Diatonic accordions offer limited key range, yet are well suited for traditional music styles. Furthermore, these instruments require half as many reeds than chromatic ones and therefore save weight by saving on weight-bearing components.
Tuning determines an accordion’s tone. A dry tuned instrument produces a crisp sound while one tuned wet produces heavier sounds with richer depth.
Keyboard layout
Diatonic accordions feature buttons on their right keyboard that are organized according to specific keys or scales, pairing together in patterns that change with each full octave (for instance in the first octave E is paired with G). This arrangement allows players to play chords and melodies without switching keys frequently.
However, due to its limited chromatic layout, this instrument poses severe limitations in terms of playing various musical styles. Due to a lack of pull and push chromatic notes that cover an entire chromatic scale, playing this instrument becomes challenging in terms of making soundscapes within a wide variety of styles difficult.
A chromatic piano accordion is an ideal starting instrument, as its familiar keyboard layout makes learning it simpler than its button counterpart. There are numerous tutor books and learning materials available for this instrument – however, its larger size makes it harder to handle.
Bass buttons
As you tighten and release the bellows, the buttons on the bass-side keyboard produce chords by pairing bass button keys that sound the root note with its major triad.
Some diatonic accordions, like the melodeon and garmon, feature only one or two rows of bass buttons; others, like the Steirische Harmonika or Slovenian Schwyzerorgeli have up to five bass-button rows. Finally, Basque trikitixa accordions combine unisonoric features with bisonoric ones in a half-bisonoric configuration called trikitixa accordions.
The melody-side keyboard’s treble buttons are arranged into groups of keys to form musical keys. These diagrams depict a typical G and C diatonic accordion used most commonly in Newfoundland and Labrador; its button layout shows key pairs from piano. Furthermore, this site provides various other accordion button layout diagrams; click any image below to view a larger version.
Melodeons
As opposed to piano or chromatic accordions, diatonic button accordions use one ten-button row of keys on their melody side keyboard to produce notes from a single diatonic scale when bellows are pushed or pulled – this technique is known as single action or bisonoric and works similarly to mouth harmonicas.
This variety of melodeon is often utilized in traditional music styles like Cajun, Zydeco and Irish as well as modern folk styles that emphasize specific keys or groups of keys – it lends itself perfectly for these forms of music!
Some melodeons feature accidentals – low notes on button 1 of each row that provide access to additional notes within the scale. Accidentals tend to produce higher pitched tones than regular notes but can help when playing in various keys.
Garmons
The Garmon is a diatonic accordion featuring one to three treble rows and 8-12 bass buttons on its left side, popular in Swiss folk music as well as being used by Astor Piazzola during tango performances. It offers an easy setup with right hand keyboard for melody playback and left hand keyboard accompaniment, making this accordion suitable for traditional Swiss folk music and other forms of accompaniment music alike.
Garmons are bisonoric accordions, meaning their reeds produce different notes depending on whether they’re being pushed or pulled, making them limited to only playing certain keys at once compared to piano/chromatic models which offer an entire spectrum of notes with multiple sets of reeds and larger boxes required to accommodate them.
There are various chromatic Garmons such as the Oriental bayan and Vyatka that feature a chromatic keyboard on the right hand side, featuring both bass buttons and melodic ones in an orderly manner. Conversely, unisonoric Garmons only produce single tones regardless of which way the bellows blows.