Playing The Button Accordion
There is a wide variety of styles and forms of accordions. Piano, chromatic and diatonic accordions are just a few of the most popular types. The button accordion is another important branch of this family tree, used since it was first developed in the late nineteenth century.
The button accordion is an adaptation of an older and more basic instrument known as the melodeon. The button accordion has a unique physical characteristic, with an extra row of buttons that have been pitched a semi-tone above or below those of the melodeon. Using the bellows, the musician can actually create two notes from one single button. This manipulation gives the button accordion more fingering economy and articulation.
There are variations within the family of button accordions. The widest variations can be seen on the basic construction, keyboard systems, action and tuning of the individual instruments.
The diatonic is one of the most popular of the button accordion styles. Diatonic accordions have melody-sized keyboards that are limited to the notes of the diatonic scale. Just one key, or a small number of keys, can provide these notes. An interesting aspect of the diatonic accordion as that the bass side usually contains the principal chords of the instrument’s key and the root notes of those chords.
Diatonic button accordions are generally bisonoric, meaning that every button produces a couple of notes. One note is produced when the bellows are compressed, and the other is produced when the bellows are expanded.
However, there are few diatonic button accordions that are unisonoric. For instance, each button on the garmon produces the same note, regardless of the direction of the bellows. Other still have a combination of the two styles.
The chromatic is another well-known variation of button accordion. On this instrument, the melody-sized keyboard is composed of uniform rows of buttons. These buttons are arranged so that the pitch increases chromatically along diagonals. The bass side keyboard of this instrument is typically the Stradella system, which is one of many converter or free-bass systems.
Some instruments of this class are simply called “chromatic” accordions, even though the other types, such as the piano accordion, are also fully chromatic. Since the introduction of chromatic buttons, they have become the preference of many classical music performers. As a result the treble keyboard of this instrument is denser than that of a piano accordion, allowing a much greater musical range.
The accordion is popular around the world, and various cultures have developed their own versions of modern button accordions. These unique inventions have been adapted to suit their unique traditional styles of music. Russia alone has many styles, including the Garmon, Saratovskaya Garmonica, Livenka and the very popular Bayan accordion.
If you love the unique sound that an accordion can bring to traditional and popular music, pick up a button accordion and try your hand at playing this age-old and ever-popular instrument.
About the Author:
Essayist Angelina Pyrkins is a writer for several popular Internet magazines, on my family and kid family topics.
