Marc Savoy puts the price/wage ratio into perspective. His father was considering the purchase of an accordion at a young age. The accordion was $14 and his wages were $0.50 a day, and consequently his dad never saved up enough to buy a box.
If it took 28 days' wages to buy an accordion then, today's $2,600 (Martin) accordion would equate to $11.61 per hour. Add the overburden of statutory Social Security and Unemployment Compensation insurance that didn't exist in the $0.50/day wage era, the hourly rate is $12.81 per hour for a workin' hand. This indicates that values have remained fairly constant.
The main difference today is that the purchase price goes directly to the builder, as opposed to being divided among the dealers, distributors, importers, and German manufacturers in early times. Louisiana comes out on top, and the accordions are better than ever!
My point remains valid. You don't need a golden accordion to become a master. What you need is a functional truely tuned accordion and a whole lot of time and practice..................................and the patience that would choke a camel. You all strive to play like the masters for a reason. Some of you unfortunates strive to play like Marc Savoy or Steve Riley, etc. But for the most part, every accordion player should try to accomplish what the masters accomplished. And that cannot be bought nor sold nor accomplished sooner than 25 years. Not only that, it takes time to hear as many different versions of songs as possible. You have to hear the originals, the versions of the later generations, and the versions of the modern day players. Then you have to choose then master the version you want to play. And try to make it your own instead of sounding like a freakin parokeet with no brain.
Dont forget, and burn it into your brains. Those ole imported reeds were german made I speculate on most of them. They are sought after to this day. I have said it before and I will say it again. The Benci reed is not all its said to be. On the price of modern day Louisiana made accordions, I would pay up to 1500, but with much hesitation and demands on the tuning, button and bellow action, weight, block sizes,and the overall looks. When a builder wants to charge me that much money, he better be more than willing to give up some trade secrets willingly and some information on his product that would help me to know what i'm purchasing. He also better be willing to retune it for free at least twice as my ear grows more sensitive in the search for the sound I want. As I see it, with experience, the serious player tends to want a certain sound and feel to the accordion that inspires play and that pulls on the heart and soul of both the player and the listener. He does not want the generic blazee' sound that the builder will try to pass off as the normal tuning. I've watched old masters grab an accordion and play it just a little bit and hand it back to the owner and not say much. Then, I've seen them grab another accordion on rare occasion, play a song, then turn to the owner and say, "I'll buy that accordion right now! How much you want for it?" because it had the feel and it had that sound. You charge me over 2000 for an accordion and it had better have that feel and that sound right off the assembly line got dammit! Hell, the dam thing ought to wake me up in the morning and have breakfast ready and waiting, and it ought to swallow for that price. And that is not usually the case for those of us in the know.
"Truely" is actually spelled truly.
"Benci" is Binci.
I would recommend getting the basics down.
The "desired" reeds of the early 20th century were DIX reeds.. the only current supplier costs more than a set of Binci Pros.
Here is my suggestion..
Build your own accordeon to the quality you expect others to build for $1500 and see if you would sell it for that, and if yours would measure up.
Other points, even the Saxon/Bohemian/German/Austrian accordeons of the early 1900s were hand made, even more-so than now.
On a point of agreement, great music has been made on inexpensive instruments.
I have own many one rows including teens cheapies, hand Made Cajun (they are not all made in LA, some are made elsewhere such as Texas)
Currently I play an Italian made Castagnari. I also have and play, three Hohner HA models 112,113,114 all dating from the 50s. My favorite of the bunch is my GGFs 1880 hand made 2 1/2 row 6 bass with leather bellows and pitched in D/G (rare) It is a daily player.
Prove your point.. get an HA 114, tweak it and go for it. Johnny Connolly has played Hohners for 60 years, no finer one row player. See if you can match his skill level. I believe he also owns and plays a Cajun made unit but he prefers the Hohners.. Check You Tube for examples of his playing.
Another point LaFleur and Moreau are not "new" builders and are at the top of my list for a true Cajun built instrument along with John Doucet.
Another point.. if you think that Martin and Savoy and Falcon are the pinnacle of accordion building, you need to get out more.
When you see so fit as to correct my fk'n spelling right off the bat, I don't rate you as being worth much. So move on. You fail to recognize where I'm coming from and what I'm all about, therefore I see you as a one jump chump that got insulted by the truth I was putting down, and you needed to one up me or "get me back" in your own english teacher kind of way. Do you go to jam sessions to learn and contribute, or do you show up to jam sessions to dominate the local competition and show everyone who's the boss? You probably break out with some Steve Riley tunes you learned from his Tutorial DVD on the first songs dont ya? That's all I have for you there Gold Fingers. He corrected my fk'n spelling....geez.
The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week
