Melodeon.net Forums
Discussions => Instrument Makes and Models => Topic started by: Daddy Long Les on May 26, 2011, 08:19:20 PM
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Hi,
Having got into this crazy world of melodeons because I watched a video of Jimmy Shand playing his Hohner Shand Morino, does anyone on here actually own one of these? If you do, can you please tell me what it's like etc. Is there anywhere in the world where you could buy one of these? Price?
Thanks
Les
???
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Quite a few guys here play the Shand Morino - Bill Young & Graeme Mackay for starters will I'm sure pitch in with their experiences.
Like you, I too got into this crazy world via the great Shand. Second hand only these days hence the price is in the thousands. If you're ever able to get upto one of Graeme MacKay's Button Box Workshops at Aviemore/Inverness (again a few of us here do so) you'd have ample opportunity to try out a Shand Morino - last time I was there I got to play the great Will Starr's Morino which is owned by Jim Mackay (Graeme's granddad).
BTW it's not an 'Other Instrument' - it is a melodeon, so perhaps this thread needs to be shifted? MODS?
Regards, AL
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as far as I am concerned it not only is a melodeon ,k it is the ultimate melodeon. - wish I could afford one!
george :(
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as far as I am concerned it not only is a melodeon ,k it is the ultimate melodeon. - wish I could afford one!
george :(
You and me both! But I thought that you had one... what is your main BCC# box then? A Casali?
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I hava 2 very nice BCC#'s, a long 48 bass casali 3 voice and an 80 bass 4 voice 9coupler paolo soprani which is of far higher quality than the casali.. - neither are however anything near as good as the Shand Morino but the Paolo was only about half the price when new & the casali considerably cheaper./
george
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Hi
Please excuse my ignorance. I'm a bit foggy about the difference between melodeons and button accordions. Sounds like the Shand is the Holy Grail then!?
Les
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Sounds like the Shand is the Holy Grail then!?
Just a bit ;D
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Another stupid question. Do the bass buttons (stradella?) on these types of instruments play the same note on the push/pull or different?
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the stradella bass on a melodeon/button accordion is just the same as on a piano accordion - same note both ways.
the question of whether its a melodeon or button accordion depends on where you live! ( and presumes that we are talking about 2 notes per button instruments as there is also the continental chromatic button accordion but we won't go into that here!) In Ireland the term melodeon tends to be used in respect of one row boxes & anything else is a button accordeon. In England & to some degree in Scotland they are all melodeons. ( Shand on a tv interview once referred to the 3 row with stradella bass as 'the wee melodeon'!. The French call them accordion diotoniques & the to south americans they are simply accordions. To me the term 'button box' is the generic term , perhps followed by the type of tuning. The term diatonic box is correct but only just as the semitone boxes (BC<C#D & particularly BCC# aare both diatonic and chromatic.
george :-\
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The connection between Jimmy Shand and the instrument bearing his name is well known in the UK. Less well know is the Morino connection. Hohner brought Venazio Morino to Germany in 1928 to improve the quality of Hohner boxes. He developed all sorts of technical improvements and produced a whole variety of specialist and one-off instruments, for several well known players including Shand.
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Jimmy Shands main contribution to the design of the Shand Morino was the brilliant idea of getting 3 rows of buttons to opperate just 2 rows of pallets. Prior to this brainwave 3 row boxes had 3 rows of pallets & were on the bulky side a a result.
george
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Jimmy Shands main contribution to the design of the Shand Morino was the brilliant idea of getting 3 rows of buttons to opperate just 2 rows of pallets. Prior to this brainwave 3 row boxes had 3 rows of pallets & were on the bulky side a a result.
george
And there was also a marked difference in volume between rows. I have a picture of a Shand with the grille off, showing the pallets; it is a thing of beauty.
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Jimmy Shands main contribution to the design of the Shand Morino was the brilliant idea of getting 3 rows of buttons to opperate just 2 rows of pallets. Prior to this brainwave 3 row boxes had 3 rows of pallets & were on the bulky side a a result.
george
I had not realised Jimmy was behind that; fascinating. I have heard it suggested that the resulting closer spacing of the reeds contributes to the unique sound of the Shand Morino (phase differences, harmonics, etc).
I had the opportunity to visit Jimmy back in the 90s, and I recall asking him how he had come up with such a great musette sound on the Shand Morino. He said that it was from listening to the musette sound of the French accordionists on the radio, and thinking "that is what you need to really punch through". Does the wide Scottish musette tuning originate from the Shand Morino, then, or were others trying it around the same time?
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A while back, I was visiting Ivor Hyde and he had a Shand Morino in the room. He picked it up and gave me a quick burst of music from it. I suddenly realised that it was actually a J.Shand Jnr box, not a B/C/C# but a CBA. To look at it, you really couldn't spot the difference.
Rob.
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A while back, I was visiting Ivor Hyde and he had a Shand Morino in the room. He picked it up and gave me a quick burst of music from it. I suddenly realised that it was actually a J.Shand Jnr box, not a B/C/C# but a CBA. To look at it, you really couldn't spot the difference.
Rob.
I assume you mean it was a Shand Morino body, but with CBA reeds layout. I know Jimmy Shand Junior has converted several BCC# Shand Morinos to CBA over the years, but I have also heard that there were a few made as CBAs in the factory - and I have a feeling Ivor's might be one of these.
Edit - Funny how none of the 5-row Hohner Morino Artiste CBAs from the same era had anything like as good a sound as the SM - might even be down to that reed spacing?
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Well, there are Shand Morinos and Shand Morinos . . . There is a good article by Roy Magna in Rob Howard's "A to Z of Accordions, Volume 4" (p? - just noticed that this book doesn't have any page numbers! But it's under "S" for "Shand"). Roy outlines the design and construction changes that occurred, from the original "Hohner Special" delivered to Jimmy Shand in 1939, through the best-known Shand Morino design of the 1950s, to the last model in1975.
I suspect many of the changes were for economic reasons, with some of the idiosyncrasies of the early models e.g. the complicated mounting and switching arrangement for the treble bassoon reeds, giving way to more usual accordion design and construction. I feel Roy is perhaps being somewhat subjective in ascribing changes in the sounds produced to changes in the instrument design. It's possible that some differences in sound from one box to another are due to the different tuning experiences they have had over the last 35 - 60 years. I like the sound of mine better than any other that I've heard! (Bought new by Jim Mackay in 1975, this is one of the last, possibly the last, ever made.)
The original poster asked about availability and price. Yes, they do become available from time to time, usually by word of mouth. There have been tales (apocryphal?) of the recently-widowed being contacted, before the funeral, with enquiries about purchasing the deceased's Shand Morino. There are also several collectors with a number of Shand Morinos. Price? When available, well on the sunny side (from the seller's point of view) of £3k.
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Funny how none of the 5-row Hohner Morino Artiste CBAs from the same era had anything like as good a sound as the SM - might even be down to that reed spacing?
I dunno - Toralf Tollefsen could crank out a pretty good sound!
I've just purchased a load of Toralf's recordings from Tom Scruton (TSAR CDs) and they are pretty outstanding, and show how good the Hohner CBA could sound.
AL
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Funny how none of the 5-row Hohner Morino Artiste CBAs from the same era had anything like as good a sound as the SM - might even be down to that reed spacing?
I dunno - Toralf Tollefsen could crank out a pretty good sound!
I've just purchased a load of Toralf's recordings from Tom Scruton (TSAR CDs) and they are pretty outstanding, and show how good the Hohner CBA could sound.
AL
Sorry, yes of course. My comment was from within my rather blinkered world of Scottish musette tonality, "edge" etc, which seems unique to the SM, and which I am surprised is not found on other instruments from essentially the same stable. Or, put it another way, has anyone heard a Hohner Artiste IV musette that sounds as good as the same as a Shand Morino?
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A while back, I was visiting Ivor Hyde and he had a Shand Morino in the room. He picked it up and gave me a quick burst of music from it. I suddenly realised that it was actually a J.Shand Jnr box, not a B/C/C# but a CBA. To look at it, you really couldn't spot the difference.
Rob.
It was a proper shand morino in all aspects other than the reeds being same both ways & arranged in such a way as to provide keybnoard layout of 3 row continelntal. According to Ivor 6 such boxes were made by hohner for Bells accordions, his is one of them, another in England, 2 in america & 2 unaccounted for (this was about 6 years ago) Ivor also told me that Jimmy Shand thought he (Ivor) had converted it, not being aware of hohners sneeky ex factory "continental shand morino's!. Itried at at Sidmouth one year and it was a nice box with definite shand morino tuning.
george