Patent Harmonika
System: Piano and Hintermeyer,
unisonoric, logical
(Collection Oriwohl, Nr. B-78)
Patent Harmonika (single ton instrument) 1935
(Choir allocation left: 8'+8°+16'+16° / right: 8'+8°+16')
Single ton system left: Willy Hintermeyer,
Patent from 23 March 1934
Willy Hintermeyer was born on 4 August 1915 in Rosenheim. At the age of 19, he applied for a patent for his Patent Harmonika. He dispensed with ready chords for his instrument and equipped the left side with a single-tone manual with a larger range.
From a functional point of view, it is actually no more an accordion, because its essential feature, the ready chords, is missing.
Inscription: "Patent Harmonika"
Due to the large range of over 2 octaves, bass playing can be true to pitch (without wrap) be executed.
Pitch fidelity also applies to the formation of chords from single notes and their inversions, while chords of the Standard basses always sound in the same position.
Single-tone bass manuals are also referred to as melody bass. The early single-note accordions however, were still not widely distributed.
Manual left:
34 single-tone keys
The vertical rows are Janko whole-tone rows and can also be found in a Swiss patent of Kaspar Wicky from 1896. The pitch direction leads upwards from the inside to the outside.
More widely distributed than Hintermeyer's Patent Harmonika was the Harmonéon, also called Accordéon de concert, developed in 1948 by Pierre Monichon in France.
At its groundbreaking alternative to the standard bass, he conveniently transferred the C/B fingering with the same large button to the bass side. Around 1970, this instrument found its way into academic education.
Later, converter instruments were developed that made it possible to switch between standard and melody bass on the same manual. With these instruments, however, price and weight increase equally.
