Melodians and button accordions

Anselm Lingnau

Message 2106 · 5 Jul 1995 12:33:59 · Fixed-width font · Whole thread

Ian Brockbank <xxxxxxxxx@xxxxxx.XXXX.xxx.xxx> writes:

> As far as I could tell, it was identical to a piano
> accordion as sported by, say, Sandy Nixon, or Iain MacPhail in all respects
> instead of the right hand key layout.

Yes, that's what I was thinking of. It is definitely not diatonic, and the
notes don't depend on the direction the bellows is moved in.

A concertina is smallish and (usually) octogonal in cross-section, I think.
To complicate matters further, there are basically two types of concertina,
one diatonic (no `black keys') and one chromatic. I think concertinas don't
have preprogrammed chords the way accordions do. They are sort-of glorified
mouth organs.

A melodeon is definitely bigger than a concertina but smaller than a
full-size accordion. The one I'm just thinking of has about two rows of
buttons for the right hand and a small number (eight or so?) buttons for
the left hand.

Then there's the button accordion Ian and I have been talking about, and
the piano accordion. The biography of Iain MacPhail that I have says that
he started out on the button accordion but went over to the piano accordion
because he moved away and there was no teacher to be found.

Anselm
--
Anselm Lingnau ......................... xxxxxxx@xx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx-xxxxxxxxx.xx
If your users expect new functionality can always be magically added to old
applications, you need to educate your users. --- Bob Scheifler