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:
Hello,
ReplyDeleteWow I'm so amassed about the accordion evolution and I had no idea that it was invented by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann in 1822. If I had to choose what instrument that I would want to learn it would be the accordion because I like the sound it makes.