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The bandoneon is the last step of the evolution of the series of portable reed wind instruments, lik

i think there is a section of 8-10 buttons that
pretty much corresponds to the diatonic one row

and there are basses and 'accidentals' all over
the place too

wle.

oh
here is some info

THE BANDONEON
by David Alsina


The bandoneon is the last step of the evolution of the series of portable reed wind instruments, like the accordion and the concertina. All these instruments respond to similar configurations and working principle. They have two keyboards attached to a bellows. The sound is produced by thin metal ribbons or reeds which are fitted inside holder plates, with holes for each of the reeds. When the keys, or buttons, are pressed and the bellows is being worked, valves open allowing the wind to pass through the free reeds. These reeds then vibrate producing the sound.
The earliest known free-reed instrument was the Chinese sheng, which was mouth-blown, dated as early as 2000 years BC. The sheng was introduced, or discovered in Europe in the 19th Century, and it inspired the “luthiers” or instrument makers to create new instruments based on the principle of vibrating reeds.

The inclusion of the bellows and buttons started in the 1820’s in Germany. These instruments were called Harmonicas, but the same kind of instrument was registered in Austria with the name of Accordion around 1830.
The first accordions played a predefined chord with a single button action, which played the tonic and the dominant by opening and closing the bellows. This instrument was very easy to play and nice for non musicians who wanted to enjoy accompanying dancers by just making rhythm with the chords.
Musicians criticized the invention because of the restriction of producing melodies and composing the chords in a different way than the prefixed ones.

In 1835 the German Uhlig, split the notes of the chord, allowing changes in the harmony, this instrument was called Concertina.
During the 1840’s, Zimmerman of Germany improved the accordion, or concertina, increasing from 30 to 70 the number of buttons, all with independent sounds.
In these instruments each button produces a different sound depending on the sense of the bellows, opening or closing. For that reason they call these concertinas “diatonic”; this definition produced a confusion that remains today. I think they should say “bi-sonorous”, “bi-sonic”, or something like that. Diatonic means that the instrument is able to make only sounds corresponding to a scale, major or minor; but these instruments are chromatic; they have all the alterations, 12 sounds per octave.

During the middle of the Century, the concertinas became very popular. Musicians could play any kind of music. No matter the country or the century, there have always been two kinds of musicians, the ones that like to play the easy way, and just have fun accompanying party dancers, or the serious ones who tried to play Bach or Mozart. There is a version about the origin of the bandoneon, which says that it was invented as a replacement for the organs in small churches that couldn’t afford the expense of an organ, or as a portable instrument to accompany funeral processions.

In the 1850’s, Heinrich Band, musician and dealer of musical instruments contributed to the diffusion of these improved concertinas, selling them with a label of “Bandonion”.
By the end of the 19th Century there were accordions, concertinas and bandoneons, exported from Germany to the whole world. The accordions were more popular in France and Italy (called fisarmonicas). There were some accordions with the buttons on the right side changed by a keyboard, called piano-accordion. British people adopted the concertina in one English invention, smaller than the German instrument.
The factory that produced bandoneons, owned by Zimmerman, was bought in the 1860’s by Ernest Louis Arnold, and since the beginning of the 20th Century most of his bandoneons (ELA) and the ones made by his son Alfred Arnold (AA) were exported to Argentina, with the name of Bandoneon.

At that time a new dance was born, with the name of Tango, and it grows with the special sound of the bandoneon.
All the typical structures of tango groups, include bandoneon.
Duo: bandoneon and piano, or acoustic guitar. Trio: bandoneon, piano or guitar and double bass. Quartet: bandoneon, piano, violin, bass. The quintet adds a guitar or another violin. The traditional or typical tango orchestras in Argentina used four bandoneons and four violins in addition to piano and bass.
The fusion of bandoneon with string quartet in chamber music is excellent. My favorite ensemble is the combination of the basic trio plus a string quartet, that means: bandoneon, piano, bass, 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola and cello.

The current bandoneon is known also as argentine bandoneon, in spite of the fact that there are no bandoneons manufactured in Argentina. After the Second World War, the Arnold’s factory was forced to change its production, the need for pieces of diesel engines was more important than the double A’s, and no more bandoneons of that quality were constructed since.
I consider the bandoneon to be the most difficult instrument to learn. I do not mean to master it; most of the musical instruments require a lot of effort to reach expertise. I set out just to learn how to play it. In the most common configuration the right hand contains 38 buttons and the left hand has 33, totalizing 71 buttons. There is no rule or pattern to follow the scales in the bandoneon layout of the notes; they are located totally at random, like the letters in a typewriter. It implies that just in order to learn the location of the notes in the two keyboards it is necessary to remember 142 different positions (71 buttons with one sound opening and another different 71 closing the bellows). The left hand goes chromatically from C3 to A5, almost 3 octaves. The right hand covers another 3 octaves, all the sounds from A4 to B7. The music scores for the bandoneon are the same as the piano parts, the left hand reads F clef, and the right hand reads G clef.

David Alsina

Re: The bandoneon is the last step of the evolution of the series of portable reed wind instruments,

Interesting line from that description:
No matter the country or the century, there have always been two kinds of musicians, the ones that like to play the easy way, and just have fun accompanying party dancers, or the serious ones who tried to play Bach or Mozart.

No bias there

How the bandoneon ended up in Argentina's folk music

I once heard the german sailors imported the bandoneon to Argentina in the late 1880s. They couldn't afford to pay for girls in brothels, so they paid "in kind" with bandoneons.... That apparently, is how several instruments ended up in the hands of "the local people" who incorporated the instrument into their folk music... That's my unconfirmed theory.

Re: How the bandoneon ended up in Argentina's folk music

wrong, that´s how the one rows came to Canada, MAz... )Just joking. I like your explanation. Why not= Nice story.

Gus

It is a concertina.

In essense, it is a concertina.

You can summarize as follows:

- If the buttons or keys move in the same direction as the bellows, it is a concertina.

- If the buttons or keys move perpendicular to the bellow, it is an accordion.

-David

Re: Bandonion

It has been my understanding that a concertina does not have chord buttons, that the chords are formed by pressing the individual note. You can see this in one of the videos.

An accordion plays notes on one side and single button notes and cords on the other.

Do they make concertinas that play single button cords?

Re: Bandonion

There are a few concertina looking instruments that have chord buttons. They usually seem to be eight bass, two row diatonic accordians or the Italian one-and-a-half row forced into a 6 sided concerina shape. There is also a version of a Bandoneon called, IIRC, a Bandonika which, again is a diatonic accordian in concertina clothing.

My personal preference (and seems totally logical to me) is that if one button produces a chord it's an accordian, if it doesn't it's a concertina (except that free bass piano accordians would be reclassified as a concertina ).



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