Re: [Harp-L] harmoniums and bandoneons

["Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yikes! You do know! I have quite a few Jimmy Shand records on 78 & vinyl.  Wonderful music; great band as well as Jimmy's great playing. Almost like 'Texas Playboys go Scottish', in a funny kind of way. There is a vague description of Jimmy's instrument on one of the record covers, and I wondered about it, and whether some recordings are pre-'Shand-Morino' (didn't know that label till now) or not, and if so, which ones. 
Now if you know that, you may have to go offlist, or harp-l becomes 'free-reed-l'.
Still, there is certainly a connection between the two instruments, and I can't help but connect this story to my own bumbling efforts to join harmonicas and add holes etc. as well as all the 'customising' stories we read here.
Thanks for that Winslow. I'll have to up the ante, I can see, before I draw a blank with you!
RD
>>> Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> 5/12/2008 10:44 >>>
Ah, therein lies a tale - the Shand Morino.

(For those wondering who Jimmy Shand was, he was the king of Scottish traditional dance band leaders from about 1935 forward; he died at a very old age just a couple of years ago).

You know how the chromatic harmonica is basically two diatonics a semitone apart? Well, that's one of the ways you get a chromatic accordion - by having two diatonic rows a semitone apart. In Irish playing the rows are either B and C (more traditional, smoother sounding as fewer changes in bellows direction are required in keys like A and D) or C# and D (more recent, and punchier sounding). Typically these two-row boxes have 8 to 12 chord/bass buttons covering the chords most likely to be used in the keys most likely to be played. If you don't like the chords on your instrument you can cry or you can get a customizer to change them.

Jimmy Shand built on this two-rows-a-semitone-apart idea. On the right hand he had three rows - B, C, and C#. In the left hand, he had the full 120-bass Stradella system used on piano accordions and European chromatic accordions (whose right-hand button boards use a symmetrical grid of chromatic intervals not based on any scale).  Stradella bass gives you two rows of bass notes arranged in 5ths, with chords - major, minor, 7th, and  diminished - radiating  out from each main bass note in a diagonal row - lets you play accompaniment in any key instead of just a few; you can even play melodic lines, walking bass, and use chord substitutions.

The Shand Morino was a version of the Hohner Morino model built to the specifications above. It's also known as the British Chromatic System. Not all that popular anymore as far as I'm aware, and some of its former practitioners, like the very elderly but still wonderful Jim Crawford, have gone back to the more compact Irish B/C instrument.

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Thu, 12/4/08, Rick Dempster <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Rick Dempster <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] harmoniums and bandoneons
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx, winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx 
Date: Thursday, December 4, 2008, 3:11 PM

You wouldn't by any chance know what that beast Jimmy Shand had made for him
would you Winslow? Or perhaps someone from the other side of the Atlantic might
know...?
RD

>>> Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> 5/12/2008 6:01
>>>
I have to chime in. Jonathan is correct that concertinas and accordions are two
distinct types of instruments in a larger family of "squeezeboxes".
This is not always well understood by casual observers, but is very well
understood by those in the squeezebox community.

The little octagonal concertina you see at Irish jams, etc. and the bigger
breadbox-like bandoneons you see in tango orchestras (and the very
similar-looking Chemnitzers you see in midwestern polka bands)  are all
concertinas. They don't have any chord buttons (as in, press a button, get a
three- or four-note chord), they seldom have registers (different banks of reeds
that can be turned on or off to give octave and tremolo voicings), and always
have the player's hands facing inward with the palms toward each other and
the buttons pointing outward to the right and left of the player. Keys tend to
be in clusters or arrays, not in long rows, so the hand does not travel up or
down the side of the instrument when you play it. Some players claim that there
are differences in reed and reedplate design as well, but this varies with the
type of concertina.

Accordions may have a piano keyboard or a button board on the right hand side.
Either way ,the buttons or keys always point away from the player, and the
player's palms more or less face the player's chest. The low notes are
arranged vertically (and in straight vertical rows with the button boards) with
low notes closer to the player's chin and the high notes close to the laps.
The player's right hand travels up and down the keyboard or button board to
access notes, with the elbow (raised and pointed outward) as the pivot point. On
the  left hand side the buttons are again pointing outward away from the player
and may be as few as 2 or as many as 120. Most include bass notes and chords,
though some are notes only (the so-called free bass used in classical
accordion). Both left and right hand sides may have register switches that allow
different combinations of reeds for tremolo, octaves, or single notes in
different ranges.

A few players, like Norbert Gabla, have successfully hybridized the chromatic
button accordion with the bandoneon - constructed like a bandoneon but with rows
of buttons like a chromatic accordion, placed at a 45 degree angle to allow hand
travel and use of the thumb.

The one-row diatonic button accordion has a right hand side tuned exactly like
a diatonic harmonica (though it may range from Hole 2 through 11 or 3 through 12
of a 12-hole diatonic). It can be fun for a harmonica player to play around with
these, though you have to remember to use your arms to breathe, and have to
figure out how to get the right number of fingers over the range of buttons you
need as the melody travels up and down - not to mention coordinating the right
bass notes and chords with your left hand.

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Thu, 12/4/08, Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] harmoniums and bandoneons
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx 
Date: Thursday, December 4, 2008, 3:55 AM

>                                    However, the salient question here is
what was meant on the Youtube post to which the harp-l post (to which I was
replying) referred.
>                                    Very possible they were as misinformed
as I; in which case my terminology would be relevant, right or wrong.

It is possible that the common usage is changing and harmonium is in the
process of becoming the generic name.  A bit odd, since most reed organs are
not
of the harmonium type.

>                                    The distinction between
'accordion' and 'concertina' is interesting<snip>, as a
'concertina', I thought it was a matter of custom rather than any
strict
nomenclature - rather like 'mouth organ' and 'harmonica'.

The two were invented at about the same time, but are not directly related. 
Both could be termed as squeezeboxes (though this tends to be disliked by some
accordionists), but neither is a subset of the other.



 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()
`----'



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