Re: claviola

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ludo wrote:
>
>It looks and sounds interesting.

It's a completely unique instrument. The booklet that came with the
instruments said that it was the first in a planed line of new
instruments. They didn't hint what form those other variations would
take and we didn't get to see any of them. Sadly, I guess we never
will.

>Strange that Hohner made these in the nineties, and I never saw an ad for 
>it. 

You weren't the only one. I think they were already discontinued by
the time I first heard about them. I found mine (I actually have two
of them, although one will be going to someone else before long) being
sold in a clearance sale by a music store in Germany, thanks to a
German friend of mine. One of them had a slight mechanical problem
(that I fixed quite easily), so they sold that one to me at a bargain
price.

>Maybe if they had more publicity on this product they would have sold 
>more of them? 

Possibly, but it's hard to tell what their planned market was.
Melodica players have long wished for an instrument that could bend
notes like the Claviola, but I doubt many of them would be willing to
pay ten times the price of a melodica. Perhaps they were hoping to
sell them to accordion players, who knows?

>Then again, I don't know what pricetag it had...

I think they were about US$1000. Not totally unreasonable given the
price of accordions of comparable quality, but most harmonica and
melodica players would be very unlikely to invest in something that
cost that much. They were also very unpopular amongst the staff at the
Hohner factory - I am told that they used to call them the "Ravioli"!

The instrument has quite an intriguing history. The basic design was
developed by Hohner's resident genius Ernst Zacharias (inventor of the
Hohner Pianet and many other cool instruments) back in the 1960s, but
the principle used to generate the tone wasn't patented until 1996.
Then I believe the instrument was on the market for about a year
before it was discontinued. A real shame, as it was probably the only
really new free reed instrument to be brought out in the 20th century.

The tone generating method is quite intriguing. The reeds are mounted
"back to front", so they work like overblows on the harmonica, with
the pitch of the note being determined by a pipe connected to each
reed which does the job of the harmonica player's mouth and throat.
The note also takes on some of the tonal characteristics of the pipe,
giving it a somewhat clarinet-like quality. At the end of each pipe
(see lower picture on this page:
http://www.patmissin.com/history/claviola.html) is a small metal
slider held in place by a screw. If you loosen the screw, you can
slide the metal plate back and forth to raise or lower the pitch. You
can also use your left hand to cover the ends of the pipes, allowing
you to bend single notes or entire chords. 

As I said, I'll be putting up some audio samples at some point.

 -- Pat.