The accordion is one of the few instruments that allows children to feel an immediate sense of accomplishment from their first lesson, providing an incentive for continued improvement with positive attitude.
Accordions range in size according to their number of bass and treble buttons; smaller models often compromise range on both sides while larger accordions offer full spectrum performance with an attractive compact design.
Accordion Basics
A piano accordion is an expansive instrument, so finding ways to hold it comfortably is essential. Secure it around your chest using its bass strap (the small strap on the left side) and place your hand beneath. This will hold your left arm in an appropriate manner that enables you to control button bass accompaniment as well as move bellows without creating noise or making an audible sound when moving bellows.
Your bass buttons will be arranged in circles of fifths along the left side of the instrument. Starting from C, each bass button up the column becomes G; above G it becomes D; etc. Diagonal rows also feature semitone steps and full tone steps so moving in either direction moves you one step towards major and minor 3rds or up one step to perfect fourths.
An accordion’s unique combination of notes allows it to accommodate more right hand keys than a standard piano keyboard, making chording and melodies easier and quicker. A 72 bass or 96 bass chromatic accordion with 64 right hand buttons may still be manageable by average-sized hands.
Accordion Keyboard
A piano accordion is a fully chromatic instrument with keys resembling those on a grand piano. Treble keys are balanced by bass buttons which supply notes and chords.
Size-dependent treble keys may cover over two octaves on accordions that feature single action accordion models with diatonic layout; each button produces adjacent notes of a particular scale when pressed and pulled.
Advanced double-action accordions use couplings to activate additional sets of reeds, including an octave below the main set for bass notes and another for tremulants.
Accordions can be used in numerous styles of music. Loreena McKennitt draws upon Celtic, Spanish and Arabic cultures for inspiration when creating beautiful melodies on her piano accordion. Furthermore, piano accordions demonstrate their versatility by being capable of providing full backing for singers such as Karen Tweed or Sam Pirt at a folk festival.
Accordion Bass Buttons
Accordion bass buttons are single notes used to produce chords on an accordion, whether major, minor or diminished chords. It’s essential to practice using them on your accordion so you know which button produces each sound – the more familiar with these sounds you become when playing music pieces without fearing errors!
Piano accordions provide more options when it comes to chord inversion, but accordions only produce one octave of bass notes at any one time – therefore bass songs require additional practice than those performed on piano accordion.
Accordion makers often arrange the bass buttons into circles of fifths along columns on the left side of their instrument, with some even marking key buttons with rhinestones for easier identification by touch. A Stradella bass accordion features up to six rows with 20 bass buttons; its first two rows nearest the bellows produce single bass notes while four additional rows create chords (major triad sequences while closing and dominant seventh or augmented diminished when opening).
Accordion Chords
As a fully chromatic instrument, the piano accordion can adapt to virtually all genres of music – especially folk music – making it particularly beloved among artists such as Karen Tweed, Sam Pirt and Chris Parkinson.
The bass button layout follows a circle of fifths, where each row contains major, minor and seventh chords with diminished chords in between. Many bass accordions also include an additional counter bass button a third above the tonic note which produces a Tuba sound and can serve as an alternative bass chord when needed.
Pressing buttons causes a pallet mechanism to move, allowing air into the tone chamber and exciting the reeds, making an accordion sound. Bellows then vibrate them up and down creating a vibrating effect known as tremolo; sound quality and complexity of this instrument is determined by its number of reed banks and octaves in which they play as well as tuning and voicing techniques used.