Accordion cultural exchange, or, the Internet is a beautiful thing!

[Tom]

My friends, do you have an interest in the accordion culture of another country? I do!

Luckily for us, there is the internet. My interest in Italian accordions and music led me to learn the language, get some cool accordions, make friends and visit them in their home towns.

Imho, anyone with the ability to learn to play the accordion, and with the time to hang out on this forum, has the ability to become conversational in another language in less than a year. What are your interests and experiences?

I have recently become interested in the forró and baião accordion driven music of northeast Brazil and am learning Portuguese and conversing daily with my new friends (who, naturally, are excited by my willingness to help them learn English).

How about you? Do you excessively watch polka videos from Germany? Use Duolingo to learn French so you can join a musette forum? Have you picked up Greek so you can discuss the latest rebetikos?

 

[donn]

In my case it's Portuguese as well - though I was already acquainted with the language, I occasionally work on it by listening to RTP, Portuguese national radio, online. Try it sometime, it's more ambitious than it may sound. In Portugal they have a tendency to reduce unstressed syllables of a word to a cluster of consonants, and while I ought to be accustomed to this by now I still find it pretty rough going. I haven't pursued it as much lately, as I'm fairly satisfied with my accordion, but I had this notion that Portugal would be an excellent place to go shopping for an accordion, partly because I've always wanted to visit that country and partly because it's the one place in the world where accordion players are most likely to be playing the "French" style CBA I learned.

But I started with Portuguese just because I like the language itself, though I quickly came to appreciate the music. I did visit Brazil once, back in the '90s, to João Pessoa - the very easternmost tip. You might ask your friends if bands still perform from those trucks with loudspeakers. The language there has its own peculiarity - they omit final "s", so "dois reais" comes out "doi reai", again not aiding comprehension. I encountered only one person who spoke any English.

 

[maugein96]

Well guys, despite flying the French flag (in the accordion sense) for many years I would have to confess that I haven't progressed much beyond schoolboy French, other than to acquire some knowledge of their accordion terminology.

I have spent some time in Norway and Malta, but have nothing but a passing interest in the accordion styles of either country. My Norwegian is now almost non-existent, and my Maltese only extended to very basic knowledge, as they all speak English, and I wasn't really concerned with what they were saying behind my back. I tried to learn Dutch out of curiosity for it but found that it was far easier to write than to speak. My wife has a cousin in Amsterdam who will correct my attempts at it, but the amsterdamse dialect is not standard Dutch.

Whenever I go abroad I always attempt to try and speak a few phrases, but the thought of learning a language to the point of reasonable fluency would positively terrify me these days.

Portuguese is a bit of a challenge. In most other European countries if you attempt to communicate with locals in their own language they'll probably start to work out what you are trying to say and end up either correcting you, or finishing those words you are having trouble with. In the bits of Portugal outside of the main tourist areas if you get it wrong, you've got it wrong, pure and simple. I was met with open mouthed stares in both the Alentejo and the more rural parts of the Algarve. One interesting aspect of travelling in Portugal is the fact that Spaniards will simply converse in that language when speaking to Portuguese people, without any etiquette or enquiry as to whether the Portuguese person concerned can speak Spanish. Spanish is taught as a second language in Portugal, and in some areas people will expect foreigners to try and communicate in that language, rather than Portuguese! I would have to say that there are very few places these days where people will treat you like their own, and Portugal is one of them, away from all the tourist traps. I heard the accordion playing Fado music several times there in the Algarve, but it was people playing in their own homes for entertainment. Never heard an accordion in the Alentejo, but it is a fairly remote area.

I appreciate the situation in Brazil will probably be very different, with loads of different accents to cope with, as well as the Brazilian way of speaking Portuguese. As a Scot who struggles to speak standard English I can understand the situation, although I share Tom's liking for Brazilian accordion music, whether I can speak the language or not!

I also like the accordion music I heard in Bosnia (sevdalinki) and the rest of the Balkans, but there are quite a few languages involved in that area, and the only one I have any real experience of is Croatian. We looked up some of my wife's relatives in Drasnice, near Makarska, where I was complimented on what I thought were rather feeble attempts at pronunciation, but why in the devil's name do they spell Dubrovnik the way they do, then pronounce it "Dubrownik". We never went there, regardless of how they pronounce it, on the advice of the Drasnice villagers who advised us that it was "Rip off City".

Reckon I'd better get the books out as I'm about eleven languages short of my accordion interests!

 

[donn]

The converse is that if you get it close enough right, they'll answer. The non-native speaker seems to be an absolute novelty. I believe the mutual intelligibility with Spanish isn't fully reciprocal, due to more complex phonology and maybe even grammar on the Portuguese side, so it would make sense that it's used between them even if the two countries were evenly balanced.

 

[maugein96]

Quite true, and my feeble attempts at speaking the language probably never helped. Ironically it was a Dutch guy who had lived in Portugal for a long time who complained to me about the phenomenon, and put the notion in my head. Mind you, he thought I spoke Dutch with a Flemish accent, so maybe he had trouble with languages. What didn't help was that I worked with a Portuguese guy who more or less told me to expect the same thing. When I told him the places I had been to he corrected my pronunciation of every town and village, and advised me that even he would have trouble understanding the "Mussulmen" of the Algarve. He was from Lisbon and regarded everything south of Setubal as a different country.

My granddaughter is currently dating a guy who has family in the Alentejo. I'm kind of hoping the relationship might last long enough for us to make a visit!

Divirta-se aprendendo portugues

 

[Stephen Hawkins]

I speak French & German quite badly, and can still remember bits of Latin from my schooldays. Other than that, I have a few phrases in Afrikaans and a Welsh Language phrasebook somewhere on my bookshelves.

My youngest daughter speaks Italian and Spanish, and the older two speak French. Brenda speaks French to about the same standard as myself.

It is doubtful that my poor linguistic skills will add much to this thread, though I may not be the very worst linguist on this forum.

 

[Tom]

Interesting!!! I have seen a few Portuguese accordion videos (from Portugal) but don't yet understand it. Any good names or links you can mention?

 

[JerryPH]

My mother speaks 5 distict dialects of German on top of Czech, English, and more than comfortale conversational levels with pretty much any Slavic dialect easily enough, but it was only my father that truly had all the linguistic bases covered, with 13 distinct languages spoken and written and add another dozen or so dialects comfortably spoken.

Well, I am very comfortable in English, French and Czech so I really would only need German and Italian to cover my needs, and I can usually eek out enough German to get myself in trouble. I suppose that makes me the dummy of my family... lol

 

[donn]

Interesting!!! I have seen a few Portuguese accordion videos (from Portugal) but dont yet understand it. Any good names or links you can mention?

Well, we must mention Albert Damaso, who has put up countless videos of all kinds of players - students, old guys apparently on their last legs, everything in between, good sound and bad, but always acoustic and generally solo accordion. You cant listen to them all, but it will sure give you a sense of whats there - the accordion is alive and well. Heres a fairly good example - bad sound, old accordion, crazy fast playing - Mário Neves. (Starts off French (I think), but the rest of the repertoire is Portuguese.)

And we must mention Dona Eugénia Lima, who seems to be a patron saint of Portuguese accordion. This isnt her, but more or less note by note Lisboa Menina e Moça.

 

[Tom]

Wow! Interesting and talented peope here! Thanks for the links, I'll check 'em out!

 

[maugein96]

Thanks for those great links, Donn.

I was obviously attracted to Portuguese accordion by virtue of the fact that they often play French type CBA instruments.

It's just a pity that the music isn't very well known outside of Portugal, and like most other European genres covered on the forum, it is only of interest to a minority of us, a minority that I am more than happy to be part of.

I suppose it is essentially a folk style played on full sized accordions, which is often the case elsewhere, although the choice of French made CBAs has always fascinated me. I have no idea why that occurred, although the "Spanish" type tuning is prevalent on some French LMM instruments. My Maugein Mini Sonora gives a sound similar to the Portuguese tuning, when the bandoneon and "plein jeu" couplers are used, although with the latter my high flute is probably a bit too sharp when all three voices are selected.

I do believe that typical Portuguese tuning on what appear to be LMM instruments has the two flutes tuned pretty close, although I have also occasionally heard three voice musette (presumably on LMMM instruments). Have you ever been able to work out what basic tuning is used in Portugal?

 

[Anyanka]

I'm particularly attracted to French and Swedish folk (dance) music, but not necessarily tied to the accordion culture. This year, I've been to a couple of excellent workshops billed as 'European music', both run by different members of Blowzabella plus continental tutors. They were mostly focussed on French dances which is fine by me.

My most fluent 'other' language is German, but the German accordion culture attracts me not at all. I have a few German bagpiping pals though, and am currently expecting a Swedish bagpipe from a German maker! Is that international enough?

 

[donn]

Have you ever been able to work out what basic tuning is used in Portugal?

Oh no, Im quite in the dark on that. I wouldnt trust myself to guess at it, as I lack sufficient background reference - that is, I just dont know what the various options sound like. And I suppose like elsewhere it has varied enough over time that wed hear a range of things. They are, I would say, pretty conservative culturally speaking.

 

[maugein96]

Thanks Donn,

I reckon it would need a Portuguese member to explain it all to us. I have heard the accordion being played in the Algarve, but on both occasions the player was performing at a private function in a nearby club, and I was unable to see his accordion. The Corridinhos seemed to spark off most reaction from the audience, which wasn't surprising since it is an Algarve speciality.

I might try and research the history of the accordion in Portugal, but I have a funny feeling that there won't be much information there, at least in the English language. There does not appear to be much accordion cross culture with Spain, although the instrument is/was quite popular in some areas near to the Portuguese border, albeit in PA format.

The Algarve has been spoilt by tourism, and we haven't been there for some years now, but I might be able to persuade my wife to return. We typically used to rent in the mountain areas in the north of The Algarve, as flights to any other part of Portugal mean a long drive to an English airport from where we are in Scotland.

My wife prefers the Canary Islands for the heat, which helps the slight paralysis she has on her right side following a recent stroke. No accordions there to speak of although they do exist. I actually heard what appeared to be a diatonic folk type accordion being played in piped music in the cable car station on El Teide, the highest mountain in Spain (actually a volcano), but I was told the player was South American. My lack of Spanish never afforded me the chance to get a better explanation, as the locals speak their own version of the language.