[Alan Brinton]

Gapping and Tuning:

I am now doing more adjustment of gaps during tuning. In recently tuning and gapping some vintage Japanese melodicas, I have observed that opening the gap tends to flatten the note, sometimes rather significantly. I’m convinced now that the first step with a vintage melodica should be cleaning the reeds and reed plates, if necessary. The second step should be a careful check of gapping, with adjustments — which are most likely to involve slightly opening the gaps of notes that choke or show some resistance in being played. Then tuning, which may require some further attention to gapping, since pressure applied in tuning may narrow some gaps. All notes should play freely, even when blown moderately hard. If a particular note requires more air, its reed gap may need to be closed slightly, but this is a more unusual issue than having too small of a gap.