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[Nick Collis Bird]

Sometimes after a pint of Red wine, thoughts can drift off into abstract ideas.
Well here's this one;
If notes can be  " bent" on a Mouthorgan , would it be possible to bend them on a Melodeon.
Obviously there would need to be some sort of gizmo inside like a tremolo arm on a Guitar.
Interesting thought, it must be possible. Any Ideas?

A different topic. I have just bought George Garside's book on D/G melodeon. I really really wish that such a great tutor was available when I first started out in the 70's. I'm pretty sure that with all the info and knowledge available to new Melodionisters today let me say.  "You ain't seen nothin yet"

[Chris Ryall]

Yes

You need totally dry tuning, ideally single voice. Open the valve "at most" 25%, and pull the bellows hard (pushing not so easy) closing off the air flow as you hear the effect you want. Lower notes seem to bend better than high, and WARNING I am told that it can stress reeds and damage them. I think posh reeds bend better than cheap ones, but can offer limited evidence. 

One reason I paid for a low voice on my new box was to bend notes

[Owen Woods]

With two voices it doesn't work as well, because the reeds couple.

[Nick Collis Bird]

"Warning it can stress reeds and damage them" Harmonica  reeds I suppose maybe different Chris, apart from getting wet, most players tend to bend notes especially with blues. But even "Dixon of Dock Green" was bent. I'll rephrase that. The tune for Dixon of Dock green ( Larry Addler?) bent the notes. Even in my youth I could never play it. Seems a really complicated tune.
 So are Harmonica reeds different?

A small edit for clarity.
Dixon of Dock Green was probably the first British  television programme  about the Police. He was an ordinary copper, a Constable and a weekly series. It starred Jack Warner.
 

[Sage Herb]

The tune for Dixon of Dock green ( Larry Addler?) bent the notes. Even in my youth I could never play it. Seems a really complicated tune.
 So are Harmonica reeds different?

The Dixon theme tune was played by Tommy Reilly on a chromatic harmonica, so he would have had all the notes available without needing to bend.

Cheers
Steve

[Owen Woods]

Also diatonic harmonicas bend notes in very different ways - they have no valves, so most of it is coupling with the other reed. They also mostly have brass reeds I believe, which will have different material properties.

[Sage Herb]

There are several different forms of 'bending' a reed on a harmonica. The classic bluesy type bend on a 10 hole blues harp is dependent on having two reeds (one blow, one suck) in the same hole without any valve to isolate one reed from the other. In these circumstances, the higher-pitched of the two reeds can be bent down to a pitch slightly above that of the lower-pitched reed in the same hole. On a standard 10 hole blues harp, the bend availability is a semitone down in most holes, but a full tone in some and 1.5 tones in hole 3 draw. My description is in fact not strictly correct, though it is probably how most harmonica players would describe things. What really happens is that the bent note is produced by the 'wrong reed', ie a bent note on the *draw* is produced by the *blow* reed. Clearly this cannot work if the two reeds are isolated by a valve, as would be the case on a melodeon, except on the very highest reeds, which aren't usually valved. There are other types of harmonica bends possible, including valved bends, which of course do work with (indeed rely on) isolation. With a valved bend you are producing the bent note from the 'correct' reed, and the bend may not be as stable as the bluesy bend. I have no experience of bending melodeon reeds, but I guess that they would have to be valved bends.
Cheers
Steve

[AirTime]

It's possible to bend the notes on my vintage Hohner. My impression is that this is because the reeds plates are pinned rather than waxed & react to variations in the air pressure. This can create a pleasing richness to the sound... or it can make the note sound out-of-tune. Either way, it's not nearly as pronounced as the note bending in a harmonica.

[Owen Woods]

I knew that a harmonica player would clarify! Thanks Sage

The other thing to note is that it depends on the reed. Short scale reeds are much easier to overload and so they go out of tune much more easily.

[Chris Ryall]

I used to play "Ordinary Copper" on my C/C# mouth organ, went very well, but the beastie didn't bend. Single reed melodeon does. My favourite bender tune was Fieldtown "signposts" you can do a lot with that tune, and it even remains danceable. Then I discovered the blues …

PS thanks, Steve, first time I got close to understanding it!

[rees]

In England, Chris Parkinson (Parky) is the master of the bent note melodeon. As Chris Ryall says, it only works on single reed.

[ACE]

I have got away with it on my excelsior mini special. But it does tend to choke when played too hard on the higher notes. We have a local band where the blues harp player often gives it some stick with a concertina.

[Cooper]

I've heared both Anne Niepold and Didier Laloy doing controlled Bends on stage,
W

[Frank Lee]

I'm sure i remember Chris Parkinson saying it was the cheaper reeds which responded best to bending.  Also, I don't understand the physics behind why bending notes might damage reeds.  I'd have thought that restricting the airflow by partially opening a valve would be less likely to damage reeds than playing them fully open (as normal).  Certainly so far I've never had a problem with a damaged reed through bending, or indeed any problems with lower reeds - and it's those which respond to being 'bent' - for any reason.  As if to bear-out Chris's contention about expensive reeds, my Castagnari Mory absolutely refuses to allow its notes to be bent, and presumably this doesn't have cheap reeds?  Chris had a Saltarelle when I last saw him play ( and every time I've seen him play) and my experience with borrowed Saltarelles has been that they had much more 'bendable' reeds than any of my non-Saltarelle boxes.  Mind - I wouldn't have thought Saltarelles had cheap reeds either!

[Chris Ryall]

I've heared both Anne Niepold and Didier Laloy doing controlled Bends on stage,
W

With quite "expensive" kit, too …

[Owen Woods]

My perception is that longer reeds respond better, shorter reeds are easier to bend. So expensive reeds tend to be longer.

Not sure whether bending notes would damage reeds.

[Chris Ryall]

Just to chip in a bit more past experience. I started doing bends on my little Lilly, small reeded enough? Found that certain notes would bend, others much less keen. So there are some subtle mechanical issues at play, at reed level. I got no sense of reeds "playing backwards", it is valved anyway.

Just had a go all the way down the G pull row of my vdAa (Bincis, low single voice); it shows some button variation, as above. Also a gradient along the row, with low notes more generally more amenable to such abuse.

I'd add that I got a strong feel on the Lilly, that once a note was bending, it seemed to do it more easily thereafter. But I didn't keep any notes on that. So complicated, and very much within the "art of the possible"