Accordions Are Amazing Instruments
Did You Take Accordion Lessons in the 1960's? Most of us did, thanks to traveling accordion salesmen
I didn't realize when I was young how many people in my generation would take accordion lessons. How I wish I could go back and pay more attention to those few lessons that I was fortunate enough to recieve. I was only four years old when my parents signed me up for lessons, and I'm sad to say I did not like them at the time. It's rather ironic that now I play the accordion and several other instruments (with varying degrees of inexpertise) yet have never managed to get more than 2 or 3 lesso...

The Story of My Days as a Piano Accordionist - A Musical Quest
The day the music came to town
When I was eight years old, a blitz of door-to-door salesmen came through our town, signing up children for piano accordion lessons. They were handsome young men, and I suspect they didn't know much more about the instrument than they needed to make the sale. Looking back, the musical, The Music Man comes to mind. They talked to our parents first and then we were called into the room. "Put this strap over one shoulder. Put this strap over the other shoulder. Slide your left hand under the si...

Accordions
Introduction
The accordion as a musical instrument can be traced back to 300BC in China. The instrument was known as the Cheng and was the first known instrument which adopted the free vibrating reed principle. The reeds were in fact made from bamboo. The sound or resonator box was made from a gourd which also acted as a wind chamber. The air was provided via a mouthpiece. This arrived in Russia in the 1770's but it is debatable as whether this is the first instrument of its type in Europe. It is known th...

Teach Yourself To Play The Accordion
Learn to play the accordion - Teach Yourself to Play the Accordion and Have Fun With It!
The accordion is an amazing instrument, and one of the newest instruments around if you discount the electronics used in modern music. The accordion was only invented in the 1800's, so it's a newcomer on the music scene, unlike the psaltery, which dates back to the beginning of time. OK, so that's a stretch, but the psaltery IS one of the oldest instruments while the accordion is one of the newest in terms of non-electronic sound. The coolest thing, in my opinion, about the accordion is that...