G'day,

Jon Freeman: You are pretty well right about Jimmy Shand's 'Morino' - in fact Hohner brought that one out as a Shand Morino. In making the distinction of calling only the German style, simple bass, models 'meleodeons' I am following Hohner's catalogue classification ... and keeping in mind that most old players on the Australian mainland

CarolC .. and you get it right about the "Continental Chromatic". This has an arrangement that is now used (in mirror image) as the "Free Bass" that you find on 180 bass piano accordions ... or as the bass and of Continental Chromatics (once know as 'Chromaticas' in Italy). It has the same note in and out, varying by a semitone in the "backwards slanted" angle, 2 semitones in the "forward slanted" angle and 3 semitones horizontally ... believe me, it made sense to someone ... and it works for some bloody good players!

BTW: CarolC - You seem to use the sense of "diatonic" somehow meaning "different note in and out". This is just coincidence. If you have a simple (kid's toy) piano accordion with no 'black notes', it plays a diatonic scale of 'C' ... in or out. A British Chromatic Accordion, in (say B/C/C#) plays a different note in and out on any one key ... but is fully chromatic ... as is a full 30 (or more) key Anglo-chromatic concertina, despite having 2 rows of diatonic German concertina at its heart. Maybe, I'm just pushing my pedant barrow ... but I feel we have enough problems getting folks to understand the instruments when we get it right ... let alone muddying the waters with terms of dubious accuracy.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

BTW: There are three different variations on this: "B" Tuning, "C" Tuning and Norwegian or "A" ? Tuning ... ?

open mike: In strict definitions, a concertina is a specific class of accordion.