 The accordion is an instrument that most people recognize, but unless you've seen one up close or actually played one, how it operates may be a mystery to you. Here's an explanation. The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the centre bellows while pressing buttons or keys. This results in vents opening, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called reeds. These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves make the instrument's reeds sound louder.  The accordion has traditionally been used to perform folk or ethnic music and popular music. Today the instrument is sometimes heard in contemporary pop styles, such as rock and pop-rock, and occasionally even in serious classical music concerts, as well as advertisements. Accordions have many configurations, sizes and types. Each one must be learned to play separately. The most obvious difference between accordions is their right-hand sides. Piano accordions use a piano-style musical keyboard; button accordions use a buttonboard. Accordions may be either bisonoric, producing different pitches depending on the direction of bellows movement, or unisonoric, producing the same pitch in both directions. Piano accordions are unisonoric Accordions vary not only in their dimensions and weight, but also in number of buttons or keys present in the right- and left-hand sides. For example, piano accordions may have as few as 8 bass buttons (two rows of four notes), or up to 120 (six rows of twenty notes) or even more. 
Despite these differences, all accordions share a number of common components. The bellows is the most recognizable part of the instrument. The sound prouced is in direct proportion to the motion of the bellows by the player. The bellows is made from pleated layers of cloth and cardboard, with added leather and metal. It is used to create pressure and vacuum, driving air across the internal reeds and producing sound by their vibrations. Applied pressure increases the volume.
The accordion's body consists of two boxes, commonly made of wood, joined by the bellows. These boxes house reed chambers for the right and left sides. Each side has grilles in order to let air in and out of the instrument, and to allow the sound to project outwards. The right side is normally used for playing the melody and the left side for playing accompaniment; however, skilled players can reverse these and play melodies with the left hand. Piano accordions use a musical keyboard similar to a piano, at right angles to the cabinet, the tops of the keys inward toward the bellows. When I was in high school, I knew several people who owned and played accordions. In my research for this article, I discovered that the instrument is not only extremely complicated, but that many varitions and types of accordions exist. One is left with the impression that these instruments must be very difficult to learn to play well. Wikipedia has an excellent article if you're interested in learning more. |