Re: button accordion

[W. Morrison <sushiqn...>]

>Does anybody know of any recordings of klezmer played on button accordion?
>I mean the double-reeded kind without much chromatic capability, not the
>big ones like that cool one Owen Davidson has.
>
>Bob Jacobson

Chromatic accordions are double reeded too, as well as triple and quad.
If you mean a single action diatonic button accordion tuned in fourths,
then no - to the best of my knowledge there are no recordings of klezmer on
this box. It's not an instrument suited for klezmer modes - missing too
many important notes. Even if you have as many as 3 rows, such as A/D/G,
which is a common tuning, you're missing F, Ab, Bb and Eb. If your tuning
is G/C/F, the other most common tuning, you're missing Ab, Eb, and C#.
There is another single action C/F button box, the Club melodeon, which has
2 1/2 rows - the half row contains the notes missing from the C and F
scales. Theoretically this instrument could play klezmer, but in reality
the fingerings on most tunes would be so awkward as to make it impractical.

The Irish tuned button accordion, with the rows a half step apart (B/C or
C#/D, usually), would fare a little better since all the notes are there on
the two rows, but even then, the fingering is awkward. A couple of years
ago my band played a Celtic-Klezmer concert in DC with a number of Irish
musicians, including expert Irish button box player Bill McComiskey. For
the finale number all the musicians gathered on stage and played a medley
of Irish tunes ending with a freylakhs. Although Bill had worked on the
klez tune during rehearsals, and liked it, he said the fingering was too
weird for him to do it justice at dance speed. I suppose it is possible
that a person could become familiar enough with the fingering of Eastern
European scales to play klezmer on the B/C box, but to my knowledge, no one
has done so. The only klezmer accordionists I am aware of are playing on
chromatic double-action instruments, either piano or button type.

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Wendy Morrison - Wendy's Home for Wayward Accordions
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