Happy Accordion Awareness Month!

GaryKelly · Post by **GaryKelly** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:20 am

It's National Accordion Awareness Month in the US of A.

Frankly I've always been aware of accordions, especially the piano variety, but hey-ho! Have a lovely time y'all!

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:25 am

It comes right between prostate cancer awareness month and tapeworm awareness month, right?

djm · Post by **djm** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:09 am

No doubt an accordian, in fact any variety of squeezebox, is a thing of beauty to anyone who is properly armed.

Blowed up real good! In fact, blowed up two of them.

djm

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:12 am

I don't want to be aware. They always make me think of Steve Urkel.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:16 am

Gary Kelly wrote:It's National Accordion Awareness Month in the US of A.

I've always thought of it as a Public Safety thing. If you're unaware, the payback can be a world of hurt.

But then, arguably, there's pipes in general. Look out!!!

Ro3b · Post by **Ro3b** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:26 am

Hmph. When the revolution comes, you haters will be the first ones against the wall. And we'll play Lady of Spain for you first.

Check this guy out, though, seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBmajjf5WKE

Sylvester · Post by **Sylvester** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:29 am

Who is he talking to?

djm · Post by **djm** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:37 am

Sylvester wrote:Who is he talking to?

To God. He is praying I don't find him before he finishes the piece he is playing.

djm

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:40 am

Ro3b wrote:Check this guy out, though, seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBmajjf5WKE

Wow. Just wow.

Scott McCallister · Post by **Scott McCallister** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:45 am

Ro3b wrote:Hmph. When the revolution comes, you haters will be the first ones against the wall. And we'll play Lady of Spain for you first.

Check this guy out, though, seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBmajjf5WKE

I never realized how much accordions could sound like pipe organs. Check this one out too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVbuIZ-5 ... ed&search=

Pat Cannady · Post by **Pat Cannady** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:29 am

Any instrument can be a weapon of mass destruction in the wrong hands.

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 2:52 pm

Bloomfield wrote:
Ro3b wrote:Check this guy out, though, seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBmajjf5WKE
Wow. Just wow.

Well, I know Mr. Bloomfield is being sarcastic but I thought that was really great.

Scott McCallister wrote:.... Check this one out too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVbuIZ-5 ... ed&search=

Great minds must think alike---I was going to post this too. I sort of hate that piece but it was fun to watch on the accordion. Apparently Alexander Dmitriev, who plays this piece, is the father of Vitaly Dmitriev who played the piece in the first link.

I don't know what is wrong with you guys who only like an accordion if there is a naked girl playing it. I won't go into all the great accordion music in the world and all the great players, but here is one fellow I hadn't known about until Big Davy sent me a tune---Angus Lyon. Some of his music is pretty experimental or something, but he plays a lot of things I really enjoy. This is a clip from The Penguin (Reels):

http://www.anguslyon.co.uk/mp3/Long%20R ... Reels).mp3

Long Road (Angus Lyon solo) (KRL 1999 CDLDL1305)

Here he is playing a too short clip from Sue's Celebration with Ruaridh Campbell on fiddle:
http://www.anguslyon.co.uk/mp3/Simple%2 ... ration.mp3

Simple Tricks (KRL 2001 - CDLDL1310)

http://www.myspace.com/anguslyon
Three tunes here---the last two get well into the alternative sort of thing, but I like the first a lot.

Okay, I don't know what more I can do for the poor accordion.

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 3:28 pm

Cynth wrote:
Bloomfield wrote:
Ro3b wrote:Check this guy out, though, seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBmajjf5WKE
Wow. Just wow.
Well, I know Mr. Bloomfield is being sarcastic but I thought that was really great.

Actually, I wasn't being sarcastic at all. I was truly blown away. My thought was: wow, 25 years or more of hard, dedicated work to get to this point. Just Amazing what the human mind and spirit is capable of through dedication and practice. It was particularly impressive in that it really brought out the d-minor fuge, which is such an awe-inspiring piece of music in the first place. (The bumblebee thing is just a party-trick, as meaningful musically as spinning plates on a stick, imho.)

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:49 pm

Bloomfield wrote:
Cynth wrote:
Bloomfield wrote: Wow. Just wow.
Well, I know Mr. Bloomfield is being sarcastic but I thought that was really great.

Actually, I wasn't being sarcastic at all. I was truly blown away. My thought was: wow, 25 years or more of hard, dedicated work to get to this point. Just Amazing what the human mind and spirit is capable of through dedication and practice. It was particularly impressive in that it really brought out the d-minor fuge, which is such an awe-inspiring piece of music in the first place. (The bumblebee thing is just a party-trick, as meaningful musically as spinning plates on a stick, imho.)

Oh no! I never heard you say "Just wow." before. It didn't seem to be you somehow

. I am sorry I made such an assumption, and thank you for correcting what I said in such a courteous way. I also thought that one could really hear what was going on in a very wonderful way. I agree that the bumblebee is quite silly-----the sort of thing I enjoy watching someone play just for fun, but not listening to. I can't imagine someone putting it on a CD---you'd be gritting your teeth waiting for it to come every time you played it.

Ro3b · Post by **Ro3b** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:50 am

It was particularly impressive in that it really brought out the d-minor fuge, which is such an awe-inspiring piece of music in the first place.

God almighty, yes. The passage at about 4:20 in the video where the melodic lines all coil up and go slamming into a Bb chord is one of the greatest moments in the history of music.

As I've opined here before, I think the accordion has such a terrible rep in America because of ethnic prejudice and class snobbery. The accordion is the instrument of immigrants. It's used in all that music our grandparents from the old country used to love: happy Austro-German polkas, Myron Floren, and all that. Or cheesy Italian pizza-parlor music. French musette waltzes. Bouncy norteno and tejano music from Mexico. All those stupid diddley tunes from Ireland. For several generations, the accordion was all about nostalgia or embarrassment, depending on how you felt about your heritage, or else revulsion if you didn't like a particular ethnic group. But listen to all that stuff! It's all so cool!

BTW, one of the comments in that Tejano video I linked says: "Anybody noticed they aren't playing Accordions, but Harmonica's? Accordions are Chromatic and got more basses. These Harmonica's are Diatonic (the same system as in a harpoon)." So now you know.