Bellows on Digital Accordions

[wirralaccordion]

I remember the days when small organs were called harmoniums and were operated by the players' feet pressing two foot pedals simultaneously in opposte directions to produce the sound. These pedals became obsolete when organs were electrified. Therefore I am puzzled as to why on digital accordions players still need to pull and push bellows.

 

[JerryPH]

I remember the days when small organs were called harmoniums and were operated by the players' feet pressing two foot pedals simultaneously in opposte directions to produce the sound. These pedals became obsolete when organs were electrified. Therefore I am puzzled as to why on digital accordions players still need to pull and push bellows.

Well... they don't HAVE TO. We "as accordionists" want that to happen by choice (and maybe enjoy the added feature of volume control via bellows!)... lol

 

[dak]

I remember the days when small organs were called harmoniums

Small organs are called positive organs. Harmoniums are specifically reed organs because of their low air usage.

and were operated by the players' feet pressing two foot pedals simultaneously in opposte directions to produce the sound.

All organs are bellows-operated, it's just that the main bellows these days is operated by electrical air pumps rather than by congregation members doing bellows duty.

These pedals became obsolete when organs were electrified.

Nope. Harmoniums were mostly phased out when the pianoforte made for better one-man operable keyboard instruments. Harmoniums were never really electrified, and large organs as well as organ positives were not foot-operated ever.

Therefore I am puzzled as to why on digital accordions players still need to pull and push bellows.

They don't need to: you can switch the bellows off. It's just that its immediate control over the response not just involving general dynamics but the shape of individual notes (which a harmonium does not offer, with suction organs giving no dynamic control at all and pump organs only with comparatively delayed action) is what is at the heart of the accordion as an instrument. In any electronic/digital instrument, the accordion sounds tend to be the least tolerable. The saving grace is the tight continuous control over expression, similar to wind instruments riding on human breath and to bowed strings. Foregoing that is not going to make for a smash hit with accordion sounds, and those are expected from the audience because of the visuals.

 

[debra]

I remember the days when small organs were called harmoniums and were operated by the players' feet pressing two foot pedals simultaneously in opposte directions to produce the sound. These pedals became obsolete when organs were electrified. Therefore I am puzzled as to why on digital accordions players still need to pull and push bellows.

Controlling the dynamics, the attack, decay, changes in volume... every digital instrument requires some "interface" for this, and to be able to do what you can on an acoustic accordion it needs to be much more than just a "pedal" as found on organs. Our hands are already busy playing the notes on an accordion, and we already learned how to control all the aspects of the dynamics with our left arm by operating the bellows, so it's quite logical to replicate this control through bellows, even though the air going in and out is no longer needed on a digital accordion. The only other way to control dynamics on a keyboard instrument that people can learn to control is the key action of the piano, but on the piano there is no key action to control volume once a note is playing. You can not do a crescendo within one note on the piano...

 

[saundersbp]

It's just that its immediate control over the response not just involving general dynamics but the shape of individual notes (which a harmonium does not offer, with suction organs giving no dynamic control at all and pump organs only with comparatively delayed action) is what is at the heart of the accordion as an instrument.

Harmoniums working on pressure ('pump') are pretty immediately dynamically expressive - I've played a fair few!
Here's an illustration of a pressure harmonium compared with an accordion playing the same lullaby.

 

[Walker]

Absolutely superb; so hazy, so musical - perfect for these early days of spring. More recordings please Ben!

BTW: we need more Vierne played on accordion... Why? Just Berceuse.

 

[tcabot]

- How do you make an accordion sound better?
- Remove the bellows.

 

[saundersbp]

Absolutely superb; so hazy, so musical - perfect for these early days of spring. More recordings please Ben!

You are too kind!

Here's another one then - very silly this time!

 

[Ben-jammin]

I believe there was an Iorio accorgan (maybe J series?) that had midi velocity controlled by how quickly you pressed the treble keys.

 

[JerryPH]

I believe there was an Iorio accorgan (maybe J series?) that had midi velocity controlled by how quickly you pressed the treble keys.

Could have been, definitely not on the 2 that I have which were both MIDI gen 1 for all intents and purposes.