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[mory]

Warning - thread drift but just for a quick aside comment for English Concertina players...

I've just found a copy of this earlier 1844 Wheatstone patent, again through the excellent concertina.net website (the third page is the relevant one):

http://www.concertina.com/wheatstone/Wheatstone-Concertina-Patent-No-10041-of-1844.pdf

Thanks, Chris!
Very interesting read - for example the bit about CW's method for tuning reeds on the fly, with an adjustable slider. I don't think it was particularly successful, as it never caught on.

However, one especially interesting snippet occurs on page 3, line 15, where CW states that the finger rest on an English concertina is intended to accommodate both 4rd and 3rd fingers (ring and little). This makes a lot of sense when one considers the shape and dimensions of the EC finger rest. Most players these days use only their little finger on the rest, which for some of us can be quite painful after a while, especially with a heavier concertina such as an Aeola.

Just an observation...

OK - it's safe to go back to melodeons now  

I think you should post that snippet on C net Steve f I bet it would run and run as a thread AtB mory

[oggiesnr]

Coming to this from bandoneons it is clear that -

Bisonoric means a push/pull instrument where the note is diferent on each (OK there are some notes where this doesn't happen but the reed beds are set up as if were)

Unisonoric means that, without exception, the same note is played whatever the direction bellows ala a piano accordion.

Steve

[Owen Woods]

What is wrong with bisonoric and unisonoric? The advantage with those terms is that the meaning is immediately obvious.

[Graham Spencer]

What is wrong with bisonoric and unisonoric? The advantage with those terms is that the meaning is immediately obvious.

Absolutely; philologically sound and completely unambiguous. I simply can't see the logic of a "single action" producing two notes while a "double action" produces only one............ 

     I fully accept that others may see no confusion and that the terms, even though they are new to me in this context (though you'd think in 40+ years of box-playing I'd have come across them somewhere!), may be in wide and general use elsewhere; personally I shall continue to use "bi/unisonoric" because they seem to me to be the best available choices.  Other terminology is available..........

Graham

[Theo]

What is wrong with bisonoric and unisonoric? The advantage with those terms is that the meaning is immediately obvious.

Absolutely; philologically sound and completely unambiguous. I simply can't see the logic of a "single action" producing two notes while a "double action" produces only one............ 

Probably needs someone to write a note to go with the Wikipedia article explaining the singe/double action and bi/unisonoric terminology complete with the history of both.   Then readers can make up their own minds which to use.

[Graham Spencer]

What is wrong with bisonoric and unisonoric? The advantage with those terms is that the meaning is immediately obvious.

Absolutely; philologically sound and completely unambiguous. I simply can't see the logic of a "single action" producing two notes while a "double action" produces only one............ 

Probably needs someone to write a note to go with the Wikipedia article explaining the singe/double action and bi/unisonoric terminology complete with the history of both.   Then readers can make up their own minds which to use.

As always, the voice of reason! 

[Chris Brimley]

OK, here's my latest SA/DA hypothesis, and I'm now pretty much convinced it's probably true: 

It's all a cock-up by the Encyclopedia Britannica!

If you look at the (no longer copyright) 11th version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1911, it said this:

'The English concertina, invented and patented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1829, the year of the reputed invention of the accordion (q.v.), is constructed with a double action, the same note being produced on compressing and expanding the bellows, whereas in the German concertina or accordion two different notes are given out.'

The 11th edition is known to be riddled with errors.

The words quoted are strictly true, but seriously misleading;  yes, most of Wheatstone's concertinas at that time were 'double action', being playable in and out - and yes, the same note was produced in and out by his English system - and yes in the 'German' system in and out played different notes.  The trouble is that because of the author's poor understanding of the technology, he/she wasn't aware (or was trying to cover his/her ignorance by deliberate ambiguity) that the clause that begins 'whereas....' merely relates to the clause 'the same note being produced on compressing and expanding the bellows', not also to the previous clause containing the words 'is constructed with a double action'.  He/she probably simply didn't understand that that wasn't what Wheatstone was talking about at all, when he wrote his patents.

I'm pretty convinced that this rubbish document is at the root of the misunderstanding, because everything comes back to it, and it's plainly wrong in its implications, because that wasn't what Wheatstone said at all.  If you bear in mind that the popularity of concertinas waned after the 1920's, it's easy to see why any of the later revivalists who went back to this source (or later versions of it such as still exist) without understanding the original mistake, would no doubt think that's what SA/DA meant.

Nobody has yet responded to my query about other sources for the belief that SA meant bisonoric, but I'm now becoming pretty much convinced there aren't going to be any. I find it significant that this obviously misleading wording relates to the Wheatstone concertina, so do we really need to look any further?

OK, I'm going to stick my neck out now:

Sorry everyone, but the idea that 'single-action' means 'bisonoric' is crap.

[Theo]

I hereby nominate Chris Brimley to add the history of the singe/double action and bi/unisonoric terminology to the Wikipedia article on DBAs/melodeons!

[Chris Brimley]

Theo, you are very kind, but although this has been an interesting little exercise for me on a minor matter of terminology, Steve has done all the work on the main wiki stuff, and deserves all our credit and support.

Besides which, I'm not sure Mr Assange allows the word 'crap' on his website.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

It's also original research.

[jb]

Besides which, I'm not sure Mr Assange allows the word 'crap' on his website.

you got the wrong guy there.
Here's the relevant one.

[Chris Brimley]

Oops, you're quite right!  Just goes to show the effectiveness of associative advertising, I guess!

[Curamach]

Assange?? We don't want leaks in our wikis anymore than in our bellows!

[Curamach]

PS I hit post too soon. Thanks, Steve, for a nice job on the article!

Dan

[Theo]

Yes I agree Steve has done a great job and I think a footnote on terminology would not detract from what he has done.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

Hmmm, mine was a sort of "drive by" comment earlier on so people probably didn't recognise what I was getting at.

Wikipedia is not the place for original research or propounding theories and suchlike.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_publisher_of_original_thought

[Stiamh]

It seems that single-action is not the only matter we need to substantiate, clarify or refute. The article has just been marked up by a bot of some kind which has specified a couple of dozen "citations needed."

Chris, what you makes you so sure that "single action" with reference to accordions is all the fault of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica? Does the article even use the term? How do you know it wasn't in use 50 years before that? How do you know that people started using "single action" on the authority of the article you quote (esp. if it doesn't mention the term)?  

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

How would a bot know where to put the citation needed tags?      

[Steve_freereeder]

It seems that single-action is not the only matter we need to substantiate, clarify or refute. The article has just been marked up by a bot of some kind which has specified a couple of dozen "citations needed."  

I've removed the obvious overzealous 'citation needed' markups (not touched the SA/DA ones though!) but whether they will reappear or not remains to be seen. I believe there is a way of disabling certain Bot tasks, probably including the one which adds these 'citation needed' tags, but I haven't worked out how to do it yet; I'm not sure I understand all the nomenclature/vocabulary well enough.

[Chris Brimley]

Chris, what you makes you so sure that "single action" with reference to accordions is all the fault of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica? Does the article even use the term? How do you know it wasn't in use 50 years before that? How do you know that people started using "single action" on the authority of the article you quote (esp. if it doesn't mention the term)?  

Like I said, I'm not sure, I'm just sticking my neck out, because it all fits so well with the resultant muddle, and it is likely to have been regarded as a very good (probably the best) source for information at the time.

I checked to see if there were any earlier versions of the EB available online, but I don't think there are.  There were certainly some published in the intervening period between 1829 and 1911, in separate volumes (and also before 1829).  The author of these particular words may well have written them for one of the earlier versions, and they were just reproduced - I entirely agree with that, which is why I chose to blame the EB generically.

The article mentions the words double action, and by contrasting the two systems in the way the author does, most people would immediately assume 'single action' refers to the other.  The fact that SA is not mentioned, only clearly implied, is of course my argument.

Reading the earlier background to the EB, it is notable that the publishers were in it for profit.  It is likely that if a writer could avoid too much research on a subject, he/she would want to do so, because the cost and time involved in that could easily become prohibitive.  Therefore if they're not sure about something, one way round finding out would be to write it cleverly so that a meaning is suggested, without being actually stated.  This allows the author a get-out clause for the future (Oh no, I didn't mean that!), and this is of course the standard con- trick of journalists and even barristers the world over.

It may not be good enough for Wikipedia.  But of course if the thirsty horse doesn't find the water drinkable, he needs to find at least some evidence of another pond!