Consertina Verses Accordians

[Theo]

Concertina and a Accordian

 

If a single button produces a chord then it's an acC(h)ORDion.

 

(So a free bass piano accordion, without a converter, is in fact a concertina )

Not necessarily! It's just not an accordion. It could be something else, perhaps as yet un-named.

[Stiamh]

Another important difference that nobody has mentioned is the fact that typically accordions have multiple reeds per button, at least two and up to six (or more - have you seen this baby currently on eBay?)

 

No doubt concertinas have been produced with more than one reed per button but I'm not aware of any - assuming that the bandoneon (or band-onion as some websites would have it - does it make you cry when you cut it?) is not classed as a concertina. (Although it seems to me to meet all of the rules for admission that have been set out here.) I don't know owt about Chemnitzers but haven't seen any references to multiple voices on the websites linked to in this thread.

 

Can anyone enlighten us on multi-voice concertinas? And is the bandoneon a concertina, or an accordion, or just something else?

 

An accordion's multiple voices, and a concertina's single voice, can both be either a curse or a blessing, in my view. But I dislike the honking sound of single-voice accordions like the Castagnari Lilly - as far as I am concerned they don't deserve admission to the accordion club!

 

Steve

[JimLucas]

(So a free bass piano accordion, without a converter, is in fact a concertina )

Not necessarily! It's just not an accordion. It could be something else, perhaps as yet un-named.

If an unsuspecting Stradella player picked it up by mistake, it was likely given several choice names.

[CaryK]

Any suggestions as to which one I should get? Is the Hohner concertina any good? I know their harmonicas are. (most of them anyway).

 

This is just my experience and may not be representative. I tried two separate Hohner D40s (20 button anglos made in China) purchased from an internet music store. The first one lasted about a month until the air button stuck in the down position and the instrument was unplayable. Up to that point I enjoyed playing it. The music store quickly sent me a replacement, which lasted 5 minutes before buttons stuck. I sent back the instrument and was refunded again From that experience taught me I decided I would not buy another low priced Hohner from China.

 

That being said you might want to start with a Stagi (made in Italy) from The Button Box, where they inspect and service the instruments before they send them out or wait till later this year and try a Wakker Rochelle model when they become available, which are made in China, but reportedly with better mechanisms and close quality control. I purchased a Stagi from The Button Box and have been generally happy with the instrument and with their service. However, I have recently upgraded to a wonderful accordion-reeded concertina made by Frank Edgley. The Stagi doesn't compare in quality or sound, but I still play it too.

 

If money is not an object there are a number of makers of quality accordion-reeded concertinas and for even more money those who make concertinas with traditional reeds. Checking out the Buyer's Guide link on the home page of this forum is a good place to start if you haven't done that already.

[David Barnert]

If I may add my two cents... for me, an essential difference is: on most accordions (not all) the left hand notes are 'ready made.' Meaning: you can press one button and you get a full chord... i.e. press the particular button and you get Amin or Bdim or C7 etc. - whereas on a concertina, on the left hand you 'make' the chords by pressing the particular buttons you want. This is actually one reason I prefer the concertina ... especially the duet ... because of this ability to create chords.

Didn't I say that already?

• On an accordion, some buttons may play more than one note (a chord). On a concertina, you must press a different button for each note played simultaneously.
  

If a single button produces a chord then it's an acC(h)ORDion.

Actually, as I understand it (and we have debated this here in years past) the "chord" in the name "accordion" is deliberate, but that's not what it means. Melodeons came first, with two rows of buttons on the right and chord buttons on the left. The right hand played melodies, hence "melodeon." When a third row of right-hand buttons was added, allowing the right hand to play chords, voila, "accordeon" (in French).

No doubt concertinas have been produced with more than one reed per button but I'm not aware of any...

Can anyone enlighten us on multi-voice concertinas?

The notorious 67-button Bastari Hayden that has been owned at different times by Moshe Braner, Jax Woehr, and Grant Levy sounds two reeds, tuned an octave apart, for every note.

[Richard Morse]

Another important difference that nobody has mentioned is the fact that typically accordions have multiple reeds per button, at least two and up to six (or more - have you seen this baby currently on eBay?)

And I've played it. Talk about loud boxes!

No doubt concertinas have been produced with more than one reed per button but I'm not aware of any

. Most people (including me) consider bandoneons and chemnitzers to be concertinas. There are also smaller hexagonal concertinas with multiple reeds which are known as organettes or abruzzese as well as the typical 2-row type.

[Dazbo]

[There are also smaller hexagonal concertinas with multiple reeds which are known as organettes or abruzzese as well as the typical 2-row type.

 

Aren't bandonikas melodeons disguised to look like concertinas (as these abruzzese are one-and-a-half row organetto similarly disguised)?

Edited July 4, 2006 by Dazbo

[Stiamh]

Actually, as I understand it (and we have debated this here in years past) the "chord" in the name "accordion" is deliberate, but that's not what it means. Melodeons came first, with two rows of buttons on the right and chord buttons on the left. The right hand played melodies, hence "melodeon." When a third row of right-hand buttons was added, allowing the right hand to play chords, voila, "accordeon" (in French).

 

I think you're in the potatoes, as they say up here, with this account of how accordions came to be so called. The first instrument to bear the name Akkordeon was patented by the Austrian Damian in 1829, and AFAIK it did in fact play only chords.

 

The history of the name melodeon doesn't seem to be all that straightforward either. Here's an interesting instrument I saw in a folk museum recently:

 

 

 

[JimLucas]

The history of the name melodeon doesn't seem to be all that straightforward either.

The name "melodeon" that has been independently adopted for more than one kind of instrument. It can mean different things in different countries, and even to different people in the same country.

 

Among American-made, piano-like reed organs, "melodeon" and "harmonium" have been used to distinguish organs that operate on negative pressure (suction) from those that operate on positive pressure, though I can never remember which is which.

[Richard Morse]

Actually, as I understand it (and we have debated this here in years past) the "chord" in the name "accordion" is deliberate, but that's not what it means. Melodeons came first, with two rows of buttons on the right and chord buttons on the left. The right hand played melodies, hence "melodeon."

It's generally regarded that Demian invented (actually, his patent was recorded as being recieved) on May 11, 1829 - and named his construction the Accordion (actually spelled that way - see patent info). It had 5 keys, each which actuated a chord on the push and another on the pull.

 

About 1831 Pichenot Jeune is credited for producing a similar-looking 8-key instrument that played only single notes bisonaurally, diatonically, which was capable of playing melodies rather than being restricted to chords and was referred to as a clavier melodique. Being a "melodic keyboard" I would think that it was played with the keyboard in full view (as were typical piano/organ keyboards of the day) - rather than having the keyboard vertically off to the right as accordions typically have today. But because one had to "pump" it, it was probably played vertically (and it's arrangement of playing the tonic on the PULL rather than push and having the air dump positioned for a "reversed" hand at one's lap seems to support this theory (I find them more comfortable to play them this way too). Interestingly, these "flutinas" - as the English first called them (and they subsequently became generally known as) were internally constructed like English concertinas.

 

Over the next decade people were experimenting with ways to make the "clavier melodique" easier to play, less expensive, and more "full" sounding. The result was a combination of flutina (which was played with the *right* hand) and accordion (which was originally played with one's *LEFT* hand) which resulted in the "accordeon allemande" which was oriented to be played horizontally - by both hands. The English seem to have called this mutation a "melodeon" possibly because these instruments could play melodies (as in *tunes* rather than the definition of a "line of music").

When a third row of right-hand buttons was added, allowing the right hand to play chords, voila, "accordeon"

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

[David Barnert]

When a third row of right-hand buttons was added, allowing the right hand to play chords, voila, "accordeon"

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

Hardly matters, as evidently my concept was incorrect (wish I remembered the name of the box player who mentioned it to me at Ashokan back in the 1980s).

 

But what I was saying was that with 2 rows, the RH plays melodies and the instrument is called melodeon. With 3 rows, the RH plays chords and the instrument is called accordeon. Somehow, "accordeon" became "accordion" in English, but the same transformation never happened to "melodeon."

[Daniel Hersh]

[There are also smaller hexagonal concertinas with multiple reeds which are known as organettes or abruzzese as well as the typical 2-row type.

Aren't bandonikas melodeons disguised to look like concertinas (as these abruzzese are one-and-a-half row organetto similarly disguised)?

I was waiting for someone to mention bandonikas, which could at least as accurately be described as concertinas set up to play like melodeons...

 

To me the key points in distinguishing concertinas and accordions are:

* concertinas ALWAYS have buttons that travel toward the bellows when pressed and accordions ALWAYS have buttons or keys that travel toward the player

* concertinas ALMOST ALWAYS have left- and right-hand key layouts based on the same principle and accordions ALMOST ALWAYS have left- and right-hand layouts based on different principles

* concertinas USUALLY have only buttons that play one note (though perhaps with multiple reeds in multiple octaves) and accordions USUALLY have buttons on the left-hand side that play chords.

 

I think that button/key travel direction is most often cited as the key distinguishing feature, and based on that a bandonika is a concertina. But since it doesn't meet my second and third criteria I think that it could at least as accurately be described as an accordion/concertina hybrid. A hybrid coming from the other direction (an accordion by the first criterion, but I believe a concertina by the other two) can be found here.

 

Daniel

[Dazbo]

To me the key points in distinguishing concertinas and accordions are:

* concertinas ALWAYS have buttons that travel toward the bellows when pressed and accordions ALWAYS have buttons or keys that travel toward the player

* concertinas ALMOST ALWAYS have left- and right-hand key layouts based on the same principle and accordions ALMOST ALWAYS have left- and right-hand layouts based on different principles

* concertinas USUALLY have only buttons that play one note (though perhaps with multiple reeds in multiple octaves) and accordions USUALLY have buttons on the left-hand side that play chords.

Daniel

 

And just to add to the confusion is a Swiss Örgeli where the treble buttons and bass buttons are at 90 degrees to each ofther.

 

[bill_mchale]

When a third row of right-hand buttons was added, allowing the right hand to play chords, voila, "accordeon"

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

Hardly matters, as evidently my concept was incorrect (wish I remembered the name of the box player who mentioned it to me at Ashokan back in the 1980s).

 

But what I was saying was that with 2 rows, the RH plays melodies and the instrument is called melodeon. With 3 rows, the RH plays chords and the instrument is called accordeon. Somehow, "accordeon" became "accordion" in English, but the same transformation never happened to "melodeon."

 

Huh? Even a single row Melodeon can play a couple of chords on the right hand, and some two row boxes can play a decent selection of chords on the right hand. Even with three rows, most diatonic button accordions cannot play all chords on the right hand. I think ultimately if we are going to be looking at chords it is the left hand, not the right hand that matters. Now Chromatic accordions (both button and piano) can play all chords on the right hand.

 

--

Bill

[Theodore Kloba]

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[JimLucas]

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[Theodore Kloba]

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[JimLucas]

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I have that saying on a tee shirt like this (received as a gift):

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