Exploring The Chromatic Button Accordion

[Walker]

An excellent presentation all about the CBA...

 

[Walker]

I saw a button accordion for sale the other day. An old Pigini Ellegaard Special. It made me want to take a look at this video...

Not being a button accordionist, I don't know what the good and bad aspects of the CBA are. From looking at this video here are some things I like a lot and other things I like less...

I really like:

1. The ease of playing consecutive minor thirds and chromatic scales is superb on the button accordion.
2. The chord building capability over multiple octaves is impressive.

I don't like so much:

1. The sound of the lowest octave of notes on the treble (E1 to D#2) does not give a pleasant tone to me.
2. The small surface area of the buttons and the closed finger positions appear awkward at times.

What do you consider to be the pros and cons of the CBA?

 

[Pipemajor]

I think you're spot on with the likes.
With regard to the dislikes, surely the sound is relative to that accordion only, but you're right about the small button area. I still end up with my fingers in knots sometimes when trying tricky passages. Also, the fact that you only need to learn one fingering pattern if you have a 5 row CBA is OK if you play by ear but it doesn't help when playing from sheet music until you have learned thoroughly the note positions of all 5 rows which is far more difficult than the 2 rows of a piano keyboard. Just my opinion

 

[debra]

An excellent presentation all about the CBA...

I would not say this is an excellent presentation at all. The way he describes that it is normal for different notes to not start at the same time he makes it sound like this is normal and you should just learn to accept it and "play around it". But with correct voicing all notes (in the same region, say within one octave) will start to sound at the same volume and will also stop at the same air pressure. Too many people seem to attribute flaws in their instrument to a basic property of the instrument that you cannot change... The real problem with accordions is that to make them work perfectly a lot of time needs to be invested into correct voicing, correct tension in the valves, etc.

 

[debra]

...

I really like:

1. The ease of playing consecutive minor thirds and chromatic scales is superb on the button accordion.
2. The chord building capability over multiple octaves is impressive.

I don't like so much:

1. The sound of the lowest octave of notes on the treble (E1 to D#2) does not give a pleasant tone to me.

That depends on the particular accordion. Actually, it's mostly a problem with Italian accordions with reeds that are too short to give a nice tone on the very low treble notes. These reeds are fairly short and have large weights attached to them. (The bass reeds are much larger, with smaller weights.) Real bayan treble reeds do give a nice tone with the low notes.
In this recording: I have used the treble side of my bayan instead of using a bass accordion for the bass lines. I actually like the sound of the bayan used as bass accordion a lot!

2. The small surface area of the buttons and the closed finger positions appear awkward at times.

That is only true for the larger CBA, larger as in "with many notes". French type CBA and bayan-style CBA have quite small buttons because they need a lot of them. When you buy a CBA that's essentially a PA with buttons (for instance a Bugari 508 or a Victoria Poeta) they come with larger buttons, just like the buttons on a bass accordion. The rule of thumb here is that accordions with notes that fit on a pair (or two pairs) of reed blocks have large buttons and accordions with three (or two times three) reed blocks for a larger number of notes have small buttons.

 

[petch]

Can confirm my bigger bayan-style CBA has smaller buttons that are closer together than the 120 standard bass CBA I started on - the only issue I found with that (after a few weeks of adjusting) is repeating a note quickly by alternating between two fingers is harder to do. I think if your hand is getting in knots then there is probably a more comfortable fingering for that passage!

What I've been taught is to keep fingering to what feels natural for the shape of your hand and to keep in mind what's coming next so you don't "run out of fingers". I guess that issue isn't exclusive to CBA but since you have more options on which fingering to use (especially on 5 row CBA) to ensure you don't run out of fingers then it's harder to decide on a good one. With my teacher we will often try a couple of different fingerings for a passage just to see which I find more comfortable, but they always end so that moving to the next part is just as natural under the fingers as the part before it

So I guess there's another con for CBA: too much choice!

 

[Walker]

So I guess there's another con for CBA: too much choice!

You button accordionists are hilarious

 

[Walker]

Real bayan treble reeds do give a nice tone with the low notes.

Thanks for sharing your recording Paul, it's excellent. Also, the low treble reeds on the bayan sound great. I think AKKO is right up there. It's easily my favourite of the Russian bayans and accordions.

When you buy a CBA that's essentially a PA with buttons (for instance a Bugari 508 or a Victoria Poeta) they come with larger buttons, just like the buttons on a bass accordion. The rule of thumb here is that accordions with notes that fit on a pair (or two pairs) of reed blocks have large buttons and accordions with three (or two times three) reed blocks for a larger number of notes have small buttons.

Thanks for explaining this. I was always slightly more taken by the button accordions with around 46 notes (give or take a few) rather than the very serious looking 64 note monsters. I had not realised the likes of the Victoria Ac420V, Bugari 508 or Poeta were so closely related to PA in terms of reed block architecture.

I think if a Richard Galliano type Victoria button accordion was ever available, I would be seriously tempted. They just seem a bit more approachable than a big bayan. But I guess you can start moderately and build up...

but you're right about the small button area.

The buttons are small, but I guess that's the rules of the game. I'd go for the largest buttons possible.

 

[Siegmund]

Re the size of the buttons... if you're coming from violin, where a half-step corresponds to a distance of about 18mm on the lowest notes and 6mm on the highest, and being off by 1 or 2 mm is clearly audible... even the small buttons feel like quite a generous target, being able to be off-center by several millimeters and still get the right pitch.
Notice that the size difference between the largest and smallest CBA buttons is still quite small, compared to the size difference between CBA and PA, or PA and piano.

Yes, the close finger patterns can be awkward. This is an avoidable problem - just choose a different finger pattern - but I think this can be a real stumbling block for a beginner especially if he's working out of a instruction book intended for PA. Beginner piano books start from "the five-finger position," fingers hovering over C D E F G, so that you play these notes with 1 2 3 4 5. If you do the same on CBA, your fingers are very close together, and you get tied into the mindset of ascending finger-numbers for ascending scales. "2 and 3 in the back, 1 and 4 in the front" is a better pattern to get used to. On the B-system, it's often more comfortable to play C=2 (middle row) D=1 (front row, not 4th row), E=3 (2nd row) F=4 (front row) than to play C1 D2(4th row) E3(5th row) F4(4th row) - though even here, it's important to think of '1234' as being a coincidence, and "1 in front of 2, 4 in front of 3" as the more essential ingredient of the hand position.

 

[Walker]

Overall, I would say the occasionally awkward close finger pattern is an acceptable price to pay for having an accordion that is compact in height and allows comfortable stretches of two or more octaves (if required). Also, in the hands of a wizard it offers great economy of movement in very tricky tunes. Some people might wrongly believe such amazing music is somehow easy for button accordionists to play because of the keyboard and that anyone can achieve greatness. However, I think it's the result of great talent, dedication and training that makes it possible to play such music. Essentially, I would say there are no shortcuts to virtuosity. That said, for the top 1% of accordionists with the ability to make it as a concert accordionist, there are many excellent reasons for choosing button key...

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[Ffingers]

That was incredible, thanks Andrew.
An observation, as a beginner in the field, but one who is very 'musicality' conscious ( please do not raise the topic of "Grand Opera" with me ) the rhythm and note-time values in this performance are outstanding.