Johnny Conolly's Melodeon

[Ed Harrison]

I have just been listening to Johnny Connolly playing on the CD
"An Mileoidean Scaoilte". Its great and all done on a one row accordion.
Can someone that knows him or his playing tell me how his one row is tuned, that is dry, wet? equal temp or just intonation?

The CD info list his accordions as being a C-Hohner and a D-Martyn. I think it may be a D-Martin as from the Cajun maker Jr Martin in Louisiana.


Would appreciate any information on it. I don't have any contact information for him.

Thanks .... Ed

[StevieJ]

Funny enough I've been listening to that over the past couple of days too. Very nice stuff but there's only so much LMMH one-row I can take...

It's hard to say what kind of wetness is present because he never plays the two M voices without the rest. The bassoon (L) and piccolo (H) are bound to be tuned to concert pitch, meaning that the only tremolo available will be between the two violin (M) voices. I don't know whether you'd have to have one of the M voices tuned to concert as well, to avoid strange clashes. I'll try to find out from one of the many 4v 1-row players in my neck of the woods.

I think one of the reasons I reach saturation point with these types of boxes pretty quickly is precisely because they cover too much of the sound spectrum for my fiddler's ear. A few weeks ago I went to a workshop/group lesson at a festival in Montreal at which everybody including the teacher had 1-row LMMH boxes - except me. The tune being taught was very simple but the fact that it was coming at me in 3 octaves (from many directions at once) seemed to confuse my ear and I found it much harder to pick up than I would have expected.

Steve

[colomon]

I don't know whether you'd have to have one of the M voices tuned to concert as well, to avoid strange clashes. I'll try to find out from one of the many 4v 1-row players in my neck of the woods.

Wait, a question I can answer! If it's a normal 4-stop set up, one of the M voices will be tuned to "concert", and the other one will be a bit detuned, so you get a wet sound if both middle stops are pulled out.

I like the way they are set up, because you have a nice flexibility in sound, from low to high, quieter to very loud, and dry to wet.

[rh]

Perhaps of interest:
http://www.iol.ie/~ronolan/connolly.html
http://www.iol.ie/~ronolan/melodeon.html

[colomon]

Perhaps of interest:
http://www.iol.ie/~ronolan/connolly.html
http://www.iol.ie/~ronolan/melodeon.html

Interesting indeed.

In Newfoundland, one-rows (usually "four-stops") are still common -- both of my favorite Newfoundland bands feature them, and here's a picture from a session we visited in August showing two in action. (Played by Frank Maher and Vince Collins.)

[StevieJ]

Spoke to a tuner of Quebec boxes today who told me that the bassoon is virtually always tuned to concert pitch, but that people sometimes tune the piccolo a little high to bring out the high end. Normally this would only be done on a box with stops - if the 4 voices were fixed you'd want the piccolo in concert too, otherwise it could clash with other instruments, particularly accompaniment.