What is a smaller version of an accordion? (2024)

What is a smaller version of an accordion?

A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front.

7 Most Common Types of Accordions | Accordion Life Academy - YouTube

Accordions are sized according to the number of bass buttons, 12 bass, 48 bass 72 bass and 120 bass being the most common sizes. Other sizes are available but they all still follow the same pattern of bass buttons.

There are two main kinds of accordion, distinguished by their different keyboards: button accordions and piano accordions. All accordions have a button keyboard on the left-hand side for bass chords, but on the right-hand side, where the melody is played, they can have either piano or button keys.

Concertinas are small hand-held free-reed instruments that are unique from the previous accordion. Because of their compact size, these accordions are great for traveling and are often associated with sailors, who take the musical instrument on their voyage.

Concertina. First and foremost, the concertina is not an accordion. The concertina has buttons for notes on both ends of the instrument and the buttons are pressed in the same direction as the bellows.

The accordion is sometimes nicknamed a squeezebox. In the world of traditional Irish music however, it's often simply called a box. In the Irish language we call it a 'bosca ceoil' [buska key-OLE] which means 'music box'.

Bandoneons are rectangular with buttons at each end, and are normally played resting on one or both knees, unlike accordions which hang on straps from the player's shoulders.

accordion, French accordéon, German Akkordeon or Handharmonika, Italian armonica a manticino, free-reed portable musical instrument, consisting of a treble casing with external piano-style keys or buttons and a bass casing (usually with buttons) attached to opposite sides of a hand-operated bellows.

You will like the 12 bass for its instant playability but will very quickly realise its limitations and your need to go bigger and better, I would say to at least 48 bass, possibly 72, or for additional reasons to the rather substantial 96 or 120 button accordions.

Which accordion is easiest to play?

4-voice: Button accordions — aka, melodeons — generally have more than one reed for each note. Each reed is a “voice.” Two or three voices are normal. Four is extraordinary in a multi-row box because of the weight. Each voice requires an entirely separate bank of reeds.

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.

The accordion typical of the Basque region of Spain is called a "trikitixa". This is a diatonic, with two rows, 23 buttons and twelve bass notes. The most common brand is "Larrinaga".

Bandoneons are rectangular with buttons at each end, and are normally played resting on one or both knees, unlike accordions which hang on straps from the player's shoulders.

The accordion has a piano-style keyboard, while the melodeon has buttons on the keyboard. Melodeons are less flexible than accordions. Melodeons are also usually lighter than accordions. Melodeons are often referred to as a diatonic button 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.

Auvergnats settled in large numbers in the 5th, 11th, and 12th districts (arrondissem*nts) of Paris during the 19th century, opening cafés and bars where patrons danced the bourrée to the accompaniment of the cabrette (a bellows-blown bagpipe locally called a "musette") and often the vielle à roue (hurdy-gurdy).