunings were an "American Thing" if you had actaully read the previous responses, I was responding to that statement.

 

Perhaps you migth read my response, take it in context of the thread, before you quote me.

 

So are you claiming then that you have an accordion that you cna re-arrange your note layout at will? Send us a picture then.

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So retuning on the fly - or even between tunes - is possible only with fretted string instruments. I get the impression that exploitation of this capability is something of an American thing.

 

Not to derail the thread, but alternate tunings for guitar are most definately NOT just an "American" thing - John Renbourn, Adrian Legg, Davey Grahm, Nick Drake, and many others have been doing it since the 60's.

 

and for that matter, tunings for other frettted instruments have always been evloving, just look up how many tunings are/were used by lute and cittern players. True they have solidified to a certain extent, but only because people like to take snap shots of history and blanket apply it to everything.

 

I would say alternate tunings are a "Fretted Stringed Instrument Player's" thing, not any particuluar nationality. Though Fiddle players will sometimes use alt tunings.

 

Think of the poor Trumpet player, if he had a Recorder we could just drill another hole.

 

Personally I think anybody who wants to re-tune the Anglo is really looking for a Duet...

 

many high end, modern accordions can be retuned.

 

I think you missed the point. I'm not sure why you are quoting me. No one is saying Accordions and concertinas can't be re-tuned. They can be but not in an easily accessible manner unless you happen to be an accordion/concertina builder or tuner. The comparison was to fretted string instruments and thier ability to be re-tuned easily at will.

 

Some accordions have stops for turning on/off reed banks, but that's not what the original question is in regards too. If you haven't figure it out, we are discussing alternate arrangements of notes.

 

A statement was made that alternate tunings were an "American Thing" if you had actaully read the previous responses, I was responding to that statement.

 

Perhaps you migth read my response, take it in context of the thread, before you quote me.

 

So are you claiming then that you have an accordion that you cna re-arrange your note layout at will? Send us a picture then.

 

well, there are accordions that have some reed banks tuned to a different key (as best as i can tell this is how it works). i have seen john williams play one. he hit some levers, and all of a sudden his instrument was in a different key... and i seem to recall that he was controlling different rows independently

 

i read the previous statements, and i know you were responding to them. i was saying that it is not just a string instrument thing, and certainly not just a fretted instrument thing. when i said retuned, i meant that you could press buttons/levers to retune without altering the reeds, i did not elaborate on this because i had mentioned it in my previous post, but this omission was an error on my part, as out of context it seems that i am making a random comment that does not contribute. i assure you that i did read the thread, and knew the context of your comment, but must say that my post did not reflect this.

 

i do not have one of these instruments, so i cannot take a picture of one. but as i said, i have seen john williams play one. i could email him and ask him what he plays, but i dont think we need to go that far...

 

i am not an accordion player, and i have no idea how to find these instrument online or what the right words are to search in order to find a picture. i tried to no avail. however, the closest i could find was this line from wikipedia:

 

More of the top-line expensive accordions may contain 5-6 reed blocks on the treble side for different tunings, typically found in accordions which stress musette sounds.

 

so, unless i am misunderstanding you: yes, i am saying that accordions exist which can re-arrange the note layout at will.

 

i am well aware that the overarching theme of the thread is the rearrangement of notes by mechanically taking out reeds and moving them around--my previous response prior to the one you are responding clearly elucidates that i was aware of the nature of the discussion. however, in the micro-discussion you were discussing something that was not entirely in the framing of the thread, and it was to this i was responding.

 

alternate tunings on reed banks which allow you to transpose your instrument into a different key at will is directly analogous to retuning a guitar/fiddle, etc, as pressing these buttons can be easy, and done at will. i am aware that it is not as flexible as retuning a guitar, but clearly you have limitations here as well, as you cannot move the frets on a guitar, as you can on a sitar, just like with "retunable accordions" (i dont know the proper term), you are limited by the manufacture and tunings of the transposing reedbanks and the buttons provided. as i recall, john williams' accordion had little levers not at the top where normal reedbank switches are, but several small pins which he moved back and forth in order to get the tuning he wanted.

Edited by david_boveri
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My thanks to all who have replied, especially david boveri.

 

It's all fascinating.

 

ask any more questions you have in this vein! there are many much more knowledgeable than me. i was hoping to see if someone would correct me on whether or not a small reed will resonate at all in a large reed frame. i'm not about to try it out on mine...

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It's common on accordions to have multiple reed banks to allow different voicings (which is possibly what the wikipedia article really meant) so there's no reason why this shouldn't be adapted to play in different keys. It wouldn't involve a significant re-design, simply retuning some of the reed banks. A single-reeded instrument like a concertina doesn't have that option. Building in a separate set of reeds may be theoretically possible but difficult in practice without significantly increasing the size of the instrument.

 

To support what Hooves said, alternative tunings are more or less mandatory for the "English folk guitar" style popularised by the likes of Martin Carthy and Nic Jones. Standard tuning seems to be seldom used by most of the top British folk guitarists. My personal preference (not that I'm putting myself in that bracket) is DADEAE.

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