A chromatic button accordion is a type of

button accordion A button accordion is a type of accordion on which the melody-side keyboard consists of a series of buttons. This differs from the piano accordion, which has piano-style keys. Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs categorize it as a free reed ae ...

where the

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

-side keyboard consists of rows of buttons arranged

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...

ally. The bass-side keyboard is usually the Stradella system or one of the various

free-bass system A free-bass system is a system of left-hand bass buttons on an accordion, arranged to give the performer greater ability to play melodies with the left-hand and form one's own chords. The left-hand buttonboard consists of single-note buttons wit ...

s. Included among chromatic button accordions are the

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n bayan and

Schrammel accordion A Schrammel accordion (german: Schrammelharmonika) is an accordion with a melody (right hand) keyboard in the chromatic B-Griff system and a twelve-button diatonic bass keyboard. It is named for a traditional combination of two violins, accor ...

. There can be 3 to 5 rows of vertical treble buttons. In a 5 row chromatic, two additional rows repeat the first 2 rows to facilitate options in fingering. Chromtatic button accordion 3-row 48-bass Hohner Nova II 48

Comparing the layout to the piano accordion,Dan Lindgren, Piano Accordion vs. Chromatic Button Accordio
Online PDF
/ref> the advantages of a chromatic button accordion are the greater range and better fingering options.The uniform layout allows for uniform fingering and making of chords; meanwhile, the chromatic button layout also allows for alternative fingerings. As the buttons are closer, it is also easier to reach notes that are far apart, such as two octaves apart. On the other hand, some fingering positions require twisting of the wrist and the aspect of alternative fingering patterns may stunt one in sessions of difficult sight reading. Throughout the former

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

a 6-row chromatic button layout is used based on the B system. It is referred to as '' dugmetara''.

History

Early accordions were bisonoric instruments resembling modern

diatonic button accordion A melodeon or diatonic button accordion is a member of the free-reed aerophone family of musical instruments. It is a type of button accordion on which the melody-side keyboard contains one or more rows of buttons, with each row producing the ...

s. The first unisonoric accordions were built in Russia in the first half of the 1840s, with

ism not appearing until the 1850s. There are several conflicting claims of the invention of the first chromatic button accordion. The first chromatic button accordion may have been constructed as early as 1850 by Franz Walther, in 1870 by Nikolai I. Belobodorev, or as late as 1891 by Georg Mirwald. Many early chromatic button accordions were similar in design to the

schrammel accordion A Schrammel accordion (german: Schrammelharmonika) is an accordion with a melody (right hand) keyboard in the chromatic B-Griff system and a twelve-button diatonic bass keyboard. It is named for a traditional combination of two violins, accor ...

. As the

Stradella bass system The Stradella Bass System (sometimes called ''standard bass'') is a buttonboard layout equipped on the bass side of many accordions, which uses columns of buttons arranged in a circle of fifths; this places the principal major chords of a key (I, ...

would not be invented until later, these accordions often employed systems that would be considered unusual on a modern chromatic accordion, such as bisonoric bass buttons.This can also be seen in photographs and illustrations of such accordions; Their bass keyboard does not have the characteristic angled rows of the

Early chromatic button accordions were less popular than their diatonic counterpoints and unstandardized. The modern chromatic button accordion, featuring the Stradella bass system, was patented in 1897 by Paolo Soprani, with the assistance of Mattia Beraldi and Raimondo Piatanesi. Its production and sale by Paolo Soprani helped globally spread and standardize the chromatic button accordion.

Notes

References

Accordion Musical keyboard layouts Isomorphic keyboard layouts {{FreeReed-instrument-stub

History

See also

Notes

References