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Let's Discuss Accordions


ggm1960

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I recently received several e-mails in regards to a 16% off birthday sale going on this weekend at the local Music-Go-Round store conveniently located by my new digs. I checked the inventory on their website and what most piqued my interest was an accordion.

 

I must confess, I don't know shit about accordions but in recent years after hearing, and seeing them, used in songs that I like I've begun to believe they are pretty cool so I decided to part with $250 and take it home.

 

This particular model is a Silvio Marotta. A craftsman who apparently made accordions in Castelfidardo, Italy from 1930 until 1977. According to the store employee the instrument was bought in the 50's and owned by the same person/family until sold to Music-Go-Round. Indeed the instrument appears well cared for, functions and plays flawlessly even though one of the leather straps broke on me while I was trying it out in one of the practice rooms.....oops!

 

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I'm developing a list of songs I'll try to learn on it after my new straps come in. What are some of your favorites? Do you have an accordion, what kind? Fill me in on your accordion adventures!

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Wow.. Accordion adventures. I don't have any of my own. I did hear a story about a guy who went to the mall with an accordion in his back car window. When he returned to his car the window was smashed and there were two accordions in there.... (sorry, couldn't resist)

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Wow.. Accordion adventures. I don't have any of my own. I did hear a story about a guy who went to the mall with an accordion in his back car window. When he returned to his car the window was smashed and there were two accordions in there.... (sorry, couldn't resist)

 

Good one Phil! :lol:

 

John

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That's a 120 bass piano box - it plays the same note whether you squeeze or pull the bellows. The bass buttons play chords; there are versions where you can use the bass buttons to make your own chords - this is called, believe it or not, the free-bass type. Free-basing on an accordion...

 

In Ireland, where we regularly have comely maidens dancing at the crossroads, the accordion of choice has buttons on both sides. There can be one, two, two and a half, three or five rows on the melody side. There can also be any number of bass buttons. The button box, as we call it, also differs in that you will get two different notes on the pull and draw of the bellows - in principle like the harmonica.

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Many of the great musician, and very likely more then half of the great composers play Accordion.


That's just how it is.


A genius instrument you can start to play when you are very young, all there, melody , harmony, virtuosity, rhythm, dynamics....

 

 

And therein lies the danger - many is the time a starving musician, having found himself half-competent on piano and thus disposed to seek his fortune in bawdy music halls or rancid brothels, has decided to embark upon a carreer as an accordionist. The instrument is portable and its target audience is usually drunk or otherwise rendered so chemically incapable as to beyond caring for the provenance or skill of its player. If one wishes to become an accordionist all that is required is a basic grounding in music theory, a good bicycle puncture repair kit (in case the bellows leak) and a good pair of running shoes.

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I you haven't played in whore houses you're not a musician.

 

 

 

And therein lies the danger - many is the time a starving musician, having found himself half-competent on piano and thus disposed to seek his fortune in bawdy music halls or rancid brothels, has decided to embark upon a carreer as an accordionist. The instrument is portable and its target audience is usually drunk or otherwise rendered so chemically incapable as to beyond caring for the provenance or skill of its player. If one wishes to become an accordionist all that is required is a basic grounding in music theory, a good bicycle puncture repair kit (in case the bellows leak) and a good pair of running shoes.

 

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A couple of years ago I bought a very similar instrument for a very similar price.

 

I still haven't gotten beyond the boom-chick bass-chord-chord... that's pretty easy to get down and sounds "credible", but it is kind of like an early 20th century casiotone kinda deal: very repetitive.

 

But fun to play in a park while I drink whiskey from a perrier bottle.

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A couple of years ago I bought a very similar instrument for a very similar price.


I still haven't gotten beyond the boom-chick bass-chord-chord... that's pretty easy to get down and sounds "credible", but it is kind of like an early 20th century casiotone kinda deal: very repetitive.


But fun to play in a park while I drink whiskey from a perrier bottle.

 

 

There's a short list of pop songs I'd like to learn and perhaps some Godfather stuff. Other than that I might try to fit into some of the hillbilly music they play in Stone City and Waubeek on open mic night. Those folks always really dug my guitar picking, we'll see how that translates to the accordion haha!

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I found that my guitar stuff translated pretty well, as I play a lot of simple stuff. It's pretty easy to chug along some bass/chords and noodle on the right hand. Once you figure out how to navigate the left hand stuf, you find some patterns and its easy enough to fall into a groove.

 

Unfortunately, even though some folks find it entertaining, it's a lot like my piano playing, in which I can play chords/bass lines, but don't have a lot of facility with my playing of lead lines. That can be entertaining, too, but only as long as people are focused on me singing and not my playing ;) . Which, as folks note above, is enough when people are drunk, but not somethign that I'm especially proud of...

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I wouldn't expect my accordion playing to ever match my keyboard playing which has improved significantly in the last few years due to the renewed focus I've put on it. I'd really like for my piano playing to match my guitar ability but that would certainly be a while in coming yet. In any case I think I can have some fun with the accordion even though I know I won't devote a great deal of time to it and that's really all I'm hoping for.

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Nashville, 1998: the RIAA put a heavy tax on anyone who put an accordion or banjo on their record. I've had to pay this new tax many times and in spite of such a stiff penalty the banjo and accordion are reemerging in numbers that can't be ignored. This must be a sign of the music industry getting stronger even in this economy.

 

 

Russ

Nashville

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Nashville, 1998:
the RIAA put a heavy tax on anyone who put an accordion or banjo on their record.

 

 

I've never heard of that, and I know lots of banjo players and producers of banjo records. I've even make a few myself. Who pays the tax, how is it collected, who gets the money, and does this tax have a name or some sort of official document explaining it? I'd like to read up on it.

 

And what happened in 1998 that made them think of this? And are there equivalent taxes for other instruments? I know that the AFM didn't like MIDI and synthesizers very much.

 

You know that every banjo joke is also an accordion joke.

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The accordion plays a very important role in Mexican music of the Norteno region, and South Texas Tex-Mex music, its chiefest star for many years being Flaco Jimenez. The story goes that it was the Germans who brought the accordion to Mexico in the 19thc., and to this day, a number of Mexican popular rhythms are close to old German grooves.

 

 

[video=youtube;0gOWKLnOyG4]

 

Here, two Dutch lads pay honor to Flaco... and the groove comes back to Europe from whence it originated. I have to tell you, these two Dutch guys have absolutely nailed the sound of Tex-Mex.

 

[video=youtube;Ss-Nzsc9X3c]

 

 

I hope our Gus Lozada will weigh in here with much more authoratitive comments on this style of music and the role of the accordion in it.

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