Accordion design!!

[Walker]

Here goes…I love my accordion, I have a Scandalli model ‘N’ from the early 1960’s with a beautiful tone that I searched for all my adult playing life. I pick it up and marvel at the sound of this exquisite instrument. BUT my question is, as beautiful as it is, why does it have to be so big and have so many treble and bass registers that I don’t and won’t ever use?

The Scandalli Super VI was quite something! It was arguably the most complete classical accordion that retained the stradella-only format. I guess with its 11 bass switches and bass separator (giving 22 different bass/chord combinations) it gave the most nuanced left hand options of any standard bass accordion. It was the pinnacle of traditional accordion design. It weighed a little under 12kg and was very neat in its depth. The reeds were of the highest possible quality and the reed blocks were crafted from seasoned maple. The accordion case was made using the finest of wood. Understandably it sounded good... the "organ" tone was spectacular and the "clarinet" was richer than Cornish cream.

As I write now, I recall being in Italy at an accordion factory, collecting my vintage Super VI after its restoration. There was another man in the showroom playing Ferrapont Monastery on his enormous Borsini button accordion with converter. It was really quite impressive. When he finished playing, I played a simple Irish slow-air on the Scandalli Super VI. The bayanist's jaw dropped as the tone of the Super VI engulfed the room and shone like rays of Mediterranean sunshine - it was on a different level to the gigantic button Borsini.

I guess what I am saying is the Super VI was a marvellous design. However, if we buy a Super VI and then wish it is something other than what it is, perhaps it might not have been the right choice for us in the first place. A lot of people buy accordions because of the name and the legend, not because of how it suits their physique, their playing style or the sound they want to make. Maybe we need to find the right instrument for us - this means being more discerning and knowing what actually matters to us.

One of my accordion heroes is Richard Galliano. He plays a moderate (but beautiful) Victoria button accordion with 46 notes (88 buttons), 120 bass and only 3 octaves of free bass. He didn't need an enormous bayan, because he just needed the right instrument for him, something that suited his style. Having less can be a marvellous thing. We don't always need a grand piano - sometimes a small harmonium fits the tune better.

Over the years I've owned a Gola and Super VI amongst other accordions. I eventually came to the conclusion that although they were world class accordions, they weren't right for me - neither had free bass for a start. However, I never wanted an accordion with 47 keys or 5 octaves of free bass either. I preferred to have a moderately small accordion with 41 keys, 120 bass and three octaves of free bass and it both sounds and plays the way I want.

Yes, I think that's it... find the accordion that makes you smile.

​

 

[dak]

Possibly what's needed is a hybrid mechanism:

Digital register switches that move the register sliders using solenoids or minature electic motors and screw threads.
I'm fairly sure such 'actuators' exist out there in the world.

You could then program the register switches to whatever combination of sliders you needed.

edit: Hmmm, I wonder if you could convert an Excelsior rocker ....

Programmable register switches would be comparatively straightforward to do mechanically (some approximation is common for chin switches these days). You could even couple them with a mechanical display of the dots, or you could make the switches including the dots exchangeable to any position. The register sliders would be identical everywhere and the register switch (or a mechanism below) would encode the decision which direction to slide the slider in. Possibly even allowing a neutral position leaving a slider alone, allowing you to have an "add piccolo to whatever register is on" switch. It's hard to believe we had mechanical tabulating machines in the sixties and clamor for electric solutions all the time these days.

 

[Rodney]

To some people who say that they really only use the M register in cassotto with such a wonderful clarinet sound I would say: learn to play the clarinet.

The clarinet is a wonderful instrument with a beautiful sound, which is what first drew me to it. However, why is there always a ‘however’, it takes a lot of time and dedication to learn to play it and there is a multitude of things that might cause the dreaded squeak!

 

[dak]

To some people who say that they really only use the M register in cassotto with such a wonderful clarinet sound I would say: learn to play the clarinet. The accordion gives you "a complete orchestra in a small box", but the only really good sound it has is the accordion sound.

"The accordion sound" is not really a thing. Good reeds have high overtone content; what happens with that content is shaped by the sound paths in the instrument, like the mouth shape of a speaker shapes the high overtone content of the vocal folds (which do the same kind of air stream interruption as reeds) into vowels. On my main instrument, I like the M better than L, with the M not having anything cassotto-like and the L having something akin to cassotto. Neither sound anything like a clarinet. A Contello PA I had came close (part of it may have been the leather valves). It did not have cassotto at all.

The left hand of my main instrument can also do single reed, but it's almost like a brass instrument. All very different, and so are other instruments I have or had. The better instruments have sounds I'd call "pliable", reacting in tone quality to pressure difference, not just loudness.

With regard to pliability of the sound, an accordion cannot hold a candle to an actual clarinet or violin.

But it does polyphony, it has a vast range, and the left hand either gets an accompaniment machine or a second manual. And clarinet or not, good instruments give you a handle to put your expressivity into sound.

 

[Tor]

What more do I need than Bassoon, bandoneon , accordion, organ, mussette, clarinet! And on the bass side, do I need 9 registers, some with similar sounding variations? And also why do we need a treble Palm Master switch that combines all the reeds?

Let's do what I didn't see in this thread: go through just two of these reed combinations.  From the registers you list using I'm guessing you have a very typical four reed LMMH treble.
"Accordion":  Probably LMM
Organ:  Typically LH

Between these two registers alone you almost certainly use all four reed banks in the treble side of your accordion.  Once you have the complete set of registers you mention using, adding all the others takes scarcely more than the weight and complexity of the actual switch buttons.  The palm switch, that adds a slight bit more, to be fair.

On the bass side I can't say as much, but I'm guessing the calculation is almost identical to the treble side.

 

[Rosie C]

And also why do we need a treble Palm Master switch that combines all the reeds? I never use it, it’s too harsh!

This bit I can maybe answer. I used to play with a Morris dancing side. At times there could be 12 dancers shouting and clashing sticks, a banjo player playing through an amplifier, a saxophone and 3 or 4 large drums being beaten. At that point 'master' was the only option if I wanted to be heard. I used to take the 37dB ear plugs that construction workers use.

The clarinet is a wonderful instrument with a beautiful sound ... there is a multitude of things that might cause the dreaded squeak!

I played in a band and the bass player learned clarinet. At our first gig he produced a sound like a goose honk, and sadly he never performed publicly again to my knowledge. Very sad as he was making great progress.

 

[murathan]

I played in a band and the bass player learned clarinet. At our first gig he produced a sound like a goose honk, and sadly he never performed publicly again to my knowledge. Very sad as he was making great progress.

Woodwind instruments except flute needs good reeds and they are sensitive to heat and humidity. For this reason many professionals make their own reeds to learn to adjust these different circumstances. Also avoiding high costs of using a lot of reeds. In a bassoon reed purchase, you purchase 5 reeds but because they are not "tuned" to your style of a good reed, 3 of them will not be usable generally. Clarinet is sort of easier but still needs good reeds and adjustments with sandpaper for example. Its a very delicate process, you may waste the reed.

 

[Henry D]

Herb Blayman, former principal clarinetist at the Met (and my sister's clarinet teacher after he had retired which is how I came to meet him) had box upon box upon box of what he deemed to be unsatisfactory reeds. Many of these taken straight from the manufacturer's packing, prepped , blown for a minute, and then discarded.

He told me he kept them to show the IRS since he claimed them as a business expense.

 

[Rodney]

Woodwind instruments except flute needs good reeds and they are sensitive to heat and humidity. For this reason many professionals make their own reeds to learn to adjust these different circumstances. Also avoiding high costs of using a lot of reeds. In a bassoon reed purchase, you purchase 5 reeds but because they are not "tuned" to your style of a good reed, 3 of them will not be usable generally. Clarinet is sort of easier but still needs good reeds and adjustments with sandpaper for example. Its a very delicate process, you may waste the reed.

You’re not wrong! I learned very quickly how fragile cane reeds are, fortunately a friend told me about Legere plastic reeds, which last up to 3 months or so rather than just a few days and imho they sound just as good.

 

[murathan]

You’re not wrong! I learned very quickly how fragile cane reeds are, fortunately a friend told me about Legere plastic reeds, which last up to 3 months or so rather than just a few days and imho they sound just as good.

I read somewhere Lester Young's (Sax) sound comes from plastic reeds, probably first generation. Sound is sort of metallic, not much suitable for classical music but its an option and sturdy for sure.

 

[Henry D]

He might well have used one at some point- but plastic reeds were not as available in his day (despite many more synthetic reeds out there today, cane is still King by a wide margin).

Mr. Young's sound primarily comes from a really soft reed on a mouthpiece faced with a large tip opening- that, and a lot of skill. A quick search for images shows many pictures of him with cane reeds over the decades. Had he been using a synthetic you've got to know that the manufacturer would have run ads featuing the fact ad nauseum.

Alllegedly his signature odd angle holding the tenor came from clearance issues when seated in the band; kept hitting his neighbors!

I sound just like him some of the time. Then I take the horn out of the case and start to blow...

Not so much.

 

[murathan]

Herb Blayman, former principal clarinetist at the Met (and my sister's clarinet teacher after he had retired which is how I came to meet him) had box upon box upon box of what he deemed to be unsatisfactory reeds. Many of these taken straight from the manufacturer's packing, prepped , blown for a minute, and then discarded.

He told me he kept them to show the IRS since he claimed them as a business expense.

Van Doren is a good brand on clarinet/sax reeds, they make bassoon reeds too but not so satisfactory.