'Child Prodigy' toy melodeon..

[QuaverRest]

So, comrades, after playing a recent gig in France with an inspiringly masterful melodeon player, I was tempted to the dark side and purchased a melodeon.. Albeit a silly toy one for £20!

Having taped off a set of reeds to give myself more air (it's very leaky so children are not capable of breaking it by squeezing with no buttons pressed.. Good idea..) it sounds shockingly good, and loud, for such a cheap little thing

Now.. If anyone owns one of these- can you play 'my love she's but a lassie yet' without running out of air on the second phrase?? I can play plenty of tunes on it, but this one seems impossible (sad face).

Is it my awful air valve technique, or a limitation of the instrument (toy)?

In any case, I must recommend that everyone purchases one. It's a lot of fun and noise, and small enough to take to work in my bag.. I work in a hospital, and have been instructed to play it not within a one mile radius of patients and radiologists.. (So you know it's good!!)

Happy squeezes,

QR

 

[Glenn]

Is it the musical equivalent of a mobile phone, namely it upsets their delicate equipment?

 

[QuaverRest]

For a hardy group of people who deal with gore on a regular basis, you'd think a bit of British folk music wouldn't hurt them.. But you'd be wrong..

 

[Matt Butcher]

I was playing harmonica in the pathology labs this morning briefly, a polka. But there are no patients around. Again on melodeon.net there are some who experimented with toy melodeons and found that if you do enough work on them they become vicious lightning fast one row monsters. Good luck with yours.

 

[QuaverRest]

Thanks Matt! I will continue to stick with it it's such a cool little thing!

I daresay if it's forensic pathology you're involved in, the patients probably don't mind very much...

 

[kimric]

The last batch of these I got were so bad as to be almost unplayable.
Check for leaks where the bellows join the frame. Replace all the valves with anything , thin velum ,bits of audio tape. Gap the reeds.
The hardest part is the bad fit between the reed and the plate, you can place the reed on a anvil and use the tip of a jewelers screwdriver and a small hammer to chase the aluminium closer to the reed, but this is a lot of work ( I did this on 25 of these boxes for a music class) they will play ok after you do these things.

 

[QuaverRest]

Thanks kimric- I will make that my project!

 

[kimric]

if one could get a decent set of bellows for these, it would almost be worth hot rodding them. I have some of these in truly shocking pink celluloid.

 

[QuaverRest]

Hahaha! I regret ordering mine before knowing I could have had it in pink.. I missed the boat there!

Even with the leaky bellows and .. Well, it's 'toyness', I'm having a whale of a time with it. It's a fun substitute for my PA when I'm at work, or for scaring my girlfriend with. The idea of hot-rodding one is most interesting..

 

[kimric]

If I knew where to get the pink celluloid I would get Weltmeister to make me a few "princess" student accordions.