Frequency of accordion tuning

[wirralaccordion]

How often do you have your accordion(s) tuned? Can you tell if/when your accordion has gone out of tune without actually measuring it?
N.B. I am not talking about re-tuning to achieve a different "cents width" between say M and M+ etc but when you are happy with what you started with and want to stick with that.

 

[Ikesaccordions]

It's not out of tune if you don't think it is.

 

[EMan]

I'm with Ike. If you can't notice it being out of tune, leave well enough alone. I have been playing for 69 yrs ( that's not a typo) and have never had an accordion tuned. God knows I have pounded on some that I have. I used to play out 5-6 nights a week. Now I have always had good quality accordions with hand made reeds, but nonetheless I've never had any sent out for tuning. I know I'm going to get a rash of xxccxx on this, but that's my experience. Maybe other people have had difference experiences.

 

[Giovanni]

I'm with you EMan. .I've never had an accordion tuned ,I would not even know where to get it tuned..I'm sorry to say !! My accordion is acoustic with midi wireless set up and an. Accomps module .. I have not noticed that they are out of tune...All seems ok to me.. I'm not saying I've never played a bum note or two or three ?? That was me not the fault of the accordion

 

[Ventura]

Don't blame the Accordion !

Giovanni, you are an Honest Man !

 

[Ffingers]

It's not out of tune if you don't think it is.

But what of the audience?

So many professional(?) players in dance halls, clubs and on street corners seem to have little appreciation of just how out-of-tune their instruments actually are.
Granted, tune will shift with temperature and humidity, but some of them are positively hurtful.

 

[debra]

It's not out of tune if you don't think it is.

Sadly I have to disagree. I'd say "it's out of tune when I can hear it's out of tune", but then people will think I'm a show-off...
The reality is that accordions go out of tune very slowly, and the player also slowly adjusts to what the accordion sounds like and invariably continues to think that the sound is normal. I know people who played an accordion for 30 years without having it serviced and it was horribly out of tune, yet they thought the instrument was still just fine, like new. (One of them was an accordion teacher...)
To check whether your according is out of tune, without using any measuring device:
1) put it on octave registers: LM, MH, LMH, even LH and play each note for a few seconds (pull and push). There should not be any "beating" (tremolo) to be heard, on any note.
2) put it on a single voice register (L, M, H...) and play octaves. When you play an octave there should not be any "beating" to be heard. All octaves should sound completely dry.
3) put it on MM and start with the standard A (A4=440Hz or thereabout). Listen carefully for the slow frequency of the tremolo you hear. Then go up the scale (and later down). The beating should stay almost the same as you go up (or down) but over many notes you should hear the beating starts getting faster as you go higher up (and lower as you go down). There should not be a very noticeable difference between any adjacent notes, the difference is only noticeable after moving up several notes.
If after all these tests you have not heard anything wrong then either your hearing is shot or your accordion is in tune.

How often should an accordion be tuned? Generally I'd say an accordion needs tuning about every 5 years divided by the number of hours per day it is played. So if you play one hour a day it can use a tune-up at least every 5 years. If you play for 5 hours a day it needs tuning every year. Some professional concert players have their accordion tuned twice a year, others once a year. If you play very little then somewhere between 5 and 10 years is reasonable (an accordion also goes out of tune by not playing at all). Accordions that are still in tune after 20 years do not exist!

A few years ago I played (bass) in a concert of an accordion orchestra where for one piece we had a professional concert accordion player play a solo part. His accordion had been tuned only half a year earlier. I could clearly hear that his accordion was out of tune (on some notes), and I was not the only one who could hear that.

 

[wirralaccordion]

Sadly I have to disagree. I'd say "it's out of tune when I can hear it's out of tune", but then people will think I'm a show-off...
The reality is that accordions go out of tune very slowly, and the player also slowly adjusts to what the accordion sounds like and invariably continues to think that the sound is normal. I know people who played an accordion for 30 years without having it serviced and it was horribly out of tune, yet they thought the instrument was still just fine, like new. (One of them was an accordion teacher...)
To check whether your according is out of tune, without using any measuring device:
1) put it on octave registers: LM, MH, LMH, even LH and play each note for a few seconds (pull and push). There should not be any "beating" (tremolo) to be heard, on any note.
2) put it on a single voice register (L, M, H...) and play octaves. When you play an octave there should not be any "beating" to be heard. All octaves should sound completely dry.
3) put it on MM and start with the standard A (A4=440Hz or thereabout). Listen carefully for the slow frequency of the tremolo you hear. Then go up the scale (and later down). The beating should stay almost the same as you go up (or down) but over many notes you should hear the beating starts getting faster as you go higher up (and lower as you go down). There should not be a very noticeable difference between any adjacent notes, the difference is only noticeable after moving up several notes.
If after all these tests you have not heard anything wrong then either your hearing is shot or your accordion is in tune.

How often should an accordion be tuned? Generally I'd say an accordion needs tuning about every 5 years divided by the number of hours per day it is played. So if you play one hour a day it can use a tune-up at least every 5 years. If you play for 5 hours a day it needs tuning every year. Some professional concert players have their accordion tuned twice a year, others once a year. If you play very little then somewhere between 5 and 10 years is reasonable (an accordion also goes out of tune by not playing at all). Accordions that are still in tune after 20 years do not exist!

A few years ago I played (bass) in a concert of an accordion orchestra where for one piece we had a professional concert accordion player play a solo part. His accordion had been tuned only half a year earlier. I could clearly hear that his accordion was out of tune (on some notes), and I was not the only one who could hear that.

Excellent advice Paul. I don't think you'd find this in any textbook! Thanks.

 

[vivdunstan]

I had my Paolo Soprani 72 bass piano accordion retuned for the first time in its 40 years a while back. However I haven't been able to play it much since my progressive neurological disease struck in 1994 when I was aged 22. I play as much as I can, but it can be months apart (I am endeavouring to practice and learn my new chromatic button accordion more frequently!). So that probably kept it going tune wise for longer. But by the end I could tell by ear it needed retuning. And I really noticed the difference after. The accordion tuner also reattached all the leather reed valves. All in all a good job done well.

 

[petch]

On this topic I have been wondering what the effects of tuning have on reeds after being tuned over and over? How much can a reed be tuned before failure or some negative effect?

I specifically mean tuning to get it back where it belongs, and not a retune to a different standard (so not going from 442 to 440Hz)

 

[debra]

On this topic I have been wondering what the effects of tuning have on reeds after being tuned over and over? How much can a reed be tuned before failure or some negative effect?

I specifically mean tuning to get it back where it belongs, and not a retune to a different standard (so not going from 442 to 440Hz)

It really depends on the tuner. A careful tuner tries to never "overshoot", meaning raising or lowering the pitch too much and having to reverse it. It also depends on other defects. Sometimes I only discover after trying to correct the tuning that a reed is actually somewhat loose, and then after fixing it tuning needs to be adjusted again. Also, some tuning jobs I have seen the result of can only be described as "detuning jobs"... so more damage is done...
The reality is that when an accordion is maintained well by a good tuner it can easily be tuned 20 times before the reeds start having trouble (because too much material has been removed over time. For an amateur whose accordion requires tuning every 5 years that means the reeds may last 100 years. For a professional whose accordion requires tuning twice a year it means the reeds are "used up" after 10 years. That's why I generally advise against buying a used accordion from a professional concert accordion player who has been using it full time (say 8 to 10 hours a day).

 

[JeffJetton]

What's my frequency of accordion tuning?

440 Hz, usually

 

[Tom]

I have a note or two "out" in my good accordions that I can hear. Some used accordions I've played have been literally painful to play, especially in multi banks. Here in the US you are pretty much on your own except in a few selected locations. I hope things are better in your country. I don't tune but fortunately know someone who does. He's old so when he kicks the bucket I'll probably have to try...

 

[JerryPH]

How often do you have your accordion(s) tuned? Can you tell if/when your accordion has gone out of tune without actually measuring it?
N.B. I am not talking about re-tuning to achieve a different "cents width" between say M and M+ etc but when you are happy with what you started with and want to stick with that.

If you are Manfred Leuter and own a custom hand made Gola that you had commissioned just for you and play around the world... according to him... once a year and only ONE person in the world touches his box, the most experienced and renown tuner from Hohner comes to his house and spends a week with him making sure it is 100% (cannot recall the name he dropped).

If you are Ed... apparently never.

I do not think many of us here actually have a valid reason to get one tuned (ie: you are a full time professional and earn your bread from playing at the higher end of playing skillsets or complete in every competition that you can find), nor have actually even measured our accordions and mostly you play for yourself at home or the odd gig in a loud bar, it simply doesn't matter.

BUT... if you can hear it, and it bothers you... get it fixed.

 

[debra]

What's my frequency of accordion tuning?

440 Hz, usually

Wow, I cannot tune that fast!

 

[debra]

I have a note or two "out" in my good accordions that I can hear. Some used accordions I've played have been literally painful to play, especially in multi banks. Here in the US you are pretty much on your own except in a few selected locations. I hope things are better in your country. I don't tune but fortunately know someone who does. He's old so when he kicks the bucket I'll probably have to try...

So it's time to learn it while the old tuner can still teach you how to do it!
I make recordings using 5 accordions and typically when I find that one note is a bit off I stop recording and tune the note first. By doing this "spot tuning" I can postpone the complete tuning jobs for quite a while.

 

[Tom]

So it's time to learn it while the old tuner can still teach you how to do it!
I make recordings using 5 accordions and typically when I find that one note is a bit off I stop recording and tune the note first. By doing this "spot tuning" I can postpone the complete tuning jobs for quite a while.

Thanks Paul, good advice!

 

[EMan]

Just to clarify: if I picked up one of my accordions and it didn't sound right, I would have it looked at. If you play solo all the time, you're less likely to notice it needing a tune. If you play with other instrumentalists you might hear it more pronounced. and if you play classically with it would again be more pronounced. Just thought I'd clarify that Jerry.

 

[JerryPH]

Just to clarify: if I picked up one of my accordions and it didn't sound right, I would have it looked at. If you play solo all the time, you're less likely to notice it needing a tune. If you play with other instrumentalists you might hear it more pronounced. and if you play classically with it would again be more pronounced. Just thought I'd clarify that Jerry.

I've never seen ANY of your instruments as being anything short of immaculate!

 

[Dingo40]

On this topic I have been wondering what the effects of tuning have on reeds after being tuned over and over?

Clearly, after all that handwork, they are now handmade reeds!