The diatonic button accordion is bisonoric, meaning when a button is pressed, the note sounded changes depending on whether the bellows are being expanded or contracted. Variations īutton accordions are found with a wide variety of keyboard systems, tuning, action, and construction. Most diatonic instruments lack switches, though there are some made by companies such as Hohner, as well as the one-row 'Cajun'-type boxes which have usually 3 or 4 stops on top of the box as switches (making it even more akin to a pipe organ), but it is generally more common to find switches on a chromatic or piano accordion. This gives the instrument a denser sound. The German four-stop is preferred by Cajun musicians and has one bass, one piccolo, and two tenor stops. The three-stop accordion has two sets of tenor and one set of bass reeds. Some popular examples are the three-stop accordion, with two sets of tenor reeds and one bass set, and the classic German four-stop. These allow the instrument to produce different tones for a variety of situations. Some button accordions have 'stops', which change the tone and are called things like 'Organ' or 'Trumpet' or 'Tremolo'. The button accordion has melodic notes on one side of the bellows (usually the right side), and bass accompaniment notes on the other side (generally the left). In the diatonic button accordion, reeds are fixed in pairs so that one note sounds when air moves in, and a different one when air moves out. The press of a button or key opens a valve to allow air to pass through the reed or reeds to make a sound when the bellows are pumped in or out. In modern accordions, the free reeds are generally made of tempered steel. The accordion has free reeds on both the treble and bass sides. Pushing or pulling the bellows slower or faster makes the sound softer or louder, respectively. The button accordion is often confused with the concertina the button accordion's buttons are on the front of the instrument, where as the concertina's are on the sides and pushed in parallel with the bellows.Īll accordions and concertinas have three main components: the reeds, bellows, and buttons or keys.

Button accordions of various types are particularly common in European countries and countries where European people settled.

The sound from the instrument is produced by the vibration of air in reeds. Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs categorize it as a free reed aerophone in their classification of instruments, published in 1914. This differs from the piano accordion, which has piano-style keys. For example, in the first diagram, accordion button 3 (on the push) corresponds to piano key C 4 (also known as 'middle C' on the piano).Diatonic button accordion (German make, early 20th century)Ī button accordion is a type of accordion on which the melody-side keyboard consists of a series of buttons.

The little numbers below the treble notes in the diagrams are referenced to the piano. It will open in a separate window, so you can easily move back and forth between sites. If interested, CLICK HERE to check out their button-layout drawings for other accordions. These diagrams were created by Lester Bailey, and are found on an excellent UK melodeon site (their name for our button accordions). On the 'advanced' button-layout page we will focus on harmony using the left-side inner row and right-side chords. We'll come back to these diagrams on the 'intermediate' page where we will focus on rhythmic beats using the left-hand outer row, and on accidentals using the top treble buttons. At this stage you do not even need to be concerned about the names of the notes as our button-number notation will represent them more simply. The layout for the very common (at least, in Newfoundland and Labrador) G-C and A-D accordions are shown below.įor the moment we will ignore the left-hand (except for the air lever or button), and also ignore the top button on each row, focusing instead on buttons 2 to 11 of the outside treble row and buttons 2 to 10 on the inside row.

Accordion keypad layout