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[Theo]

does this mean the eg pull G on my D row will not be the same as the push on G row, of for that matter all the other notes available both ways?

"might not be the same", rather than "will not be the same"

[melodeon]

"The very complex tuning systems of some historical free reed instruments had more than 12 tones to the octave, providing more options to optimize the harmonic beauty of intervals when played properly."

Paul,
 Might those instuments have been "English" concertinas or the German Chemitzers and Bandoneons ?

[pgroff]

"The very complex tuning systems of some historical free reed instruments had more than 12 tones to the octave, providing more options to optimize the harmonic beauty of intervals when played properly."

Paul,
 Might those instuments have been "English" concertinas or the German Chemitzers and Bandoneons ?

Hi Jeff,

Some of the very early english concertinas had 14 tones to the octave.  Many other 19th century free reeds including accordions, german concertina- family instruments, and anglo-chromatic concertinas had more than that, if you count different "pitch variants" of the same named note on different bellows directions or different button rows.  This extended into the 20th century with some german concertinas and button accordions of various origins.  That's about all I want to say here about this.

PG

[LDbosca]

Mysterious.

[Steve_freereeder]

Some of the very early english concertinas had 14 tones to the octave.  Many other 19th century free reeds including accordions, german concertina- family instruments, and anglo-chromatic concertinas had more than that, if you count different "pitch variants" of the same named note on different bellows directions or different button rows.  This extended into the 20th century with some german concertinas and button accordions of various origins.

Mysterious.

Not really. As I understand it, it was an attempt by makers/tuners to allow concertinas and accordions to sound sweet especially when played alongside other instruments such as violins.

The English concertina especially was mainly conceived as a classical instrument, having much the same range as a violin. Good violinists (and singers) constantly adjust the pitch of the notes being played depending on the musical context, shifting easily and subconsciously into just intonation as the harmony of the music demands. But the free reeds of concertinas means that the tuning cannot be adjusted in normal playing. Furthermore, something about the sound spectrum of free reeds means that the tuning imperfections of equal-tempered intervals are particularly noticeable.

So to overcome this effect, English concertinas were made and tuned to various non-ET scales, which is why there are duplicate buttons on both sides of the instrument for the notes G#/Ab and D#/Eb. Most vintage concertinas today have had these notes retuned to sound the same, i.e. in ET, but in the past they would have been tuned slightly differently on each side of the instrument. In essence the player would use the G# and D# buttons on one side for playing in sharp keys, and the Ab and Eb buttons on the other side of the instrument for playing in flat keys. The effect was to enable scales and chords to sound much sweeter, but it made learning to play the instrument more complex.

[pgroff]

Thanks Steve!

Mysterious.

Hi Luke,

Just reached a (momentary) limit of how much music theory, and unpublished original research, to try to explain in a general forum of this nature. 

If you ever find an old free-reed instrument that has no playing wear, no evidence of retuning, no rust/dirt on the reeds, you might want to restore it without retuning it.  Then you can start to test for yourself whether it might have been made with a tuning system that has more than 12 tones to the octave. I've raised the question which you are welcome to test yourself in each such case.  There are also many historical written documents in some cases (e.g., english concertinas, Bazin's free reed instruments, etc.). Years ago a famous concertina maker (not Colin Dipper) told me that all old concertinas are out of tune due to the need for revalving, and thus you can never know anything about their original tunings.  But I disagree, after studying a large sample size of instruments with very original reedwork that survived in non-humid storage conditions and comparing the tuning of the many duplicated notes in various octaves and directions within each instrument, and then comparing between instruments of similar type and period.  That's comparable to the way we biologists compare individual organisms within and between "kinds" (technical term: "taxa") of living things.

You could also ask yourself (if I understand correctly that you have a very interesting non-equal-tempered system of harmonies installed on the bass side of your BC accordion): do you need to have your press and draw duplicates of the B notes, and E notes, on the melody side, tuned the same, or could each version of those notes be tweaked to provide more options to improve the overall sound of the instrument when those notes are used together with other melody notes or harmonies?  Even more so perhaps if you were a C#/D player, where those duplicate notes on the melody side are the F# and C#, notes often played far from equal temperament by Irish pipers. Of course to make best use of a system where those duplicate melody notes are tuned differently, you might have to adopt a special style in playing.

PG

[Gandy]

Mysterious.

The English concertina has some buttons that would be duplicates in a fully tempered scale, as each "white note" has a "black note" alongside.   So there are keys for both G sharp and A flat, and also for D sharp and E flat.

[Steve_freereeder]

Mysterious.

The English concertina has some buttons that would be duplicates in a fully tempered scale, as each "white note" has a "black note" alongside.   So there are keys for both G sharp and A flat, and also for D sharp and E flat.

Errrm... isn't that what I just wrote, two posts previously?
http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,12773.msg157657.html#msg157657

[forrest]

If you ever find an old free-reed instrument that has no playing wear, no evidence of retuning, no rust/dirt on the reeds, you might want to restore it without retuning it.  Then you can start to test for yourself whether it might have been made with a tuning system that has more than 12 tones to the octave. I've raised the question which you are welcome to test yourself in each such case. 

  Very well stated, Paul. And I'd like to thank you for sharing your observations with us. I personally have learned much from following your posts on this subject. In the matter of testing for old tunings/temperaments, I would like to share that after purchasing an old (c. 1880) Jones 20 button anglo concertina, I took the precaution to measure pitches before I undertook to re-tune. It was more to luck than wisdom, because my purpose was to gauge the difference between the old pitch, which was the Philharmonic (A=450) to determine how much metal must be removed to achieve A440.
 In doing so, I noticed that many of the intervals were quite pleasant, and then noted them for retuning. As it turned out, the intervals were very close to 1/4 comma meantone. Rather than risk trying to file down to A440, I simply restored the original pitch to the meantone tuning, which gives a very sweet outcome for a 20 button instrument. Does not play well with others, though...

[Gandy]

Errrm... isn't that what I just wrote, two posts previously?

Yes, sorry

[pgroff]

If you ever find an old free-reed instrument that has no playing wear, no evidence of retuning, no rust/dirt on the reeds, you might want to restore it without retuning it.  Then you can start to test for yourself whether it might have been made with a tuning system that has more than 12 tones to the octave. I've raised the question which you are welcome to test yourself in each such case. 

  Very well stated, Paul. And I'd like to thank you for sharing your observations with us. I personally have learned much from following your posts on this subject. In the matter of testing for old tunings/temperaments, I would like to share that after purchasing an old (c. 1880) Jones 20 button anglo concertina, I took the precaution to measure pitches before I undertook to re-tune. It was more to luck than wisdom, because my purpose was to gauge the difference between the old pitch, which was the Philharmonic (A=450) to determine how much metal must be removed to achieve A440.
 In doing so, I noticed that many of the intervals were quite pleasant, and then noted them for retuning. As it turned out, the intervals were very close to 1/4 comma meantone. Rather than risk trying to file down to A440, I simply restored the original pitch to the meantone tuning, which gives a very sweet outcome for a 20 button instrument. Does not play well with others, though...

Thanks for the compliment, Forrest.  Now I hope the following will be taken as a positive suggestion, not as a criticism:

It sounds like you are repeating my own journey of discovery -- about 25 years ago I was similarly comparing anglo concertina tunings to well-known temperaments that are published and applied to harpsichords, organs, etc. I found that some intervals of very original concertinas matched some intervals of those known temperaments, and I retuned some of those concertinas to make them more consistent with the known temperaments. Around 1989, I actually retuned a nice early Crabb 30 key anglo to 1/4 comma meantone, and as an exercise experimented with using it as a general purpose instrument in many professional situations. 

I now encourage you to consider the possibility that your Jones may have been very carefully in tune *before* you changed it to make the instrument consistent with 1/4 meantone throughout --  but that it was originally "in tune" to a more complex tuning system where different pitches are assigned to the press and draw versions of some notes that are available (on different rows) in different directions of the bellows.  If you did not know the special playing techniques needed to make the proper choices among those duplicate notes, but just treated the duplicate notes as pitch equivalents (chosen to make the fingering convenient, to balance air supply, or to use different chords present in different directions), you might erroneously judge that you had an "out of tune meantone concertina" rather than a very original concertina that was "in tune, with more than 12 notes to the octave."  Just sayin.

PG

[forrest]

If you ever find an old free-reed instrument that has no playing wear, no evidence of retuning, no rust/dirt on the reeds, you might want to restore it without retuning it.  Then you can start to test for yourself whether it might have been made with a tuning system that has more than 12 tones to the octave. I've raised the question which you are welcome to test yourself in each such case. 

It sounds like you are repeating my own journey of discovery -- about 25 years ago I was similarly comparing anglo concertina tunings to well-known temperaments that are published and applied to harpsichords, organs, etc. I found that some intervals of very original concertinas matched some intervals of those known temperaments, and I retuned some of those concertinas to make them more consistent with the known temperaments. Around 1989, I actually retuned a nice early Crabb 30 key anglo to 1/4 comma meantone, and as an exercise experimented with using it as a general purpose instrument in many professional situations. 

I now encourage you to consider the possibility that your Jones may have been very carefully in tune *before* you changed it to make the instrument consistent with 1/4 meantone throughout --  but that it was originally "in tune" to a more complex tuning system where different pitches are assigned to the press and draw versions of some notes that are available (on different rows) in different directions of the bellows.  If you did not know the special playing techniques needed to make the proper choices among those duplicate notes, but just treated the duplicate notes as pitch equivalents (chosen to make the fingering convenient, to balance air supply, or to use different chords present in different directions), you might erroneously judge that you had an "out of tune meantone concertina" rather than a very original concertina that was "in tune, with more than 12 notes to the octave."  Just sayin.

PG

Not at all taken as criticism, Paul.....just another "Aha" moment on the path. However, would you qualify your statement "....you might erroneously judge..." as possible or probable? If so, are there any published records of old concertina tuning schemes, or were these well guarded secrets of a proprietary nature?

[pgroff]

Hi Forrest,

Well, I still hope that someday I can finish my research on this and publish it myself in a more formal way than internet forums.  The issue is complicated by a promise of confidentiality I once made to a very respected pro-musician friend, and by my attempts to make a living in music myself for a couple of decades . . . that sort of removed the potential for me to keep self-funding the research :-)

But you ought to check your notes -- it could be that you have some valuable data there *if* that Jones happened to have retained a nice original tuning.

PG

[forrest]

Well, thanks for all so far, Paul. That "if" is quite helpful. It's hard to guess whether the little brass reeded Jones originally had a very special temperament or not, being that it has a limited range with just 20 buttons. What I know now, is that right or wrong, the meantone tuning sounds quite fine. And with the pitch at  approx A450, it will remain a solo box!