Reply To: Clavietta Labourdette
There are two things that are really remarkable in comparison to EACH other melodica:
1. CHORDS sound much better than with other melodicas, there are nearly no distortions or harmonics or whatsoever. I guess this has to do with the outside position of the reeds; so the notes come out quite undisturbed and mix “in free air”, not inside of the instrument.
2. BENDINGS: Ooh, this is magic! The construction with the reeds outside allows you to bend with the left hand (I repeat: WITH THE LEFT HAND!) just by covering the reeds, so the right hand can play whatever it wants and the left hand simply “adds” bendings to the melody, at each tempo you want to, at each intensity, you can bend whole chords, and you can even play a bent note just like a “normal” note. And that is EXACTLY what I hoped when I first saw that instrument! The only problem is that I had to construct a cover for the reeds and that there isn’t enough space to bend properly because the key springs are in the way. So I’m thinking about a construction different from that, maybe with buttons instead of keys (but still with a piano layout).
Again some sound examples for bendings:
That’s what you hear:
1. Melody with bendings and bending vibrato (0:00)
2. Melody with real half-note bendings (1:24)
3. Chord bendings (1:52)
4. Melody with bendings and growl