• If you haven't done so already, please add a location to your profile. This helps when people are trying to assist you, suggest resources, etc. Thanks
  • We're having a little contest, running until 15th May. Please feel free to enter - see the thread in the "I Did That" section of the forum. Don't be shy, have a go!

Examples of playing the high reed?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Morne

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
495
Reaction score
40
Do you have some examples of where the high reed is played? I've read it doesn't often get used on its own.

I cannot think of anything I've listened to that had a high reed in use. Or maybe I am just not attentive enough to have noticed it.

I am curious as to examples where the high reed in combination is either "necessary" for a piece or greatly enhances it.

I assume it's used mostly in classical music? And in the MMH almost musette register? Either way, I'd like to hear.
 
I think this setup is popular in Portugal. As you surmise, the high reed isnt used on its own. Here Raul Godinho uses it at the beginning and end, but switches it off to give us a break in the middle - Marcha.

In the second tune here, Mário Neves switches in the musette a couple times.

Im not sure about this sound, but one consolation would be that the reeds must be quite small, so relatively little extra weight.
 
I use it when playing some folk pieces, anything with quite a gentle right hand, swapping between M and MH, and opening and closing the mute. Gives a light, ethereal quality. Bit organ like, but gentle. I would certainly miss the high reed if I went back to a LMM box - I use the high reed more than the low reed to be honest.
 
For sonic atmosphere/ contrast as at the start of this from Renzo Ruggieri :
(The trouble is its harder to hear, but I remember some good use by a duet playing musette/modern continental stuff with some improvisation in a small room, they had obviously worked it out in advance so it could be heard)
 
On a straight tuned double cassotto accordion, the combination of basoon reed and piccolo reed give a very attractive tone
Cm
 
I had LMMH on my Pigini Wing, but the high reed could only be played in combination with others. I don't miss the high reed at all (my CBA is LMM), and I spend a lot less time messing around trying different couplers, only to go back to the same three ;)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top