Another for Maugein / john.... Wow the real thing

[losthobos]

 

[Dingo40]

Losthobos,
I like it! Nicely played 
Thanks for posting!

 

[maugein96]

Thanks Terry,

Danielle Pauly. Seldom seen on video, although she did make a handful of albums years ago. She was a pupil of Michel Geney, who played a sort of Alpine influenced French style. Thats in her shop in Paris, where she and her husband have/had the odd combination of luxury food and accordions in the same premises.

The accordion shes playing is the same as mine, a Maugein Mini Sonora. I have the grey and black version. Her tuning sounds very slightly drier than mine, which is 8 cents.

She started off playing her local folk music from the Doubs region, but somebody snapped her up and brought her to Paris. She has been in the UK several times, and made a little known joint album with a Scottish player, whose name I now cant remember. That would have been about 30 years ago, maybe more. IMHO It never quite came off, largely due to the differences in the tuning between the instruments. She has remained faithful to Maugein for a long time and I think she is still a distributor for them. 

Shell be 61 this year, but still wearing better than me. Mind you, that clip was from quite a few years ago. I see Wiki has her genre listed as swing, but I dont think she has made any albums in that style. She mainly tends to play solo and has an excellent left hand (her right isnt bad either!).

 

[losthobos]

It was her left hand arrangement that really captured my ear... Superb feel...and space between left and right...
Is the mini sonara MM or MMM
I'm toying with buying the ancient Ranco your man Gordon has on Gumtree... He says its tuned a howling +29/-20 but can bring down for me... Not sure whether to go as low as +/-4 or sit a little prettier at +/-8.....i do like the sound of them old Ranco reeds...

 

[maugein96]

It was her left hand arrangement that really captured my ear... Superb feel...and space between left and right...
Is the mini sonara MM or MMM
I'm toying with buying the ancient Ranco your man Gordon has on Gumtree... He says its tuned a howling +29/-20 but can bring down for me... Not sure whether to go as low as +/-4 or sit a little prettier at +/-8.....i do like the sound of them old Ranco reeds...

Terry,

I asked Gordon about that Ranco, and he did say it was "pretty bright". It has no coupler switch to deselect three voice musette. I haven't heard or seen it. I'm retro enough without a box to match.  

Only thing about it is that it is from the "no thumb on the treble keyboard" era and really needs to be played with 4 fingers only. Look at the buttons, they are tiny. I dare say you could get the thumb on the outside row if you really wanted, but it wasn't built for that. 

I haven't seen him for a while, or even spoken to him. My wife went through a stage of bad health and I just couldn't put the practice time in to justify the fortnightly lessons. We parted company on good terms, but I don't think he'll even know that I moved to Birmingham last year. He made a valiant attempt to cure me of my many self taught evils, but I think I'd need to have seen him every other day to have given him any chance.  

29 to 8, far less 4, is a pretty drastic reduction, but if he says he can do it he will.

The Mini Sonora was formerly known as the Mini Basson (French for bassoon), and is LMM, with the bassoon reeds in cassotto at the rear. It only has 4 voice bass with two couplers, so it doesn't overpower the treble side, and has been in production for many years. Factory tuned the sharp M reed is 8 cents, although there is also a Jean Segurel model, which will be 20 cents up for sure. Segurel developed the model along with Maugein, as an instrument to best serve the local folk music of the Auvergne. On LMM they have a sort of Spanish bite to them, in keeping with the pasos of Limousin. Bassoon on its own is a very nice sound, but you need to shove those treble buttons a bit harder on that register. The M reeds are very light to operate and responsive, but it does take a while to get used to that extra effort required to play Bassoon. I thought it was me, but I've heard other players mention the same issue. They're capable of quite a lot of volume, and are of a sturdier build than Cavagnolos. Only thing I don't like about them is the top button on row 4 (in the 5 row version) is a dummy, and the treble couplers aren't the easiest to manage on the fly. I've had mine for over 20 years and wouldn't part with it.

I bought a Cavagnolo Vedette 5 from Gordon a while ago, although it had been used by a pro player, and had probably seen more clubs than a tribe of cavemen. It wasn't dear so I can't really complain. It has a great treble action, but I'm not too keen on the 4.4 cent swing tuning. I might have it retuned in Brum at some stage, up to about 8. If I had Maugein reeds with the Cavagnolo keyboard that would be a winner, but I'm definitely not a winner, regardless of what I play on.