[Alan Brinton]

My bull detector isn’t going off. What you’re saying seems right to me. I got out my first generation Suzuki A-25 (Study-25), the one before the Study-25 you have, and have been playing it. This is one of my favorites. There’s a world of difference between it and, say, the early 60s Hohner Piano 26. But it is also distinctive among Suzukis. Suzuki did a lot of experimentation, especially during the 1960s and early 70s and produced a lot more different and distinctive models than either Hohner or Yamaha. But as you know, Lowboy, no two of the vintage Hohner models have the same kind of sound. And then there’s the Clavietta, of course. So there are a lot of different kinds of sounds and kinds and degrees of expressiveness to be found among vintage melodicas. The proliferation of Chinese melodicas (including the recent Hohner models and plastic Suzukis) has unfortunately been moving us in another direction, toward a less expressive generic melodica sound. I know I’m not saying anything that Melodica Worlders don’t already know.

The expressiveness of a musical instrument is inversely proportional with how easy it is to play. Is this a true general principle?