I bought a new Weltmeister Cajun, about a year and a half ago. I`m happy with it, although its not really the sound I want. I recently had it repaired for a broken reed.

The repair guy told me I had five broken reeds and I thought I only had 1 Broken reed. He says
I`m playing too hard, and he`s never seen anything like it. Is this strange? or normal?

Richard Beaulieu
Montreal,PQ

Hi Richard .... i encoutered, tuned & fixed several diatonic and especially Cajun-accordions with broken reeds over the last 2 years.
- I think after meeting several players in Europe, that there are roughly sort of two classes in playing style: The pump and haul heavyweights who might think it's normal or a real sport to play as loud as possible, and the more subtle ones who usually have a much lighter sound.
- For me I always feel reluctant when a heavy player wants to try out or borrow one of my accordions; with a guitar you can spot when a string breaks, but with reeds you don't, or you must check the innards each time. The ones to watch out for are those who brag they never break or broke a reed when asked.
- The reeds to go first are usually the top H(igh) reeds, thus not so noticeable at first. I found broken reeds in several accordions, all fitted with top class Binci's and one Harmona (Weltmeister).
- I can never point my finger towards who did it and when, but for now i have decided not to lend my accordions out to especially heavy players. Seems unfriendly, but it takes about 2 months to order and get replacements, and it's pretty expensive too for postage: Mr Binci only uses FedEx airfreight, too many items gets lost in Italian standard mail, happened to me.
- With heavy loud playing also reeds do go out of tune quite a bit faster: I have witnessed this with 3 Acadians, all tuned by Marc about 2 years ago. Don't want to brag, but mine is still perfectly tuned, but i don't play that one every day to consider that scientific proof. One time i lent a Martin C to some one, after i just tuned it, and found i had to fine tune it once again. - regs Nout

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Replying to:

I bought a new Weltmeister Cajun, about a year and a half ago. I`m happy with it, although its not really the sound I want. I recently had it repaired for a broken reed.

The repair guy told me I had five broken reeds and I thought I only had 1 Broken reed. He says
I`m playing too hard, and he`s never seen anything like it. Is this strange? or normal?

Richard Beaulieu
Montreal,PQ

Richard,
Sorry to say, but I must agree. Reeds will break, if subjected to excessive air pressure. I call this " abuse ", for lack of a more tactfull word. In my experience, Binci reeds seems to be able to take the most "abuse" before breaking. Some other brands just will not take the pressure.
Learn to play a little "softer" and use the air by-pass more, and your reeds will thank you. .
Jude

You can play loud without breaking reeds, just don't play so loud that the reeds change pitch (while playing). If you're playing that loud, then you need to change your approach.

Should have bought a MARTIN you can play hard drink hard and do a lot of things with it and the reeds stay just as tight as the day it was laid mean made