ACCORDION TYPES - Help Needed

[Rosie C]

My experience is with folk music, particularly Morris dancing music. This is mostly where I've seen accordion-type instruments in my area of south wales & the English midlands. I think historically there has been more formal accordion music, but for example the local accordion orchestra closed during covid. Also, there may be other accordion activity near me that I am not aware of.

• How many voices are normally present in the accordion? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, …?

2 or 3 mainly. I see as many people playing melodeon as accordion, and so the accordions tend to be smaller, portable instruments such as the Hohner Student 48.

• In your region, which voices are normally selected when buying an accordion (LMMH, LMMM, LMM, LMH, MMM, …)?

MM and LMM are popular. My own two accordions are LMM and LMMM.

• In your region, is the cassotto normally used? Why?

I don't know of anyone with cassotto. Most people I know playing accordions have instruments from the cheaper end of the scale. Instruments that are suitable for playing outdoors.

• In your region, which musette detuning is mostly used? 2-voices or 3-voices musette? Which style is normally played? Why?

As above, mostly 2-voice. I have recently acquired an instrument with 3-voice musette, but it is a relatively expensive instrument that I wouldn't play outdoors!

• In your region, are quint-voices used? Why?

I don't know anyone with a quint voice accordion.

• In your region, are people using special accordion?

No, accordions are basic models as mentioned above.

 

[cat]

I don't know that I'm viable for your survey as I'm probably not a typical accordion player in my region (metro Detroit, usa). > 60 or 70 years ago, there would have been accordions of all types I imagine. I think there would still be some polka-ists around, as I hear there are in Cleveland, et al.

Fwiw, I play S & C American music, New Orleans type blues, boogie woogie and balkan on lightweight piano accordion > 60 bass, 3 voice treble, and club diatonic 3 voice treble

Oh, *I should say that i used to also play bunch of Irish, Scots on two-row quint, 1-row cajun box for fiddling, (and concertinas).

 

[SteveBox]

Chromatic Darwin bass? What's that?

The Darwin bass is a unisonoric 24 button chromatic bass system that uses open chords (root and fifth only). With 12 bass buttons and 12 chord buttons, you can play in any key if you don't mind using open chords. Jazz players probably won't care for this, but open chords work well for folk music, and many folk musicians prefer them. Several accordion makers offer this on diatonic and small chromatic button accordions. On a diatonic, it eliminates the restrictions of the diatonic bass, and it makes a small and lightweight CBA possible by replacing the larger and heavier Stradella bass.

The Darwin system was popularized by French accordion builder Marc Serafini. Why "Darwin"? Probably because it is an evolution in accordion bass design.

A few examples of Darwin 24-bass accordions:

Marc Serafini
Atelier Loffet
Miguel Gramontain
Castagnari