A Piano Accordion is very like a Keyboard in that it has black and white notes for you to play the melody, but has 'buttons' to play the chords with the left hand.

It is the layout of these 'chord buttons' that is so interesting as they are not placed next to each other according to any 'scale', but are set up according to the Circle of Fifths. For those of you who play from chords, any group of three adjacent chords in this Circle of Fifths are the 'basic' chords for the key in the middle. Eg. F, C and G are the basic chords for playing in the key of C.



So to arrange the chord buttons on a piano accordion in this fashion would mean that you wouldn't have to 'jump' too far to play the chords you need.

DonW has played a piece with 'piano accordion' on his AR 100 organ, Under Paris Skies.

Do a right-click to open this up an a New Tab
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5959

This is what it would sound like played on a 'real' Piano Accordion:



Don tells me that there is one tune that was specifically composed with the arrangement of piano accordion buttons in mind.



Hugh

I used to have a piano accordion when I was younger, but I took it to pieces and couldn't put it back together again! If any of you have one, and have a recording of you playing (or could do a recording for us) we'd love to hear it! Please post in this Board, and not the Performance Board. Just click on POSTREPLY. You'd have to put it into Box first (unless it's a YouTube video).

There is another similar instrument to the Piano Accordion which doesn't have 'black and white keys' for you to play the melody on. This is the 'button accordion'. Google doesn't seem to know what a 'button accordion' is, as it comes up with pictures of the 'piano accordion'. At least Wikipedia knows what it is:

A button accordion is a type of accordion on which the melody-side keyboard consists of a series of buttons rather than piano-style keys of a piano accordion. The first button accordion is credited to Franz Walther in 1850. It is an instrument very common in the south of Brazil.

The button arrangement that replaces the piano-style keys is called the Chromatic "B-griff" keyboard. There is a topic on this here:

Do a right-click to open it up in a New Tab
viewtopic.php?f=314&t=5920

Hugh

Hi
I have a 48 bass piano accordion (passed on by my late father). I used it at church a couple of years ago - the minister asked if I could get an accordion sound out of the GEM keyboard we had at the time - I told him I could do better than that! You can hear the results at https://www.facebook.com/tony.newnham.1 ... 127880308/

I used to have a Musette-tuned 120 bass job - it weighed a ton! Had to sell it when the kids were young & we needed some extra money. To be fair, it wasn't in very good condition either! Maybe one day I'll get another one - but I'm not rushing.

I aslo, many years ago, used to play a Hohner chord organ - in effect a 96(?) bass accordion laid out horizontally with an electric blower. Great fun.
Every Blessing

Tony

Thanks for posting that Tony. I presume one must have a Facebook account to view it? I do have one, so I wouldn't know what would happen if you didn't have one.

Hi

I don't know what happens if you don't have a Facebook a/c & try to follow the link - maybe someone could try it. I put a few videos from that service only on Facebook because the quality left a bit to be desired, so I decided not to use my You Tube account for them. I think there may be another track there with my accordion on it.

Every Blessing

Tony

Very interesting topic. I bet one of our members will eventually admit to playing the bagpipes. There was a myth some years ago where it was said a local man at Watchet in Somerset used to stand on the harborside practicing bagpipes. Takes all sorts Ken