Lowering Diapason .

[Geoff de Limousin]

I have found a very nice accordion that I am thinking to buy but , like many accordions here in France, the pitch is sharper than I'd like. I know it is possible to lower the pitch, I have brought many old Concertinas down from 453hz to 440hz but is it a good idea to do this with a 50+ year old accordion ?

The instrument in question is a 4 voice Marzella CBA currently in 443hz which will have very high quality 'a mano' reeds.

 

[debra]

This sounds like a humongous job. It is likely that the accordion originally was tuned to 442hz and then the first thing to do is to find out how it got higher. You may need to replace all the bits of felt that close the notes, are under the keys, etc. Then take all the reed plates off and clean everything very carefully. Once everything is put back together you will likely have a 442Hz instrument again. Tuning without replacing felt, valves and cleaning first is generally a bad idea. But even after that you have to realize that an accordion of this size there are around 450 reeds to tune. That is a *lot* of work.

 

[Geoff de Limousin]

Thanks for the response Paul.
Yes a lot of work to re-pitch an accordeon. The one in question has 536 reeds to tune ! 443hz is not unusual in France, in fact I have spent months last year looking for a 440 instrument only to find that I don't particularly like the one I bought. I prefer the acoustic effect of the older models with 5 voice basses and no cassoto.
I have five accordeons currently , all in different pitches from 435 to 441hz. It is a little annoying because every other instrument in the house is based at 440.

I imagine it would cost quite a lot to have this accordeon re-pitched professionally.... adding that to the purchase price has generally kept me searching further.

Geoff.