The Accordion

The accordion holds a special place in my heart. My grandfather started playing accordion in his late teens, just before he fled from Germany at the peak of the WWII. To this day, he always tells me that the only reason he regrets leaving is because he had to leave behind the best accordion teacher he ever had. When he came to Canada, my grandfather was lucky enough to get his hands on another accordion. Being the talented man that he is, he self-taught and played by ear so much that he became quite proficient. He even made pocket money by playing gigs. I used to love hearing him play and hum a tune. Unfortunately, over time he started to play less, and now he feels as if he shouldn’t play because he doesn’t think he can do the instrument justice. I’ve fooled around with it a bit myself. Although it is a gorgeous instrument, I’ve hardly felt so incompetent in my life. It’s quite an intimidating instrument.

The first resemblance of an accordion originated in 1822 in Berlin, when Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann invented its basic shape. In 1829, Cyrillus Damian patented the first accordion in Vienna. The accordion used free reeds (reeds that are not fastened to a mouthpiece, they’re usually metal) and a bellows (a bag of air, if you will) to produce sound with the left hand operating the button board, which controlled they key. The piano accordion, which featured a keyboard on the right side and no button board, appeared a short while after. In 1844 Charles Wheatstone took both elements of the button board in the left hand, and the keyboard in the right and put them on one instrument, which he called the concertina. Since then, the concertina evolved slowly but surely into what we know today as the modern accordion. Now, Don’t be fooled by how simple this evolution may have sounded. The accordion is an extremely complex instrument. As if playing piano isn’t hard enough, the accordionist must also keep rhythm with the bellows and control the key with the button board. That’s a lot to think of at once! Not to mention that that’s a whole lot of buttons to keep track of! See what I mean? That’s intimidating! Like I said, my grandfather is a very smart man.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion#History

http://accordions.com/index/his/his_acc_his.shtml

The Mellow Marimba

Yesterday I went to an audition workshop at the U of W for the music program. Naturally, it was a long day and there was lots of waiting around. To keep us entertained, the organizers kept showing different videos of performances. One that really hit me was a recording of a student’s recital where he played a marimba. (A recital is when music students prepare solo material to perform for an audience, usually 45 minutes worth, as part of their program requirements.) That really got me thinking. What a unique instrument. We don’t see it very often in North America. It’s not really one that many people would be like “Hey, I wanna take marimba lessons!” Which is unfortunate, because it’s a gorgeous instrument. So this week, I’m dedicating my post to the marimba.

A Guatamalan marimba made with
dried, hollowed gourds.

            A marimba is a mallet percussion instrument. It’s a lot like the xylophone in the sense that they’re both made of wood and they both have resonators (cylindrical pipes like an organ), however on the marimba the resonators are exposed and not hidden in a box. Also, the marimba is only played with very soft mallets and there are usually two held in each hand, unlike the xylophone, and its range of notes is much deeper. Many people, myself included, describe its sound as “rolled” and “mellow”. This might be hard to picture, but it’s got the same edge as the sound of metal drums, just with a wooden feel. If that doesn’t make sense now, it will once you listen to a marimba. Which you should do. Right now. On YouTube. Except not right now, wait until you’re done reading my post.

            Although the date is unknown, the marimba roots back to South Africa when small multi-sized wooden planks were laid over a hole in the dirt and hit with sticks. Later, dried, hollowed gourds were hung from the planks and used as resonators. In the early 1500s, when the Africans were taken as slaves to South America, the marimba followed. It was closer to the 17^th century when a man named Sebastian Hurtado, from Guatemala, replaced the gourd resonators with wood pipes. He also expanded the marimba’s range by adding more wooden keys. In 1910, the marimba became more prominent in the U.S. and the final touches were made, most notably the layout of the keys to resemble those of the piano. They even started manufacturing marimbas with metal resonators. I only wish the marimba’s beauty was more common in Canada.

Now incase you're not convinced of the marimba's beauty and don't plan on looking it up on YouTube like I said you should... I'll make it easier for you. Check this out. The marimba even makes The Legend of Zelda theme sound cool!

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimba#History

http://percussioneducationonline.com/2008/05/what-is-the-difference-between-a-marimba-and-a-xylophone/

http://www.musicalfurnishings.com/html/marimba.html

The Harmonica

This week I will be exploring the the harmonica. Now, the harmonica is a lot more complex than one might think, and also sometimes gets forgotten about, perhaps due to its size, so instead of going right in to how it came to be I will first give a brief explanation about the instrument. There are several kinds, but for today we will be focusing on the diatonic harmonica, which some might call the standard harmonica.

The harmonic is a pocket-sized wind instrument and within it contains multiple reeds that are all individually tuned to produce a different note. The reeds are encased in a reed plate, which protects them and isolates their vibration. Each harmonica has two reed plates. The top one is for blow notes (notes produces when the player blows air) and the bottom one is for draw notes (notes produced when the player draws/suck in air).  So, when you look at a harmonica and you see all the holes, this means that when you blow into one, a certain note is produced, but when you draw form that same hole a different note is produced.

Now for the history! Christian Friedrich Buschmann patented the first harmonica in Europe in 1821 when he was just 16 years old. This model only produced blow notes (and no draw notes), but people became impressed with its compact size and capability with dynamics (meaning to play loudly and softly). In 1826, an instrument maker known as Richter improved Bushmann’s design by adding the second reed plate. This one would produce the draw notes. Now, the instruments range became significantly larger and therefore much more popular. Matthias Hohner, a German clock maker aided in the burst of popularity by becoming a major harmonica manufacturer in 1857. In 1862, Hohner took his harmonicas to North America and ever since, their popularity here never died. There you have it, a brief history of the harmonica, a fun and sometimes forgotten instrument.

If you’re unsure if you’ve ever heard a harmonica before, here are a couple classic rock songs where a harmonica is featured:

What I Like About You by The Romantics

Take The Long Way Home by Supertramp

Piano Man by Billy Joel

Sources:

http://www.euxton.com/harmonica/history.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonica#History

http://www.angelfire.com/tx/myquill/HowHarmonicaWorks.html