Melodeon.net Forums

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Welcome to the new melodeon.net forum

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!  (Read 5787 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

morrisman

  • Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16
Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« on: April 07, 2008, 04:44:20 PM »

I collect my "new" melodeon tomorrow!

I've never played one before - in fact I haven't played anything since I gave up guitar lessons about 12 years ago - but becoming a Morris dancer has given me the urge to pick up an instrument.

This melodeon actually belonged to my great-grandfather.  I have very vague memories of my grandad playing it, probably more than 20 years ago, but I haven't seen it since then.  Sadly Grandad died in 2004 so I can't ask him about it.  Anyway, my mum has liberated it from the cupboard it's been sat in all that time and I'm looking forward to giving it an airing.  Mum reports that there is a split in the bellows, but it does make a sound.

I have a limited budget, so unfortunately there is no question of just taking it to a restorer.  I'm fairly handy so I'm hoping to be able to work on it myself.  Is there anything that can be done to fix split bellows, or am I looking at a new set?  Are they pricey?

Very interesting tutorials on the main page, I look forward to going through them once I get the instrument into a playable condition!
Logged
Dancer with Brighton Morris Men
Absolute Beginner on melodeon!

george garside

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5401
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2008, 04:49:12 PM »

Welcome to melodeon.net.  perhaps it would help if you can post a pic of the box showing the damage to the bellows etc.

george
Logged
author of DG tutor book "DG Melodeon a Crash Course for Beginners".

morrisman

  • Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2008, 05:06:38 PM »

Thank you :)  I will post pictures as soon as I get it home tomorrow evening.
Logged
Dancer with Brighton Morris Men
Absolute Beginner on melodeon!

Lester

  • MADman
  • Mods and volunteers
  • Hero Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9109
  • Hohners'R'me
    • Lester's Melodeon Emporium and Tune-a-Rama
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2008, 05:12:00 PM »

Morris Man

Where are you based?

morrisman

  • Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #4 on: April 07, 2008, 07:08:27 PM »

Lewes - I dance with Brighton Morris Men.   I'm heading up to London tomorrow anyway, so will take a little detour to collect the melodeon from Bromley.
Logged
Dancer with Brighton Morris Men
Absolute Beginner on melodeon!

Theo

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13729
  • Hohner Club Too
    • The Box Place
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2008, 08:21:04 PM »

Great story about the inherited box.  You will get good advice here about repairing the bellows.
Logged
Theo Gibb - Gateshead UK

Proprietor of The Box Place for melodeon and concertina sales and service.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for stock updates.

Pete Dunk

  • Typo Expert
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3690
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2008, 11:02:39 PM »

I live about 50 mins from Lewes (near Tenterden) and get along to the Lewes Arms folk club every so often but I'm a newbie to the melodeon too. As well as a playable melodeon I have an old clunker that I'm hoping to start work on shortly; I've tinkered with a few concertinas but almost everything about the melodeon is entirely different.

Next time I'm in Lewes we'll have to meet up for a beer and compare horror stories!

Pete
Logged
Squeezing on the Isle of Oxney, UK
Primo (Serenellini) D/G
Isis D/G
Hohner B/E, G/C, C/F, Bb/Eb G/C/F
Liliputs D/G (G scale), C/F, Bb/Eb, Albrecht Custom D/G (G scale)

morrisman

  • Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2008, 10:58:32 PM »

Would be great to meet you Pete, do get in touch next time you're down!  I'm ashamed to admit that I've only made it to one of the Lewes Arms sessions - Alastair Anderson last month.  Great fun, and I'll certainly go again.

So - I collected the instrument today and got a bit more information out of Mum.  It seems that my grandfather didn't play after all - my childhood memories obviously aren't very accurate!  He was an engineer in the army and always enjoyed fixing things - I suspect he was showing me how it worked rather than playing.

Grandad grew up in Scotland, near Glasgow, and remembered his father playing when he was a boy.  Apparently all the neighbours would come round with their instruments and everyone would play together.  Grandad was born in 1917 and moved to England after the Second World War so the instrument was certainly active before and between the Wars, and presumably afterwards too.

My great-grandfather died young in 1960 after a long lung illness - he had been a miner.  My mother only remembers meeting him a couple of times (it's a long way to Glasgow), bedridden and certainly too ill to play melodeon.

Mum was surprised at the condition - the bellows aren't split after all and it looks and sounds pretty good.  The straps have disintegrated, a couple of the notes are stuck open and two of the bass notes don't work but I'd say it's survived its long years of storage remarkably well.

Some pictures (click to embiggen).











I'm going to take it along to Morris practice on Thursday - certainly some of the band will be able to advise me on getting it fixed up, and how to start learning it!  Any advice from you guys will also be much appreciated.

If anyone recognises it and can give any information about the manufacturers, and when it may have been made, that would be very interesting to know as well!
Logged
Dancer with Brighton Morris Men
Absolute Beginner on melodeon!

george garside

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5401
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #8 on: April 09, 2008, 10:09:57 AM »

do you know what keys it is tuned in. DG is the most commonly used in English follk music including morris stuff.  BC - Scottish & Irish, CF & CG european.  Tuning can be established by either using a guitar type tuning meter or comparing notes with keyboard . The keynote for each row (eg D outside row & G inside row if its DG) will occur on the 3rd button down from chin end.

DG, GC & CF boxes can be played in much the same way as each other but will only readily provide the 2 keys the instrument is tuned in.  The BC box can be played in B&C in the same way but as not many other people will play in B or C it is usualy played using a combination of both rows to give keys D , G ,A & a afew others.  It is also important to be aware that the Dg & the BC really require different tutor books.
ope this of some help
george
Logged
author of DG tutor book "DG Melodeon a Crash Course for Beginners".

Theo

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13729
  • Hohner Club Too
    • The Box Place
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #9 on: April 09, 2008, 12:44:54 PM »

The most likely tuning for an older two row box like yours is C/C#
Logged
Theo Gibb - Gateshead UK

Proprietor of The Box Place for melodeon and concertina sales and service.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for stock updates.

morrisman

  • Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #10 on: April 21, 2008, 02:23:26 PM »

Just an update:

A couple of the guys in my Morris side work for a musical instrument company and know their way round old boxes.  Their professional opinion is that it's not really worth restoring - it's value will never be the cost of a professional restoration - and that I should consider it an ornament and find another instrument to learn on.

However...  One of the guys was really quite taken with it and has offered to try and make it airtight.  If he can manage that, it might just be worth getting new reeds made up for it, as it's out of tune and the reeds in it are obviously ancient.

He's also liberated a loan instrument from the shop for me, so I can have a play and see if I have any talent for it or not!  If not, and I give up, then I can just keep mine as an heirloom and souvenir without spending out on an expensive restoration.  Best of both worlds, I think.

My mum is very keen to know how old my box is... any ideas from the experts here?
Logged
Dancer with Brighton Morris Men
Absolute Beginner on melodeon!

BruceHenderson

  • Respected Sage
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 262
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #11 on: April 21, 2008, 11:39:53 PM »

   It's a lovely box and in quite good condition ... considering -- to judge by the photos.  I think that it would make a sweet part of anyone's collection if it were properly fettled, but it would have to be done by a loving owner.  You're right; there's no way to make this a "financial proposition", if you like the box and can handle it, take care of what it needs.

   One thing that would be a killer would be trying to find "new reeds".  It's very likely that someone with a little knowledge could tune them (they're adjustable but -- like brain surgery -- this is something that you want to leave in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing and not try it at home).  New reeds would be outlandishly expensive (even if you could find reeds that fit); a retune would be very expensive but a lot less than new ones.  This box was probably made with the rows tuned "a semitone apart".  That means if you push the bellows together with the third button from the top pushed on one row, you'll get a sound -- probably "C"; do the same thing with the third button down on the other row and you'll get a tone a "halfstep" away, ie. a C# or a "C flat".  This isn't a very useful tuning today.  One way to modernize it would be to find if one row is "C" (that means that the notes up and down the keyboard would be like the white keys on the piano); if so, you could have the other row re-tuned to G.  This would give you G/C tuning but most Morris players and English session musicians use D/G tuning so it would be hard to use your box in that context.  Or, you could just leave the tuning that you have and play it when you're not expected to play along with other musicians.

   Another thing - you wouldn't want to carry this box around on Morris days.  Morris tours are very hard on instruments (weather, beer, careless spectators/kids/dancers, etc.) and I'd want to be gentle with this one.  Also, a few ounces in a box makes a big difference in a day of dance -- if it's big and heavy, you'll feel as if you're hauling aroung a breezeblock!  And my guess that this box is not as svelte as a modern one.

   Most of the parts on these are pretty straight forward.  The bellows probably has an airtight cover membrane.  If it's cracked and lifted, you may be able to glue it down or you may have to put an extra layer of air-tight paper on it.  Many were glued together with "hide glue" and can be steamed apart like an envelope seal.  Also, the valves are pretty simple.  Often if one won't open easily or sticks open, it's just a little corrosion or sticky stuff on a pivot pin.  Again, easy to fix at home.  In everything, be very careful disassembling it -- if you get it apart successfully, you can fix any problems and reassemble it again.  Your big worry is in breaking something taking it apart -- it will be very hard to find replacement parts. But with care, you should find it reasonably easy to repair most things.  The buttons and valves on the right side are held in with a long rod pivot (if it's like most boxes).  Push a button and watch the flat valve lift off the hole.  The pivot for that is the long rod.  You have to pull the rod out of the bottom; first pull must a little way maybe 1/2 inch and the top valve will come loose. Collect the parts, including the spring etc. that you find there.  Repeat for each valve assembly as you work down the instrument.  It may seem counter intuitive but you should never use oil on any melodeon parts.  Some people have gotten by with a graphite lube on some external parts but basically all the parts should fit so that they just slide - no lubrication needed, or -- if it is needed, something's wrong.  Sorry, I'm not familiar with "spoon type" bases so I can't tell you much about them but they should be no problem is you're careful.

   As to the age I'm certainly no expert, I've been told that a label "Germany" means made after WWI (boxes made WWI and prior are labeled "Made is Saxony" or some such German State).  Also, Hohners with a legend "Steel Reeds" are usually late 20's/early 30's.  Reeds were brass before this time and after, it was expected that reeds would be steel so it was no big deal.  Also, it was not uncommon for an established maker to do "badge engineering".  If he had a dealer established and a competing dealer wanted to buy a batch, that batch might be made under a "fake name".  Also, manufacturers in Germany often badged instruments with Italian names to make them sound higher quality.  So your accordeon may have been made by one of the well-known "established" makers.  But I have no way to tell if this is so.
Logged
I love one-rows!  Four reeds kick butt!!!!

Stiamh

  • Old grey C#/D pest
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3538
    • Packie Manus Byrne
Re: Just acquired a melodeon - lots of newboy questions!
« Reply #12 on: April 22, 2008, 01:26:40 AM »

BTW if you want to hear and see a box like yours in action, see the second post in this thread: http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php?topic=148.0

The TG4 program I mentioned, featuring Dave Hennessy, can still be viewed - but will disappear soon. Currently it's about 7th from the bottom of the list.
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 


Melodeon.net - (c) Theo Gibb; Clive Williams 2010. The access and use of this website and forum featuring these terms and conditions constitutes your acceptance of these terms and conditions.
SimplePortal 2.3.5 © 2008-2012, SimplePortal