Accordina plans - parts

[Chuck Morrison]

Hi,
Over the last week or so I've become enamored with the Accordina, wind/reed instrument invented in France and apparently only built by a few people, again in France. I never heard of it before, but there are some masters who play and record classical to jazz and of course French music with it. I was wondering if anyone knew of a source for plans, reeds and valves needed to build one of these ? I hate to buy one (around $2000US) and dismantle it just to figure it out.

Chuck Morrison

[Jim McConkey]

Looks like a melodica with buttons instead of keys. You could find a Hohner melodica for 1/100 of the price and replace its keys with buttons. I remember a place called Dr. Ike's Boxpital, which repairs accordions. If you can find them, they may have some suitable parts. I also found a Yahoo Group call Boxmaker that might be of interest. There aren't many plans to be found, and even most amateur box makers buy the reeds premade from a specialist.

[Pat Missin]

Here's a link to the US patent for the Accordina (although the patent doesn't use that name, calling it instead a "chromatic harmonicon"):

www.google.com/patents/US2461806

It has some diagrams that show the basic construction. Some versions of the Accordina have a piano-style keyboard and there's also a similar (and similarly expensive) instrument called the Vibrandoneon.

[Nicholas Blanton]

Hey, a Melodica based on the musette accordion system. You could do whole tone triplets with ease! If you go to the Pierre Dreux site, who's making them, and listen o some of the sound clips, accordionists like Richard Galiano seem to be doing nice music with them. There are few players of that system over here in the US ( though the Russian bayan is similar). Maybe a place like the Button Box has one with bad bellows and bass, and you could get a decent deal on it and re-assemble it into an Accordina.

[Chuck Morrison]

Thanks, I'll check out the box... sites. It seems to be mostly accordionists who dabble with this instrument. What fascinates me is the harmonica like sounds that you can get from it, and chording, which is difficult, at best on a harmonica.

[Casey Burns]

Hi Chuck,

Just joined this forum and I see you have interest in Accordinas. I have two - one which is made by Marcel Dreux that I currently have listed on eBay (the listing explains why) and an original Borel. The latter I have taken apart a little bit to see how these work. Eventually I want to do a full teardown to clean it and restore it to full playability (it actually works now but there is all sorts of old dried out wax and/or shellac inside). Let me know by PM if you want copies of these data.

Casey Burns

[Greg Robinson]

Hi Casey,
Please post the data here! Any information posted on the forum is preserved in the forum library - available for future use by others. Thanks!

[Chuck Morrison]

I thought I'd follow up on this thread as the last item was a request for more info to be posted here. I ended up purchasing Casey's Marcel Dreux accordina and it arrived today in great shape. I've attached a photo of this accordina along with one built several decades earlier by Borel.

Borel and Dreux accordinas

I'll post another photo later of Casey's Borel dismantled so you can see some of the details. I'll mention in passing that the limitation of 150k on files has required me to severely reduce the color resolution of these files.
Cheers !

[Chuck Morrison]

Here's the first section of the interior parts photos that Casey sent me. I had to cut up the nice montage he sent into 3 parts and reduce the color palette to meet the 150k limit on files. Hopefully these will help any who want to know what's in these little beasts.

Borel accordina interior part 1

[Chuck Morrison]

Here's the second section of the interior parts photos

Borel parts 2nd photo

[Chuck Morrison]

The last part of the interior parts photos

Borel parts 3rd file

[Greg Robinson]

Hi Chuck,
You might try the jpg format rather than the png you used this time. The lossy compression of jpg preserves more detail in photographs than the lossless compression of png for the same file size. Png is better for text or line art.

[Chuck Morrison]

Greg,
The originals were jpgs. One was over a Mb and the other 4 Mb. It was a decrease in resolution and reducing the number of colors that brought it down in this case, not png vs jpg. Still, I'll keep it in mind for next time if it's close. Thanks for the tip.

[Mark Swanson]

It looks like you original photos before shrinking were high resolution photos. Try taking the original photos in a lower "for the web" setting on the camera. Then they will shrink down a whole lot better.

[Jason Rodgers]

This is really interesting. I was not aware of these curious little "mouth accordions." Can you explain more about what we are seeing in the photos? What is the path of air through the instrument?

[Greg Robinson]

Keeping the resolution and colour depth high, but increasing the jpg compression works best for photo's (and usually results in the photo keeping good detail). The png format only allows you to reduce file size by reducing the resolution or colour depth due to the lossless compression.

[Chuck Morrison]

This is really interesting. I was not aware of these curious little "mouth accordions." Can you explain more about what we are seeing in the photos? What is the path of air through the instrument?

I was going to try to draw something to illustrate the air path but it's difficult to capture as a 2D diagram. I'll try it this way...

The mouthpiece is mounted on the bottom of the case (of the instrument, not the carrying case). The bottom of the case is an air tight chamber under a block where all the valves are located but the only way the air can escape is through a valve opening.When a button is pressed a path opens from the chamber to the reed associated with the valve/button. The air flows past the reed, which has to move to let the air past, since the reed blocks the opening. The vibrating air is now in the outer chamber (ok, that's not technically a very good statement, but we're thinking air path) where it finally escapes through opening(s) that face down towards the mouthpiece.

There are several variants of case design and internal details, but for the most part the air path is the same. Below is an old advertisement for the Original Borel I found on a German site.

Old accordina advertisement

Just as a point of interest, it doesn't appear that a cheaper student version of an accordina is being produced currently. The original Borel version was made in the Beauscher factory and was marketed as a practice/travel instrument for accordion players, not as a viable wind instrument in and of itself. Check out http://www.accordinas.com/index.php?lg=1&rbq=1 for more historical notes.

[Jason Rodgers]

Wow, only manufactured since the 50s, huh? I suppose all the reasons given for its narrow use and visibility are the reason I'm ignorant of this instrument. A quick sampling of videos on youtube, though, show that it's capable of filling all the roles of the accordion, and more: Bach, Hot Jazz, Irish traditional, and I'm guessing Piazzola tango.

So, not understanding the various key systems of the accordion, what's the difference between chromatic and diatonic button layouts?

[Chuck Morrison]

I have to say I don't know much about accordion button fingerings/tunings. I did find an accordion diagram on the web that seemed to fit in terms of where the notes are, but it wasn't in exactly the same configuration. I redid it and show it below. This would be chromatic in my book, but I don't know what the real accordion terminology for this would be. This is how mine is tuned.

Accordina finger diagram

If you follow the light colored keys you'll see how to play a diatonic scale in C. One more button down on the bass end and it would have the same range as most guitars.

[Chuck Morrison]

Wow, only manufactured since the 50s, huh? I suppose all the reasons given for its narrow use and visibility are the reason I'm ignorant of this instrument. A quick sampling of videos on youtube, though, show that it's capable of filling all the roles of the accordion, and more: Bach, Hot Jazz, Irish traditional, and I'm guessing Piazzola tango. ...

I had no knowledge of it until I saw a video of Angelo DeBarre and Ludovic Beier a few months ago. Ludovic was playing an accordina and I was completely floored. So far I haven't actually heard anyone do anything but single line solos with it, but it's very easy to play chords and I'd guess chord solos as well.

I see that Hohner sells replacement single reeds (Chromatic Harmonica) on their parts website, so it should be quite possible to do some initial experimenting without too much outlay. They aren't mounted on anything, but you gotta start somewhere.