Melodeon.net Forums
Discussions => Instrument Design, Construction and Repair => Topic started by: Chris Ryall on January 11, 2012, 10:32:24 AM
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[edit] .. I didn't actually start this. Has been very sensibly split of a 'for sale' thread due to topic drift. Let's take it from here ;)
For the record - Gaillard's english website is at http://www.gaillardaccordions.com/accordion-makeur-workshop.html
to clarify, I ordered in 2005 when the deal was 1/4 of the price with order, 1/4 a year later, final half on delivery. The great bulk of this cash changed hands at July's St Chartier festival and he had a reputation for delivering on the nail. I had recently got my Oakwood C#/D/G and was experimenting with Dutch reversalling (not a great idea) and flattening the duplicated notes for more chromaticism. The latter was a big success and I wrote to Gaillard to STP change the keyboard layout, believing that like every other maker I know .. "he had a queue" :D
Oh la la! Bertrand was not one happy lapin! >:E My blocks were already cut, my reeds ordered in Italy. But he did offer to change for his standard 10% charge 'own layout' (initial order had been a shrewd 'standard French' on purpose to get my foot on the "queue" so aucun désastre. A nice F#mod/G/C duly arrived 26 months later (reeds were late). I think he thought it "half French, half Cajun, half Irish" but was polite enough not to say so. We are friends again now, and he was really nice at last year's Ch. d'Ars.
Back to topic, that was both a written assertion, and then evidence of a 24 month manufacture process, as later confirmed by his daughter encountered on a course. Two people have said that Gaillard's lead time is presently 36 months. Price of success. He's not a man to change his methods lightly, so I suspect a 12 month queue has evolved. The price of success?
Please excuse me now .. I need to write to Colin Dipper ;)
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(not a great idea)
The dutch reversal IS a great idea! :P
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No it's not - because it's not a melodeon then. It becomes a fudge towards playing all in one direction which can better be achieved on a CC or PA - if you want that kind of fluidity in playing at the expense of the rhythm and soul of a push-pull-push-pull-push-pull-pull-push box then you should probably go with an instrument that can do that job better.
One of these systems is the devil's work and one is God's - I still can't work out which is which!
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Squeezy: That's an interesting if not hugely debatable point to make.
...and one I'm sort of wrestling with too.
i.e. simplicity v's fluidity.
Hmmmm.....
Q
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The point is, it's not a melodeon if it has the Dutch reversal. That is the law. (:)
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The dutch reversal IS a great idea! :P
Not if you've invested 20 years years learning up English and continental repertoire tunes to play semi automatically - it isn't! :(
Bloody young wippersnappers - I don't know what the World's coming to - now when I was a lad ... :|glug
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No it's not - because it's not a melodeon then. It becomes a fudge towards playing all in one direction which can better be achieved on a CC or PA - if you want that kind of fluidity in playing at the expense of the rhythm and soul of a push-pull-push-pull-push-pull-pull-push box then you should probably go with an instrument that can do that job better.
Does that make a 2.5 row melodeon with a pull D and push E on the half row not a melodeon?
Hmmmm.
Since when was it a play off between having fluidity and rhythm & soul? Very much down to the player. The Dutch reversal doesn't mean you can't play in an up-and-down-the-row style - you just have to switch rows for the D and E.
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You could argue that two rows are a bit extravagant.
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I always thought the Dutch Reversal was something a gentleman could get for a fee in Amsterdam.
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I think LDbosca might have it.
Sounds far more likely ::)
and interesting >:E
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One of these systems is the devil's work and one is God's - I still can't work out which is which!
Yeah! Let's have an inquisition >:E
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;D
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No it's not - because it's not a melodeon then. It becomes a fudge towards playing all in one direction which can better be achieved on a CC or PA - if you want that kind of fluidity in playing at the expense of the rhythm and soul of a push-pull-push-pull-push-pull-pull-push box then you should probably go with an instrument that can do that job better.
One of these systems is the devil's work and one is God's - I still can't work out which is which!
My first reply, to my shame, was wiped due to my computer deciding to restart, so this is a bit scrappy.
I disagree entirely. I disagree that by getting a dutch reversal you are wanting to sound like a CBA, or indeed that you wish to have an exclusively smooth, fluid sound. I disagree that by getting a dutch reversal you are compromising the rhythm or the soul of the box. I think that there is a huge difference between having an entirely unisonoric box and having one button switched over. I disagree that it is a fudge, I think that it's quite an elegant solution to the problem. It enables you to do trickier fingering, makes putting bass to it easier and increases the scope for RH harmony. I fail to see the difference between a box with a dutch reversal and one with a half row. One of my boxes is in D/Em. This has a push-pull-push-pull-push-pull-pull-push RH on both rows and it is utterly regular both up and down and across the rows on all octaves. It is certainly more regular than a standard D/G, with it's "fudge" of a low pull D (although it does have the low pull A). Would you judge my box to be a melodeon or not?
What you are doing, which is very common on this board and elsewhere, is associating the limitations of our instrument with its strengths and concluding that if you get rid of these limitations then it would be an inferior instrument. What you have to bear in mind is that all instruments are defined by they can't do and for EVERY instrument, not just box, the skill in playing comes from taking advantage of those limitations rather than fighting them. People tend to assume that by removing the limitations of a push pull instrument by creating a CBA, the lack of these limitations means that it tends to sound dull. The correct way of thinking about this is that by removing the limitations of our instrument, you are imposing different limitations, which means that it tends to sound dull. But the flipside is that you can do lots with it and if you are skilled, you can make it sound not dull. I'm not in the business of saying that one instrument is definitely better than another, but I know that I find CBA very boring to play (I have one) and find conventional D/G box great fun. But I object to the assumption that if you try to expand the scope of an instrument you are somehow doing so "at the expense of the soul" of the instrument. Sometimes, innovation does make a better instrument. Otherwise we would all be still thwacking at logs. Look at the development of our box. From the flutina we got the one row melodeon, then the two row, then the club, then your own 2.5 row 12 bass, now the three row 18 bass. Along the way we have lots of hybrids which fill their own niche (like the BCC# which I have also learned). I expect that when people started building 12 bass instruments people complained that the soul of the box would be lost. I don't understand the difference between that modification and the dutch reversal.
So in terms of the dutch reversal, it does allow you to be more fluid, yes, but it is still a push pull instrument and you have the option of still going up and down the rows. You've got more scope for ornamentation and more scope for bass (like playing a G bass over an E button in the RH) and you've got more scope for RH harmony. The limitations that this imposes is that fingering is more complicated and slightly less intuitive and if you want to make full advantage of it you have to learn more fingering combinations. It however took me less than a week to get to grips with D/Em after learning D/G for 9 years previously, another couple of weeks before I stopped switching system mid-tune and I can now switch from D/G to D/Em without thinking about it.
In conclusion, it is frankly ridiculous to suggest that this change somehow destroys the soul of the box, it doesn't. It is a different instrument, sure, but not necessarily a worse one. And there are advantages to it that I think outweigh the disadvantages and I take umbrage at being told otherwise and about others being told otherwise who might have made their minds up for themselves. There is no right answer to box layouts and I fully appreciate that you prefer a pure up and down instrument (with the fudge at the bottom) but it is not the only answer and to claim that the only options are a D/G or a CBA and that everything in between is a monstrous hybrid is at best misleading.
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It's a times like this that I wish forums had a 'like' button. ::)
Owen, thank you; everything I wanted to say, but far more eloquently than I could.
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Well put!
I'd even go further and say that since nearly every other note except D and E already have reversals, the Dutch reversal is completing the pattern that is already there.
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I'm with you Ukebert. Thanks for setting it out so fully. And it's helpful to hear that you find CBA playing boring compared with the diato, even though it's beautifully logical. So I'll continue playing largely "on the pull" for many of my tunes, especially in less usual keys, while attempting push-pull when trying for a more rhythmic style (like Anahata's to take one of many). And I'll call it a diato, to save semantics about "melodeon"
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I agree with squeezy. No arguement need!
I have had several different schemes and
none are as right on as standard tuning.
Living in North Holland I find it real boring.
you can hardly buy a instrument here without
a switched 5th. Squeezy, a prophet is never
recoginzed in his own state. Something to
do with familiarity I suppose.
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I am largely with Ukebert here, but there is something you DO miss when changing suff like that. If you go for the Em-row you will loose the one d-c button up high. ( Ihope i am making sense, as i am used to talking in CF or GC, not in DG). I suppose you could argu you are not plag that high up on a DG anway, but still. I use that button a lot in my push-pull sequences. And yes, you can get the same notes in the same direction, however you cannot get them by keeping your button pressed. And that sound (using the same button in 2 directions without removing your finger) is a lt better than using 2 different buttons.
Since playing in Major is better on your innerrow (when using an 8-bass-box) than on your outerrow (due to more harmonic options (III) I tried playing around with changing the d's on the outerrow, leaving the innerrow intact. That would make more sense to me, but i couldnt really get used to it :-(
W
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I am largely with Ukebert here, but there is something you DO miss when changing suff like that. If you go for the Em-row you will loose the one d-c button up high. ( Ihope i am making sense, as i am used to talking in CF or GC, not in DG). I suppose you could argu you are not plag that high up on a DG anway, but still. I use that button a lot in my push-pull sequences. And yes, you can get the same notes in the same direction, however you cannot get them by keeping your button pressed. And that sound (using the same button in 2 directions without removing your finger) is a lt better than using 2 different buttons.
So you are correct that you lose the top D/C button with a D/Em and it is sometimes a bit of a pain (especially with s 21 button layout), you are right. It is a limitation of the system and I think that it is worth it. But that is my choice and it isn't something that is a problem with the dutch reversal. Also remember that on a D/G box it is rare that you go up that far, whereas on a G/C you may well. I can't comment on G/C boxes, since they are a different beast and I've never really played one.
The dutch reversal switches the D/E on the G row to an E/D. However, there is a D/E on the D row just below it, so you are not correct in saying that you cannot get them by keeping your button pressed.
Since playing in Major is better on your innerrow (when using an 8-bass-box) than on your outerrow (due to more harmonic options (III) I tried playing around with changing the d's on the outerrow, leaving the innerrow intact. That would make more sense to me, but i couldnt really get used to it :-(
That sounds interesting! The advantage of the dutch reversal or the D/Em is that most of the fingering is intact. I'd imagine that changing the tonic of a row rather than the fifth would be more of a mind-bender.
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The dutch reversal switches the D/E on the G row to an E/D. However, there is a D/E on the D row just below it, so you are not correct in saying that you cannot get them by keeping your button pressed.
I would be more supportive of the Dutch Reversal if what you said above was true. Dut there is no D/E on the D row there is a D/C# and a F#/E which give you the notes in the G row directions but on two buttons which, when I tried it, to use an Eastender's quote, "did my 'ead in"
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There is, however, an E/D button on an ADG. best of both worlds... ;D
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The dutch reversal switches the D/E on the G row to an E/D. However, there is a D/E on the D row just below it, so you are not correct in saying that you cannot get them by keeping your button pressed.
I would be more supportive of the Dutch Reversal if what you said above was true. Dut there is no D/E on the D row there is a D/C# and a F#/E which give you the notes in the G row directions but on two buttons which, when I tried it, to use an Eastender's quote, "did my 'ead in"
It takes practice, simple as.
I actually find it makes my playing more bouncy and lumpy, as the change of button forces my playing to become more staccato.
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Ukebert can you post the full layout for the treble on your D/Em please, its some thing I considered a while back to enable a more appropriate short role as I thought at the time, not really sure what happened to the idea but would defiantly be interested in what you've done. If its to much of a thread drift maybe post it as a new one? Thanks All the Best mory
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I've split this topic because it had drifted well away from the original topic of the Gaillard box for sale. (http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,8617.0.html) and it is not fair to the seller when this happens.
It would be a sign of care and consideration tom start a new thread instead of swerving the topic in a new direction, especially in the buy and sell forum.
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The dutch reversal switches the D/E on the G row to an E/D. However, there is a D/E on the D row just below it, so you are not correct in saying that you cannot get them by keeping your button pressed.
I would be more supportive of the Dutch Reversal if what you said above was true. Dut there is no D/E on the D row there is a D/C# and a F#/E which give you the notes in the G row directions but on two buttons which, when I tried it, to use an Eastender's quote, "did my 'ead in"
Oops. You are quite right :|bl I don't think that it's hugely significant though, as Ollie says.
Ukebert can you post the full layout for the treble on your D/Em please, its some thing I considered a while back to enable a more appropriate short role as I thought at the time, not really sure what happened to the idea but would defiantly be interested in what you've done. If its to much of a thread drift maybe post it as a new one? Thanks All the Best mory
Sure! http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=6952.0;attach=5762;image