Musical instruments at sea

This is what you need. A proper pipe organ

Antonisa organ.jpg

Antonisa, Designed by Bruce King and built by Hodgdon Brothers of Maine, She's cold moulded, and I love the oval skylights

Antonisa sailing.jpg

Antonisa motoring.jpg
 
My mid-range acoustic guitar, has been aboard for many years, from cold damp winters in uk to the hot tropics
and I would say she sounds the better for it...
 
My dad was good mouth organ player. With a box of matches he “drummed” the rhythm on the table, so he played rhythm and melody. Mostly tango´s. I bought him a new expensive mouth organ for his birthday.
That evening, I was lying on the couch in front of the wood stove and wanted to try myself how the organ sounded. As usual the cat had made herself comfortable on my stomach.
I love music, cant play anything. So I hooted the mouth organ.
The cat became a whirling devil, jumped up, but my couch is below the side deck, there is not much hight, so cat bounced back into my face and left to sit all hairs up hissing under the table.
I had some nasty scratches in my face when I posted the organ to my dad.
 
I took a baritone Uke this year, same tuning as a guitar but about the size of a half size guitar, by pleased with the sound and I couldn't manage a summer without a bash on the guitar.
 
Sophie19 said:
Any of the free reed instruments, concertina, melodeon, button or piano accordions will be fine aboard, no going out of tune and don't take up much space.
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I was concerned about the reeds rusting. As a keyboard instrument (mine is a Parrot - one way to take a parrot to sea:)). it is the most likely to produce a recognisable tune under my fingers.
 
Understand your concern but I have always taken either my Hohner pokerwork D/G melodeon or my hohner button accordion sailing. Always stored down below in their cases, only played in the cockpit on nice evenings. No probs. I read somewhere that boxes were often the instrument of choice on commercial sailing ships in the late 19thC and early 20th.

For my sins I played for a Morris side for many years. The lads danced out in all weathers and I had to play for them. Only precaution I took was placing the melodeon in a bin bag with the bottom torn off to protect the card and paper belows.
 
Snag with all wind instruments is that you can't play and sing at the same time! I play mouth -organs( I have blues harps in 7different keys,one diatonic in C which is 20+ years old,and a chromatic in G) . I also sing a bit ( most portable instrument in the world,the voice!) but not at the same time---
 
Joker said:
I carry a clarinet on board. They're not difficult to learn to play, and I practice during long passages.
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When I first acquired one, I booked some lessons with a tutor. He was not available for a couple of weeks so I had a go with a "teach yourself" manual.

When I eventually arrived at my first lesson, the tutor asked me to show what I had taught myself. After my "rendition" (Stranger on the Shore I think) he said, "Not bad, you have something in common with Mozart".

Bursting with pride asked what. "He used to play it upside down as well".
 
I have a flute aboard it is my second. The first lasted for 7 years cruising and was then needing repadding. The cost was such I just bought another cheap one.

My playing is still pretty rubbish but that is nothing to do with the flute.

Currently I am in Grenada for hurricane season and there is a very active jam session every week. guitars are common, a Soprano Saxophone is a regular, mandolins, flutes violins, harmonicas all turn up and there is a regular who plays an old rusty saw with a screwdriver. The latter is surprisingly good!
 
Used to play accordion (definition of a gentleman ... someone who can play the accordion, and doesn't!) until a trapped nerve in my shoulder put a stop to it

Also used to repair accordions etc. and ...

Sophie19 said:
Any of the free reed instruments, concertina, melodeon, button or piano accordions will be fine aboard, no going out of tune and don't take up much space. .
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... I have to disagree with that.

As I said in my earlier post, older proper concertinas, which were the instrument of choice for many shanty men etc., usually have brass reeds and will survive passably well on board provided the bellows are kept dry. Some though had steel reeds and these will rust and as they rust they'll go out of tune, start sticking and generally sound dire. Plus they'll be all but impossible to replace without ruining the instrument and since second hand prices for proper (as opposed to cheap modern) concertinas start in the high hundreds and then head for the stratosphere (a friend of mine recently paid over £8k, yes, really, for a restored Jeffries Duet) you don't want to risk it!

Cheap concertinas of the modern variety from the likes of Hohner and the far East invariably have accordion reeds fitted because genuine concertina reeds have to be hand made individually. Accordion reeds are made of spring steel and really don't want to be exposed long term to a salt laden damp atmosphere. OK, if it's a cheap job from Hobgoblin et al it won't sound that great to start with and can be regarded as a throw-away item but I wouldn't take a decent accordion or any other squeezebox on board for long periods.

Oh and free reed instruments do go out of tune - they're just such a pain to return that the rest of us have to tune to match the squeezebox!

Graham_Wright said:
I was concerned about the reeds rusting. As a keyboard instrument (mine is a Parrot - one way to take a parrot to sea:)). it is the most likely to produce a recognisable tune under my fingers.
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I have a Parrot 120 base, stonking piece of kit! They did come in two varities - very very good Parrots and utterly pants Parrots! I got a very very good one

I certainly wouldn't contemplate taking that on board (for one thing it's way too big of course) as I too would be very concerned about rust attacking the metalwork. It's not just the reeds you have to worry about, the bass section has a mechanism that looks like an explosion in a coat hanger factory and even light surface rust would ruin the action

I was once presented with a 32 bass accordion in several Tescos carrier bags that had been living for several years in a saloon seat locker on a narrowboat (note, damp but not salty environment)

Most of the reeds had fallen off the reed racks for starters - they're secured with beeswax and don't appreciate being left lying around in hot vehicles ... or boats

The bellows had come unglued from the bellows ends - fabric covered cardboard bellows (as is usual) and thin plywood end pieces

Some of the reeds were rusty and the bass mechanism was seized up solid

Liking a challenge and having little else to do at the time as I was, ahem, "resting", I had a go at getting it playing again. It did, eventually, and after an awful lot of work on the reeds especially to clean and retune them (retuning is accomplished by scratching or filing very small amounts of metal from the base or tip of the reed to change its pitch - there's a limit to how much retuning a reed can take before it's too thin to work properly and has to be replaced) it did actually play again although it never sounded terribly good and it eventually ended up as a wall ornament in a pub

More recently I was asked to take a look at a 48 bass Hohner that had been left on the back seat of a car in the sun, took a look and told the fella he'd find it cheaper to skip it and buy a new one 'cos there'd be weeks of work trying to sort out the mess it'd made inside it - free reed instruments aren't supposed to have all the reeds rattling around inside them!
 
Hi Brigantia, of course I bow to your superior knowledge and withdraw all my earlier comments. Clearly, having played my old Hohner for some 25 years and on a boat for the last eight, it having avoided rusting and is only out of tune on a couple of high notes that never or only rarely get played, I must be extraordinarily lucky. After two years my button accordion must be lucky too.

Also, as I am sure you are aware, fiddles and guitars need tuning every time they come out of a case. Free reed instruments need tuning, depending on how they are played, once a year at most. Or maybe my boxes are just exceptional at staying in tune too. Amazing really, I wonder how normal box players manage, with rusting reeds and going out of tune every other minute.

Thanks

Steve
 
Sophie19 said:
Hi Brigantia, of course I bow to your superior knowledge and withdraw all my earlier comments. Clearly, having played my old Hohner for some 25 years and on a boat for the last eight, it having avoided rusting and is only out of tune on a couple of high notes that never or only rarely get played, I must be extraordinarily lucky. After two years my button accordion must be lucky too.

Also, as I am sure you are aware, fiddles and guitars need tuning every time they come out of a case. Free reed instruments need tuning, depending on how they are played, once a year at most. Or maybe my boxes are just exceptional at staying in tune too. Amazing really, I wonder how normal box players manage, with rusting reeds and going out of tune every other minute.

Thanks

Steve
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Now, now, don't get annoyed! Just putting the other side of the picture as it were

An older Hohner is a good bet as it happens because of the very high quality materials used in the German instruments. An Italian job, on the other hand, fancy looking though they are, probably wouldn't last five minutes

And as for the modern Far East manufactured toys, including modern Hohners, ... erk!

Don't get me wrong Steve, I'm not saying don't ever carry a free reed instrument on a boat, I'm just sounding a note of caution because I've seen too many half decent squeezeboxes (and one or two very very good ones indeed) ruined by environmental damage often, as it happens due to my past life, through being stored aboard narrowboats

The comment about tuning was firmly tongue in cheek btw!

PS. What do you call an accordion down a manhole at 30 paces?

Perfect pitch!
 
Sophie19 said:
No. I am sorry for petulant tone. Please ignore me. Got diagnosed with prostate cancer yesterday and am tending to be a bit grumpy. Apologies mate.
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Feck! No apology necessary :eek:

Hope that gets sorted out with the minimum of grief ... if it's any comfort two of my friends have been there and both are still upright and breathing
 
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