Accordian & Concertina Instruments
Accordian & Concertina Instruments Fast Facts
The concertina and accordion are both combination wind-and-reed instruments. Each has a bellows that produces a flow of air as it is pumped in and out by the player’s arms. This air flow passes across a series of reeds, housed in cases at each end of the bellows, which vibrate to make the sound. The reeds are operated by buttons or keys, which the player presses with the fingers of both hands. Because of the pumping action of the bellows, which are held in front of the player, these instruments have been given the popular nicknames of “squeeze box” and “belly pincher.”
A Brief History of Accordian & Concertina Instruments
The principle of the free reed – as distinct from the single or double reed, which are fixed – is that of a simple tongue which vibrates through a slot as the wind is blown or sucked through the slot. The principle was known in China and Japan, where it was used in the mouthorgan, for many centuries before it arrived in Western Europe, late in the eighteenth century. In china it was called cheng, and in Japan sho. The accordion uses the same principle, and was a product of virtually the same period – the early nineteenth century. In fact the accordion is in many respects to the harmonium what the portative organ is to the large organ. The body of the accordion is a bellows, with the reeds in the end, with the keyboard at one end and the stops at the other. Both aspiration (sucking in of wind on the principle of the vacuum cleaner) and expiration (blowing out) are used, and this is in element how the harmonium works. The bellows of the harmonium is naturally much larger than that of the accordion, and is controlled by the player with pedals in the center of the instrument.
The concertina was a favorite instrument of men working on the sailing ships of the 1800s. It was both easy to play and small enough to be easily stowed away during a voyage. It probably sailed across the ocean to America with the early settlers to join the guitar and fiddle in accompanying folk music and dancing.
The concertina was played by pressing buttons with both hands, but, in the 1850s, a keyboard replaces the right-hand buttons, and the modern accordion was born. The accordion is much larger than the concertina and more complex. Each key of the right-hand fingerboard produces one note. The buttons played with the left hand produce either a bass note or a chord. Because of its complexity, which requires the player to press keys and buttons with both hands while he pumps the bellows, the accordion requires considerable practice. Although the concertina remains an important instrument in much folk music, the accordion has become more important in the fields of jazz and popular music.
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