[Alan Brinton]

AND NOW…. Here are some more inside photos, just taken, during which process I made an interesting discovery.

This is the original, the first Suzuki A-27. It’s a little tricky to remove the inner works from its metal tray. It does not slide out unless you bend the tray. Remove it by springing the front lip out just a bit and gently prying the inner melodica up and working it out. Then the reed cover can be unscrewed and removed. These reeds do not show signs of having been played much or of post-factory tuning. At the high end, there’s a bit of corrosion from exposure to moisture.

The discovery is this: The pads that cover the rectangular shaped key holes when the keys are not depressed are uniform. However, the holes at the low end are larger than those in the middle, and those in the middle are larger than those at the high end. This is of interest because this is one of the featured “innovations” of the recently introduced Yamaha P-37E (“Adult” Pianica). I don’t know whether this feature is to be found on any other models. Possibly it is and I have simply not noticed it. From my comparisons between the Yamaha P-37D and P-37E, I’m skeptical as to whether this feature actually makes any difference.