Re: button accordion

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

It seems to me (who am an ardent accordiophile, though with no experience
playing the diatonic instrument) that even if all the notes are present, the
blow-draw nature of the instrument not only makes for harmonic disparities
when playing eastern modes, but also limits the player to phrasing and
ornament choices that don't fit the "voice" of the music.  So, while you may
be able to play the notes of a given tune, can you make it sound like
"klezmer?"  I don't want to start that whole ball of wax rolling once again,
but if you look at the musics that use the diatonic accordion (Cajun,
Tex-Mex, Vallenata, Quebecois, etc. etc.) you'll see that the music itself
has been very strongly informed by the nature of the instrument, with its
inherent strengths and weaknesses.  The fact that you don't find them in use
in klezmer probably indicates that they're just not appropriate.  Diatonic
accordions are in use in various forms in eastern Europe. One is that
amazing helikon instrument they use in Slovenia, or the Chemnitzer
concertinas you find in polka bands.  The latter seem to do very well on
minor-key sections.  I wonder if such an instrument could be optimized for
klez? We'd have to call it a Chelmnitzer...

About the chromatic accordion: I find that some of the hallmark techniques
of klezmer phrasing and ornamentation lay out much more logically (not to
mention uniformly) on it than on the piano accordion.  I wonder if it might
be the instrument that Yankovitz played.  Anybody?  And check out a
photograph of Mishka Tsiganoff with his instrument that appears briefly at
the very end of a film called "Angelo My Love."  It's hard to see it, but I
didn't think it was a piano keyboard...  Anybody got the dope on this?

Owen

   

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_________________________________________________________________________
        Owen Davidson, Amherst, Mass.
        The Wholesale Klezmer Band

        The Angel that presided o'er my birth
        Said Little creature formd of Joy and Mirth,
        Go love without the help of any King on Earth. 

                                Wm. Blake