Caj wrote:Well, then it's a counter-example to rule # 2: you have an accordion whose buttons travel along the bellows.
Dang, caught up by one exception (or maybe two), because I was trying to make the rules cover
every case. :roll: Thanks for the catch.
If there's anyone out there still reading this thread besides Caj and glauber, the exceptions are the "organetto," essentially a button accordion in a concertina shell; and the "franglo," a somewhat similar instrument made (only briefly, I think) by Colin Dipper. From the only online description I can find of the franglo, it's unclear whether the left hand has chords or simply bass notes. These are rare birds: Even though I've played concertinas for 20 years, I've never seen either one of these.
Hoping to bring this thread to a close (on my terms
) I think it can be resolved in one of two ways.
The simplest way is to reduce the formula to rule (2) alone, buttons that travel in the same direction as the bellows. In this formulation, the organetto and franglo are concertinas; free-bass accordions are not.
Alternatively, one could keep both rules:
(1) Absence of prearranged chords.
(2) buttons that travel in the same direction as the bellows,
and specify that concertinas always satisfy both (1) and (2), but accordions never satisfy
both (1) and (2) in a single instrument.
This would put the organetto and franglo in the accordion camp, while still treating free-bass accordions as accordions.
glauber wrote:
"... the size and shape of the reeds and how the reeds are mounted."
glauber, I think there's too much variation in these aspects to make them useful rules for distinguishing concertinas from accordions.
As for concertina.net, Caj and I both participate there (which is probably where we should have taken this discussion).
--C#/D