Useful practice alternative?

[Anyanka]

You could keep one of these in the car, for when youre stuck in a traffic jam....

The melodica. Karen Tweed makes it sound like an accordion without the bass, but then shes a bit good at this kind of thing. If they made a CBM (chromatic button melodica), Id be seriously tempted to get one for portability & anywhere-practice!

 

[Geoff de Limousin]

Yep, shes a bit good alright !

I do wonder why they never offered a Melodica in other keyboards.... perhaps the market is too small. Still there is always the Accordina. Only three rows on the current Accordinas but......

www.accordinas.com

www.josephcarrel.com

 

[Anyanka]

Yep, shes a bit good alright !

I do wonder why they never offered a Melodica in other keyboards.... perhaps the market is too small. Still there is always the Accordina. Only three rows on the current Accordinas but......

www.accordinas.com

www.josephcarrel.com

Id have one of those quite happily - but not at that price!

 

[donn]

Hah. I took in a demo video, for the Joseph Carrel version. Albeniz or some very well known thing. Just like accordion - only the lowest 3/5 of the keyboard is any use, past that it goes too high.

I wonder if a century or two ago, when the standards for this evolved, people liked to listen to tones that high - and in another century or two, only dogs will be able to hear them?

 

[debra]

An accordina is of course not a melodica (and is a lot more expensive), but when you get an accordina with the mouthpiece at a short end (like some melodicas) you can probably use it to practice the accordion. But it doesn't really look "genuine" for the accordina which originally has the mouthpiece on the side.
I actually did the opposite of what is being suggested here: I wanted to learn to play the accordina because I like the sound of it, but at the time I played PA and my lungs certainly were not good enough to practice the accordina for hours. So I started learning to play the CBA in order to practice for the accordina. Soon enough I decided that I'd better quit the PA and start playing CBA full time... and the rest is history.

 

[maugein96]

Hi Kirsten,

I can recommend these Russian chromatic boxes, as they can be played by just laying them flat on the table. Very useful if you end up with a temporary back or tendon problem, and the sounds you can get out of them are incredible, as youll hear in the clip.

I was very impressed with them, particularly the sound quality, so I commissioned a batch of 200, but in C system.

I started selling them on eBay as a sideline, but the necessary 10lb hammers I felt obliged to supply free with them pushed the shipping costs up. I only sold one, but the guy broke his 10lb hammer on it after only two uses, and he gave me negative feedback, so I couldnt shift any more of them!


P.S. In case anybody is wondering, I had to scrap the 199 boxes I couldnt sell, as trading standards called at my house and condemned the whole lot. They plugged one in to test it and found the electrics on them to be shocking! Said they needed some kind of voltage adapter that Id forgotten to order. Fortunately I was able to sell all the hammers, albeit at a loss. Still, getting rid of them all was a big weight off my mind!

 

[Anyanka]

Hi Kirsten,

I can recommend these Russian chromatic boxes, as they can be played by just laying them flat on the table. Very useful if you end up with a temporary back or tendon problem, and the sounds you can get out of them are incredible, as youll hear in the clip. [...]

:lol: Thatd be so useful for recreating that tinny 80s pop music sound! You know the ones I mean - with two keyboard players each playing with one hand only, looking ever so cool with the big hair and shoulder pads...

 

[Corsaire]

Good grief ... :lol:

 

[maugein96]

Hi Kirsten,

I can recommend these Russian chromatic boxes, as they can be played by just laying them flat on the table. Very useful if you end up with a temporary back or tendon problem, and the sounds you can get out of them are incredible, as youll hear in the clip. [...]

:lol: Thatd be so useful for recreating that tinny 80s pop music sound! You know the ones I mean - with two keyboard players each playing with one hand only, looking ever so cool with the big hair and shoulder pads...

And you tell me now after I got rid of the lot! :hb

 

[maugein96]

Good grief ... :lol:

Sally,

I phoned your accordion shop, and hes changing the tuning of your Brandoni to match the box in the clip. Youll get a couple of little rotary controls on it to vary the sound from pleasant to very pleasant, or something similar.

I honestly thought everybody I knew would want one.

However, it seems you lose some, then you lose the lot!

 

[Sebastian Bravo]

The melodica.

Its a very simple reed instrument, but, you have to pay a lot for a good one.

I bought a Hohner Superforce 37 weeks ago, because i needed a portable instrument. I thought that it would be a high quality instrument. But the reed plates looks identically to a chinese melodica. So, i tried it with Datuner app, and the Hohner reeds were tuned A=447Hz. I was impressed. I tuned them down to 440 (i know its a lot, but i did it with super fine sandpaper, trying to remove material as smooth as possible) and now it sounds really good! Another thing i did, was to cover the sound holes with masking tape, because i cant stand higher notes in the melodicas, they sound too high.



Another problem with this model is, you cant play with both hands. Left hand will consume more air and right hand notes will sound the same pattern as you play a chord. The sound wont be as uniform as on the accordion, but i think, higher quality melodicas can stand 2 hand playing.

 

[jozz]

how about the Claviola?


It just might fit in your car. Its sound cannot be beat.

 

[Corsaire]

Sally,
I phoned your accordion shop, and he's changing the tuning of your Brandoni to match the box in the clip. You'll get a couple of little rotary controls on it to vary the sound from "pleasant" to "very pleasant", or something similar.

:lol:

 

[StargazerTony]

I don't understand what would be wrong with a small real accordion like a Weltmeister Perle, Rubin or Juwel or a Hohner Pokerwork or even a Roland FR 1x. Is practicing on something that isn't an accordion really practicing an accordion?

 

[george garside]

I dont understand what would be wrong with a small real accordion like a Weltmeister Perle, Rubin or Juwel or a Hohner Pokerwork or even a Roland FR 1x. Is practicing on something that isnt an accordion really practicing an accordion?

hohner have made small piano boxes with 8, 12 and 24 bass that are featherweights and can be had cheaply on ebay and gumtree.

The hohner pokerwork is generally seen as a melodeon but I have come across 12 bass piano versions thereof.

Diatonic players have the advantage that a small mouthie works exactly the same as playing on the row on a melodeon/diatonic accordion. There is no reason why a piano box player couldnt use a mouthie to learn/practice tunes on to be transferred to piano box as and when

george

 

[losthobos]

Try whistling.. ..

 

[Anyanka]

how about the Claviola?


It just might fit in your car. Its sound cannot be beat.

Id describe that as a Grand Melodica.

 

[george garside]

Try whistling.. ..

many years ago I was driving along with a couple of mates and whistling as we went along. One of my passengers said pity whats coming out of the gob isnt the same as whats going on in the head! - so much for whistling.!

george

 

[jozz]

Id describe that as a Grand Melodica.

well the addition of the panflute-like pipes for tone-shaping make it a true two-handed instrument

 

[Eddy Yates]

I have a Horner Melodica from 1975. Bought it to just have something really portable to make noise when I was traveling all over the country in a big car with a blues band. I played Happy Birthday on it for my wife the other day and got a big laugh. But really it sounds pretty great. I think it’s a gateway drug to accordion for piano players, because the thing I really liked was being able to control the attack and release on one note (or crescendo and decrescendo for those with no electronic music vocabulary.) The video of Karen Tweed playing one certainly opens up a lot of possibilities, as does her creative accordion playing.
Augustus Pablo made some wonderful Reggae Records with one.

As far as it being a practice instrument, why not? It’s pretty inexpensive and very portable. I’ve also occasionally come up with a nice new melody on it.