Subject: RE: Melodeon comparisson
From:
awig
Date: 30 Aug 02 - 08:59 AM
From my experience, preference for wet/dry tuning comes from personal habit or fashion more than the the any percieved notion of one style being better for morris or Irish sessions.
With the "trading up" of instruments over the years there are now masses of Italian boxes played for morris. In my opinion the little Dino Baffetti black pearl (yes, that's what I play) is a morris instrument par excellance. The tuning is what they call "swing" which is somewhere between totally dry and Hohner type tremolo. Though, to my ear, closer to a dry tuning.
It's small, light, responsive and can be extremely loud. It's also responsive enough to be played at a nice volume to fit in with other instruments in a session.
I played for a local Northwest Morris side where we had three of these little Baffetti's often with a six peice drum section. Brilliant!
As for Irish sessions. There are plenty of people who come to my local Irish session (mostly of Irish descent) who play the "big red Paolo Soprani" style of button accordeon with so much tremolo that it seems to drip out of the instrument. One of the regulars has been fascinated by my Baffetti (she hasn't seen anything like it in their Irish musical circle) and the last I heard was making enquiries about dry or swing tuned button accordeons.
The fashion with professional Irish musicians seems now to be with dry tuned instruments, but not everyone plays them and the fashion may change back again.
Andrew.
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sj
