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Accordion Capers
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame), colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina , harmoneon and bandoneón are related. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor. The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing ''pallets'' to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called '' reeds''. These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instrument's reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block.For the accordion's place among the families of musical in ...
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Piano Accordion
A piano accordion is an accordion equipped with a right-hand keyboard similar to a piano or organ. Its acoustic mechanism is more that of an organ than a piano, as they are both aerophones, but the term "piano accordion"—coined by Guido Deiro in 1910—has remained the popular name. It may be equipped with any of the available systems for the left-hand manual. In comparison with a piano keyboard, the keys are more rounded, smaller, and lighter to the touch. These go vertically down the side, pointing inward, toward the bellows, making them accessible to only one hand while handling the accordion.Felt or rubber is placed under the piano keys to control touch and key noise: it is also used on the ''pallets'' to silence notes not sounded by preventing air flow. This material eventually wears with use, resulting in a clacking noise, so has to be replaced to quieten the mechanism. The bass piano accordion is a variation of a piano accordion without bass buttons, with the piano key ...
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Melodica
The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usually covers two or three octaves. Melodicas are small, lightweight, and portable, and many are designed for children to play. They are popular in music education programs, especially in Asia. The modern form of the instrument was invented by Hohner in the late 1950s, though similar instruments have been known in Italy since the 19th century. Description The mouthpiece can be a short rigid or semi-flexible plastic piece or a long flexible plastic tube (designed to allow the player to either hold the keyboard so the keys can be seen or lay the keyboard horizontally on a flat surface for two-handed playing). A foot pump can also be used as an alternative to breathing into the instrument. Melodica keyboards typically ascend from a low F note. ...
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Musical Instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies. The date and origin of the first device considered a musical instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some scholars refer to as a musical instrument, a simple flute, dates back as far as 50,000 - 60,000 years. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 40,000 years ago. However, most historians be ...
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German Language
German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italy, Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and German-speaking Community of Belgium, Belgium, as well as a national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France (Bas-Rhin), Czech Republic (North Bohemia), Poland (Upper Silesia), Slovakia (Bratislava Region), and Hungary (Sopron). German is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch language, Dutch, English language, English, the Frisian languages, Low German, Luxembourgish, Scots language, Scots, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic languages, North Germanic group, such as Danish lan ...
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Accordionist
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame), colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina , harmoneon and bandoneón are related. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor. The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing ''pallets'' to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called '' reeds''. These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instrument's reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block.For the accordion's place among the families of musical in ...
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Accordion Reed Ranks And Switches
A reed rank inside an accordion is a single full set of the reeds that are the means to achieve the instrument's sound range. These reed ranks are located in the reed chamber. Most accordions to this date typically have between two and four reed ranks on the treble side and between three and five reed ranks on the bass side. These can usually be selected individually or combined in various ways to provide a range of different timbres, by use of register switches arranged by register from high to low. More of the top-line expensive accordions may contain five or six reed blocks on the treble side for different tunings, typically found in accordions that stress musette sounds. How many reeds an accordion has is specified by the number of treble ranks and bass ranks. For example, a 4/5 accordion has four reeds on the treble side and five on the bass side. A 3/4 accordion has three reeds on the treble sides and four on the bass side. Reed ranks are classified by either organ 'foo ...
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Bayan (accordion)
The bayan ( rus, бая́н, p=bɐˈjan) is a type of chromatic button accordion developed in the Russian Empire in the early 20th century and named after the 11th-century bard Boyan. Characteristics The bayan differs from western chromatic button accordions in some details of construction: * Reeds are broader and rectangular (rather than trapezoidal). * Reeds are often attached in large groups to a common plate (rather than in pairs); the plates are screwed to the reed block (rather than attached with wax). * The melody-side keyboard is attached near the middle of the body (rather than at the rear). * Reeds are generally not tuned with tremolo. * Register switches may be operated with the chin on some larger models (also possible with some larger European button accordions). * The diminished chord row is shifted, so that the diminished G chord is where one would expect the diminished C chord in the Stradella bass system. * Converter switches that go from standard preset c ...
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List Of Accordionists
This is an alphabetized list of notable accordionists who have their own main articles or belong to a notable band. A * Benny Andersson (born 1946) – Swedish songwriter, member of best-selling pop group ABBA * Lydie Auvray (born 1956) – French/German accordionist, composer * Slavko Avsenik (1929–2015) – Slovenian songwriter, the founder of Ansambel bratov Avsenik * Ramon Ayala (born 1945) – Mexican accordionist, composer * Nick Ariondo (born 1949) – American accordionist, composer B * Alan Bern (born 1955) – member of the Klezmer band Brave Old World * Bratko Bibič (born 1957) – Slovene accordionist * Renato Borghetti (born 1963) – Brazilian musician * Franko Božac (born 1974) – Croatian classical and concert accordionist * Smiley Burnette (1911–1967) – American accordionist * Gary Blair (born 1945) - Scottish Accordionist Classical, Folk, Continental C * Manuela Josefa Cabrera (born 1943) - known as ''Fefita la Grande'', Dominican merengue accordi ...
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Electronium
The Electronium, created by Raymond Scott, is an early combined electronic synthesizer and algorithmic composition / generative music machine. Its place in history is unusual, because while in intention it is analogous to the digital algorithmic composition systems that would follow it, it was implemented entirely as an analog electronic machine. Development was begun in 1959, with a workable unit by 1969. Scott, however, never ceased to modify and further develop the device by the time of his death in 1994. Chusid, Irwinbr>Beethoven-in-a-box: Raymond Scott's electronium Contemporary Music Review,18(3):9-14 1999. It was one of the very few electronic creations of Scott to be sold to a customer, as he was normally highly secretive about his devices. A single Electronium machine was sold to Motown Records, following a 1969 meeting between Scott and Motown's Berry Gordy. The initial contract required that Scott visited Motown for three months to teach staff how the machine is used. ...
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Digital Accordion
A digital accordion is an electronic musical instrument that uses the control features of a traditional accordion (bellows, bass buttons for the left hand, and a small piano-style keyboard (or buttons) for the right hand, and register switches) to trigger a digital sound module that produces synthesized or digitally sampled accordion sounds or, in most instruments, a range of non-accordion sounds, such as orchestral instruments, pipe organ, piano, guitar, and so on. Digital accordions typically encode and transmit key presses and other input as Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) messages. Most digital accordions need to be plugged into a keyboard amplifier or PA system to hear their sounds. Purely digital, reedless instruments are not to be confused with "accordion hybrids", which are a standard acoustic accordion with sensors for all the keys and buttons to interface with electronic sounds. This allows the instrument to be played totally acoustically, with no electronic ...
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Shō (instrument)
The is a Japanese free reed aerophone, free reed musical instrument that was introduced from China during the Nara period (AD 710 to 794). It is descended from the Chinese ''Sheng (instrument), sheng'', of the Tang Dynasty era, although the ''shō'' tends to be smaller in size than its contemporary sheng relatives. It consists of 17 slender bamboo pipes, each of which is fitted in its base with a metal free reed. Two of the pipes are silent, although research suggests that they were used in some music during the Heian period. It is speculated that even though the pipes are silent, they were kept as part of the instrument to keep the symmetrical shape. The instrument's sound is said to imitate the call of a Phoenix (mythology), phoenix, and it is for this reason that the two silent pipes of the ''shō'' are kept—as an aesthetic element, making two symmetrical "wings". Similar to the Chinese Sheng (instrument), sheng, the pipes are tuned carefully with a drop of a dense resin ...
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