Accordion Jokes?
- Thread starter BellowBoy
- Start date
Corinto
Well-known member
It's all about the predeliction that many people have for being 'part of the crowd' and for being fearful of social isolation if they dare to step outside the current popularity bubble.
Easily led by religions, financial interests and political posturing alike they become like sheep - easily led to the slaughterhouse and happy to be fleeced along the way: The ones so aptly called "sheeple".
That sounds like a fine idea for a new t-shirt
I'll start: "real sheep play accordion"
(designed to make people ask)
JeffJetton
Prolific poster
Well there's the ukulele, and it's almost uncanny how its trajectory matches the accordion. Ubiquitous for decades, then a punchline, then rediscovered by a generation who is too young to remember Arthur Godfrey and Tiny Tim (arguably the Lawrence Welk and Steve Urkel of ukuele).
But in any case, I don't think people make accordion jokes these days out of actual malice or disdain, any more than they make viola jokes or drummer jokes or any other musical jokes that way. It's a gentle kidding, more out of tradition than anything else. A statement more about the stereotype of the instrument and its player than the actual instrument/player.
In actual practice, people think the accordion is pretty cool. Although, even if they didn't, I'd still play it. And I suspect I'm not alone here on that.
nou
Member
I can’t tell why this happened in the US, but I can tell, why this happened in Poland. Paradoxically, the ubiquity is a very important factor. It was a very popular instrument for street and folk music. But after WWII, folk music in Poland evolved into a genre called „biesiada” - contemporary songs played and sung on weddings and other gatherings, mostly on the province, often with badly mantained, cheap instruments, also often by people with low skill or bad or simple musical taste. This became a synonym of bad music amongst younger people from the cities and was openly ridiculed. It later evolved further into „disco polo”, even more ridiculed in the cities but again, hugely popular in the country. At the same time the explosion of cheap arranger keyboards and later „the DJ culture” pushed the accordion out of the wedding market. Last but not least, for a very long time cities here were plagued by very loud and very bad gypsy accordion buskers, playing on harsh sounding, cheap russian boxes. This is the sound most often associated with the accordion by my friends, who almost always say they dislike or even hate accordion music, untill I play them something on a top tier concertina or introduce them to Klezmer/classical music played on dry tuned Bayans. They are universally deeply surprised by this experience.
The bottom line - people usually have very narrow, very bad experience with accordion music, and very wet tunings on badly mantained accordions literally hurt their ears.
This is by Robert Crumb....a great fan of french music, he does the artwork for Les Primifs du Future....I'd suggest check them out of you like some old school .
He also made a pack of cards featuring cartoons of great musette french accordionists with their histories on the back ....
Not to mention Fritz the Cat and Keep on Truckin’. Just sayin….
….and Mr. Natural…
Rosie C
Well-known member
I play recorder too - a beautiful instrument with nearly 1000 years of history. But cheap plastic instruments given to young children in the 1960s-1970s have utterly ruined their reputation. The most popular classical radio station in the UK never plays recorder music - instead playing recorder pieces on flute, and posting recorder 'jokes' on their Facebook page. All very sad, though I get the pleasure of rehabilitating it to the public when our band performs
Xiane
Active member
Oh, I'm all for the gentle kidding, and live with drummers, so...
You're probably right about ukuleles. They're a lot easier to make, store and carry around than accordions, generally, so their revival makes sense.
And yes, young people especially seem to think the accordion is really.cool. They're the ones going out and resurrecting old Smith Coronas. I've asked why, and it's to actually write, without the constant distraction and little dopamine hit from the phone. Also, they just look cool.
Xiane
Active member
Xiane
Active member
Well, if we want to take it a little deeper, and maybe away from sheeplike masses, Gary Larson who did the Far Side wasn't what I'd think of as a sheeple. I think he just loved the sight gag of a giant accordion on horseback, etc.
You aren't wrong though, there are things that people "generally" don't like, and many assume that they don't like them, but they've never tried those things, or in the case of accordions, heard them. For instance, among younger people the band to hate is "Nickelback". Now, Nickelback isn't good, but it's not infamously terrible. It's just sort of averagely, boringly, bad in a way that was popular in the mainstream in their heyday. And they were pretty popular, too.
There's probably a dissertation or two in how all this stuff works.
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Xiane
Active member
Wow, you're kind of a glutton for musical joke punishment. All that really remains is the viola, bagpipes and ukulele. I've heard early music ensembles playing recorders, and it's lovely. The classical station here doesn't seem to have a "thing" about them. They don't feature often, about as often as lutes, but there aren't tons of jokes, either.I play recorder too - a beautiful instrument with nearly 1000 years of history. But cheap plastic instruments given to young children in the 1960s-1970s have utterly ruined their reputation. The most popular classical radio station in the UK never plays recorder music - instead playing recorder pieces on flute, and posting recorder 'jokes' on their Facebook page. All very sad, though I get the pleasure of rehabilitating it to the public when our band performs
I don't have the musical vocabulary to describe this well. I like flutes, whistles, recorders if they're played well. The recorder has an darker "earthier" sound than the flute to me. I like ethereal flute sounds, but they aren't always the right thing.
Wait, you need a lute.
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Corinto
Well-known member
Robert Crumbs' GENESIS is also great!
I'd love to see those.
Are they still available?
Rosie C
Well-known member
I play viola, I was in a community orchestra for a while, but frankly most viola parts suck. The violins get all the good tunes. I still play it a bit, mostly laying down harmony on recordings.
I had a lute, it made my wrist ache and I spent more time tuning it than playing it - 8 "course", so fifteen strings to tune! I swapped to mandocello, buying one that looks "somewhat mediaeval" to the uneducated eye. Half the strings and has relatively easy chord shapes.
Rosie, you have the best hat on the forum!!!!I play viola, I was in a community orchestra for a while, but frankly most viola parts suck. The violins get all the good tunes. I still play it a bit, mostly laying down harmony on recordings.
I had a lute, it made my wrist ache and I spent more time tuning it than playing it - 8 "course", so fifteen strings to tune! I swapped to mandocello, buying one that looks "somewhat mediaeval" to the uneducated eye. Half the strings and has relatively easy chord shapes.
