Quick Help Before I Buy

[noelekal]

For those players here who play full sized instruments with piano keyboards 19-inch or wider: Does a 41 key 17-inch keyboard frustrate your playing efforts or can you adapt readily enough between keyboards of different sizes?

I'm leaving to go have a look at a smaller accordion in a couple of hours. I'm pretty full sized at 6' 3" with large hands and long fingers. Will attempts to switch between my favorite 19 1/4-inch keyboard and the 17-inch keyboard come to grief?

Would love to read that we can adapt with ease, but fear that potential for disappointment renders a smaller keyboard scarcely ever played after acquisition.

Would love to read a few viewpoints prior to making the hour drive to evaluate this accordion find.

 

[debra]

For those players here who play full sized instruments with piano keyboards 19-inch or wider: Does a 41 key 17-inch keyboard frustrate your playing efforts or can you adapt readily enough between keyboards of different sizes?

I'm leaving to go have a look at a smaller accordion in a couple of hours. I'm pretty full sized at 6' 3" with large hands and long fingers. Will attempts to switch between my favorite 19 1/4-inch keyboard and the 17-inch keyboard come to grief?

Would love to read that we can adapt with ease, but fear that potential for disappointment renders a smaller keyboard scarcely ever played after acquisition.

Would love to read a few viewpoints prior to making the hour drive to evaluate this accordion find.

A friend of mine is probably about your size and plays a "ladies-size" accordion. It looks a bit odd but he has no problems playing it. So no grief at all. He doubted before getting it but he loved the sound and that's why he bought it. (That was many years ago.)

 

[Dingo40]

Does a 41 key 17-inch keyboard frustrate your playing efforts or can you adapt readily enough between keyboards of different sizes?

I have five 19"- 191/4" keyboard 41/120 PAs and two 17" 41/120 PAs, which I play in rotation.
Personally, I've had no problems switching from one to another.
Just like when I drove cars with automatic transmission at work all day, while my own were manual transmission at home, for decades.
I take a "large" size in gloves.
However, YMMV

 

[Ventura]

if it swims and the fins are lined up like Piano keys i can play it

unless it's one of those trick chromatic (finto ?) keyboards

but seriously, no prob for me to switch between any size keyboards..
they go up in that direction, they go down in the other,
and so do the sounds !

 

[Scuromondo]

I play while seated. I actually have more trouble getting used to the shorter length of the overall keyboard and not the slightly narrower width of each key. Due to the shorter keyboard, it is more difficult for me to adjust my straps so that the accordion rests comfortably on my thigh, with the weight off my shoulders.

 

[Dingo40]

I'm leaving to go have a look at a smaller accordion in a couple of hours.

How did you go: any luck?

 

[noelekal]

How did you go: any luck?

Sorry to delay and getting back to the Forum and this thread for a report.


The red accordion was a bust. Keyboard's length was 17 inches and it's been too long since I played a similar sized keyboard as a kid. After taking it on a test drive I determined that I'd never be happy choosing it to play. It would sit forlorn in a closet beside my similarly sized childhood 120 base instrument.

I certainly didn't need it, but it was red. I recall the accordion studio having some new red accordions in stock back in the mid 1960s. Red was/is my favorite color and I badly wanted a red accordion when I was a kid. This one took me a little too far back to my youth though. Would have cramped my style. So, the search for a proper, inexpensive full sized red accordion continues for I still want a red accordion. Just 'cause...

There at the end of July Mrs. noelekal spent eight days in the hospital with complications from a herniated disc and "emergency" surgery. I had a hard time looking in on forum fun, both while there and after returning home for her convalescing. You see, Mrs. noekekal covers household chores much better than I do and she did require a measure of nursing care beside. The quick 2 1/2 hour trip to evaluate the accordion

She's much better now. We went for a brief 2 1/2-block walk around the neighborhood for the first time just this morning as a trial run It's not the two miles we usually do for my cardio walking, but it's a start. She's doing so well that she's trying to take on too much at present.

 

[craigd]

That was a nice looking little accordion you tried out. I wish you luck in finding your red accordion and with your wife's recovery.

I found a beautiful red bejeweled accordion in wonderful condition a few years ago. I think I loved looking at it more than playing it. Ended up trading it for something else. It had a 17-in or 17 inch and a bit keyboard and I think sometimes felt a little cramped. Recently I had the fortune of finding another red accordion, this one with full width keys, just fewer of them. Not as fancy as the old one, and German rather than Italian, but it's still pleases me to see it when I open the case. Very different sound too, which may explain my return to playing polkas.

 

[Dingo40]

I still want a red accordion. Just 'cause...

Keep looking and it will happen!
Best wishes to both you in your search and to your wife for a successful recovery !

 

[Tom]

Best wishes to you and your family Noelekal.