The Paolo Soprani Story (continued)

The Soprani company of Castelfidardo happily fed the demand for 21 and 23-button Irish boxes of whatever tuning and a number of different models have appeared down through the years, all with 8 bass buttons (see photos). There were a succession of grille designs and logo changes which help to date the approximate year of manufacture. They also supplied very adequate piano accordions in the sizes 34 to 41 piano keys with between 72 and 120 basses The original factory sound was a strong tremolo/musette (the 'wet' sound) achieved by tuning some sets of reeds slightly 'off'. The 'low' or 'heavy' reeds on a 4-voice box and one of the 'middle' or 'light' sets of reeds are normally tuned to standard concert pitch. The other middle reeds are then tuned one slightly higher than concert and one slightly lower. The amount of 'off tuning' is commonly measured in cents (hundredths of a tone) and about 12-15 cents would give what is called "swing" tuning, whereas 20-25 cents off would result in a really "wet" musette sound. Interesting variations in tone can be achieved by tuning the higher set a slightly different amount "off" from standard compared to the lower set. The reeds are set in blocks of wood which rest on the 'soundboard'. In the earlier boxes this soundboard was made of wood, more recently they used metal soundboards. It is thought by some players that the wooden soundboards could handle a wetter tuning better than the metal ones, which is one reason why there has been a move towards a "drier" sound in recent years.    NEXT >>

Late 1940s/early 1950s 19-treble/4 bass Irish-tuned D/C# Paolo imported specially into the USA by the O'Byrne-DeWitt music company of Boston. (Chris Moran)

Similar specification model in black
(Jim Coogan)