Beautiful woodworking and those bass reed blocks look awesome but definitely over engineered. I'm not much of a fan of the distance between the edge of the fingerboard and the buttons.
I imagine the button spacing from the edge is part of a different style of playing, notice no thumb strap.
What I found interesting about the base reed blocks, besides the crazy angles, is having several reeds facing each other on different sides of the same block. I wonder if that affects sound any.
Perhaps it give it more of an organ effect?...It could just be the video posted of it on the melodeon board but that bass side really has an ethereal sound to it.
The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week
