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Piano Accordions and their players (but not Helen) normally get a lot of stick on this website and I must confess that when a piano accordion starts up in a session, it`s either Pee time or must get myself another pint time.I wondered why, as an instrument the piano accordion is fine and why do I enjoy so much the playing of Richard Jones who plays with an excellent group called Meridian,it must be the way that it is played that we dislike.The way it is normally played owing to the nature of the beast is that each note slurs into the next it is not normally crisp clear notes and crisp clear bass notes . All these notes flowing into one another must be what we dislike,but how do duet players cope . It is as I have said on this site before how on the pull notes a concertina beginner stands out as pull notes are more difficult to control than push notes.It is also very difficult not to get into this habit when playing accidental notes and I must confess to spending hours of practice recently to try to improve this aspect of my playing. Resulting in

"How many more times are you going to play that B..... tune"!!!

Al :(

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Well I can't speak for England, but I think in the US the flack that Piano Accordions get is cultural. During the 1950s and 1960s Piano Accordions probably became chiefly associated with Lawrence Welk and Polka Music and various show bands. They were covered in silly rhinstones and played by men wearing silly looking tuxedos. Even before that point they probably were not cool, but as rock and folk music started to assert itself in US culture these bands started to look downright silly. It has stigmatized the instrument, and to a certain extent all squeeze boxes ever since.

 

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Bill

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The American image pertains to certain extent here in England. Here's an extract from a short piece in the Guardian in praise of the melodeon. Admitedly a bit tongue in cheek. -

 

"The squeezebox, or melodeon as it is called in polite society, is not a mother-of-pearl encrusted goliath with an over indulgence of piano keys down one side and zillions of buttons down the other. That is a piano accordion and is to be avoided. A squeezebox is a neat wooden instrument about the size of a shoebox with 10 buttons down one side and two on the other, more than enough for anyone. From a distance, it looks like an Enigma machine and its inner workings are equally mysterious. Piano accordion players are usually called Jock or Luciano and sport bow ties and a yard of teeth. They can read music and like to show off by playing in lots of different keys. Squeezebox players answer to anything, read nothing apart from Exchange and Mart, haven't got any teeth and can only play in 2 keys - which again, is more than enough for anyone."

 

The piece ends with -

 

"Most important of all, the Squeezebox is sexy. Although it lacks the phallic thrust of the guitar or the animal magnetism of the drums, the sensuous easing of its bellows, back and forth, drives women crazy. That's what my wife says. In fact she is so concerned that my squeezebox playing will enflame other women she insists that I play it in the shed at the bottom of the garden. "

 

Which could easily apply to some of our concertina playing.

 

I must add that I regularly play with a piano accordion player of the highest quality (just in case he's listening) who uses all the best bellows and keyboard techniques to avoid the excesses of the instrument.

 

 

Mitch

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Sorry to say that the PA has had a reputation as being "naff" and not a "proper" folk instrument for a number of years (at least where I am from). I also think it is quite sad that Headington Quarry morris men are now accompanied by a PA. I imagine William Kimber "turning in his grave".

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Of course here in America we are lucky they don't call concertinas accordions.

My experience (here in America) is that concertina and button accordion people know the difference, non-players do not, and most piano accordion players insist that anything resembling a concertina or button accordion is a toy - and an accordion toy at that!

 

In fact there was quite a hullabaloo a few years ago (only amongst concertina people) when it got out that a prominent accordionist was to be responsible for the updated definition of *concertina* for the New Grove Dictionary of Music revision. Her definition was that concertinas were a subtype of accordion.

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Please elaborate. Did Wheatstone have access to Uhlig's work? Had he seen an accordion when he invented the concertina?

Both Wheatstone and Uhlig (who invented the German concertina, not the accordion) based their designs on the work of the Armenian Viennese Cyrill Demian, the inventor of the accordion.

 

It is a fact that an accordion was shown at a Wheatstone lecture in 1830, also that Wheatstone sold Demian accordions and published a method for them. The design of the first concertina (my avatar) owes much to Demian.

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Just because a guy saw the work of someone else doesn't mean that he would make the same thing. CW became familiar with CD's work and designed and built a different instrument - the concertina.

 

The early Wheatstone concertinas and Demian's accordions were *very* different instruments. ISTR that Demian's accordion was rectangular, had 5 paddle-like keys secured to a keyboard that sat at right angles to the end of the instrument (to depress perpendicular to the bellows) with each key operating a valve that enabled a 4-note chord to sound. A total of 10 chords were available with one each for the push and pull on the bellows for each key. There were no single notes available on Demian's accordion.

 

It certainly sounds like an acchordion to me. Vastly different animal than what CW came up with.

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Well whether one considers a concertina a sub-type of accordion or not I think will in large part depend on what your definition of an accordion is.

 

Lets see, a simple definition of an accordion is a musical instrument that uses metal reeds to produce notes and the reeds are fed air via bellows.

 

And a simple definition of a concertina is a musical instrument that uses metal reeds...

 

If we take a slightly narrower but still broad definition of what an accordion is, the only thing that distinguishes a concertina is the fact that it can play melody on both sides of the instrument and that the keys are pressed parallel to the bellows movement. That being said, different types of concertinas often have more in common with certain types of accordions than they do with other concertinas in regards to how they are played. An anglo has an awful lot in common with a diatonic button accordion and duets seem to have a lot in common with chromatic button accordions.

 

I guess the basic problem is that the accordion and the concertina both are not single instruments or even tightly defined sets of instruments but rather classes of distinct but related instruments. Given that the two classes are so closely related it is not suprising that many people just lump them all into the Accordion category... even if it does mean us Concertina Players have a harder time getting a date :).

 

--

Bill

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I also think it is quite sad that Headington Quarry morris men are now accompanied by a PA. I imagine William Kimber "turning in his grave".

Why? Surely it depends on whose hands it's in? <_<

 

As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as an intrinsically bad musical instrument; the problem comes when an instrument, for whatever reason, attracts unimaginative players. It's very easy to play a piano accordion badly, especially for a pianist of limited ability.

 

Personally, I find the piano accordion quite an interesting machine to play - there's as much scope for articulation as on any free reed instrument, but the Stradella bass brings its own challenges, especially when playing left hand scale passages! :)

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The early Wheatstone concertinas and Demian's accordions were *very* different instruments.

You might think that from looking at the Patent drawings, but I own four Demian accordions (which illustrate their development from playing 5 note chords to having single or double reeds with a simple accompaniment), as well as what are probably the oldest three concertinas known (including Wheatstone's first) and there are constructional similarities between them that are not evident in later instruments.

 

Of course both accordions and concertinas developed rapidly in the early years, and their paths diverged more and more, but intriguingly the earliest piano accordion in my collection (manufactured in the early 1850's by a Bristol piano tuner) seems to have been at least partly made by a concertina maker.

 

The one feature that really differentiates a concertina is that it has the keys mounted on its ends, not on a projecting keyboard or on the side of the instrument (though some "novel" accordion designs have leaned towards that concertina feature, over the years).

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I am not sure about " this sensuous movement of the bellows back and forth that drives women crazy"

You remind me of the elderly concertina player I visited in Manchester, many years ago, who had "defaced" the plain black bellows of his Edeophones and New Models by sticking gold or silver foil "papers" on to them. He told me it was because "people like to see the bellows moving in and out", though he didn't say anything about driving women crazy ! :o

 

most seem to wonder what the hell I am doing with my hands under the table !!

Didn't like to mention it Al ! :unsure:

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