CJS bass system (Chiovarelli Jazz System)

[Big Squeezy Accordions]

I'm intrigued, but feel like I must be missing something here. The website long is on exuberant claims and lacks any specifics about what the new system is. If, as someone on here stated, it is merely a matter of removing the 5th from the major and minor, and the root from the 7th and diminished, then this is a simple modification that anyone can do themselves in under an hour. An interesting idea, but hardly anything new or revolutionary. Is there more to it than that?

 

[Big Squeezy Accordions]

This may actually be a new twist on an old idea. I seem to remember Joshua Horowitz, the klezmer accordionist who plays a 19th century Schrammel accordion (a B-system 3 row chromatic in the right hand combined with 12 bisonoric bass and chord buttons in the left) once telling me that his chord buttons only played two notes each, thus enabling many more chords than would appear possible.

 

[losthobos]

Interesting. If this is correct, anyone with a good wire cutting pliers can easily do this conversion.

,, If only that were true... I'd considered but found no one prepared to do it...and morally I'd rather lay my money down with the innovators..

 

[CJS Chiovarelli Jazz Syst]

Hello, there are many factors to consider, the pliers are not enough and in any case this system is protected by a patent.

 

[stickista]

I'm intrigued, but feel like I must be missing something here. The website long is on exuberant claims and lacks any specifics about what the new system is. If, as someone on here stated, it is merely a matter of removing the 5th from the major and minor, and the root from the 7th and diminished, then this is a simple modification that anyone can do themselves in under an hour. An interesting idea, but hardly anything new or revolutionary. Is there more to it than that?

3 note chords restrict what you can do on the left. (The ultimate freedom coming from even more simplification in the form of single note free bass.)
You can do some great things with polychords on traditional Stradella (eg C triad + G triad = Cmaj9, but some things like maj/min 6th chords aren’t possible. Thats a big restriction to the growing number of people studying Barry Harris (recently deceased) who’s method is based on 6th chords (+ diminished chords).
Most harmony, including sophisticated harmony, is (in our culture) constructed from min and maj thirds. By removing the 5ths (which btw, are largely a hindrance if you want b5 or aug chords) you’re left with a big construction kit of minor and major pairs from which you can build absolutely anything.
You get a less duplicative maj 7 chord with 2 vertically adjacent buttons in the major column. (Meaning less wasted air.)
You get a maj 6th chord with 2 vertically adjacent buttons on the minor column.
You get a min 6th chord using a maj and minor button 6 rows apart. (this seems the most clunky voicing, and I may very well be wrong… I’m just mentally constructing this.
A m7b5 chord is just an inverted m6th chord.
You also get a dom 7th row consisting only of scale step 3 and b7, the 2 most critical leading tones in tonal music.
Combine a dim button and dom 7th button 3 rows apart and you get a full diminished chord, all 4 notes (dim and 7th column are both tritones.)
I’m also guessing you can construct Barry Harris’s famous dim6th (bebop) scales and movements fairly easily.

I’ve never actually touched a CJS instrument, and probably never will, since I play CBA/freebass so I get all this stuff pretty much out of the box (as I’ve ranted on about endlessly in other posts. )

But yeah, less really does get you a lot more by simply dropping the 5ths, and saves you a ton of air in the bargain.

- Jerry

 

[dunlustin]

re Horovitz: Removing Thirds is common among diatonic players - some boxes even have a slider to do the job.
The result of a 'neutral' diad (Guitarists would say 'power chord') replacing maj and min means its the LH that is establishing the key - which it mostly does anyway.
The clever bit about the CJS idea seems to be the ability to recombine those diads.

 

[Lucio76]

3 note chords restrict what you can do on the left. (The ultimate freedom coming from even more simplification in the form of single note free bass.)
You can do some great things with polychords on traditional Stradella (eg C triad + G triad = Cmaj9, but some things like maj/min 6th chords aren’t possible. Thats a big restriction to the growing number of people studying Barry Harris (recently deceased) who’s method is based on 6th chords (+ diminished chords).
Most harmony, including sophisticated harmony, is (in our culture) constructed from min and maj thirds. By removing the 5ths (which btw, are largely a hindrance if you want b5 or aug chords) you’re left with a big construction kit of minor and major pairs from which you can build absolutely anything.
You get a less duplicative maj 7 chord with 2 vertically adjacent buttons in the major column. (Meaning less wasted air.)
You get a maj 6th chord with 2 vertically adjacent buttons on the minor column.
You get a min 6th chord using a maj and minor button 6 rows apart. (this seems the most clunky voicing, and I may very well be wrong… I’m just mentally constructing this.
A m7b5 chord is just an inverted m6th chord.
You also get a dom 7th row consisting only of scale step 3 and b7, the 2 most critical leading tones in tonal music.
Combine a dim button and dom 7th button 3 rows apart and you get a full diminished chord, all 4 notes (dim and 7th column are both tritones.)
I’m also guessing you can construct Barry Harris’s famous dim6th (bebop) scales and movements fairly easily.

I’ve never actually touched a CJS instrument, and probably never will, since I play CBA/freebass so I get all this stuff pretty much out of the box (as I’ve ranted on about endlessly in other posts. )

But yeah, less really does get you a lot more by simply dropping the 5ths, and saves you a ton of air in the bargain.

- Jerry

Are you saying that you can play extended chords with a free bass accordion? Sorry if my question sounds naive, but I've never played a free bass accordion. How do you manage to play, for example, four buttons plus bass or counter bass? Even forming a chord with three buttons sounds extremely cumbersome compared to a system like the CJS. Three notes are too much, but a single note is too little if we are talking about playing extended chords.

 

[Lucio76]

I'm intrigued, but feel like I must be missing something here. The website long is on exuberant claims and lacks any specifics about what the new system is. If, as someone on here stated, it is merely a matter of removing the 5th from the major and minor, and the root from the 7th and diminished, then this is a simple modification that anyone can do themselves in under an hour. An interesting idea, but hardly anything new or revolutionary. Is there more to it than that?

Revolutionary is the fact that now you can't say no more that the accordion can't play certain chords, revolutionary is the fact that the potential of the accordion is being expanded to its fullest extent. It's not surprising that the most talented, respected, and well-known professional Italian accordionists would make the claims you refer to as 'exuberant.' Not all accordionists are repairers like you, so if it only takes you less than an hour, that's great. However, to suggest that anyone can do it themselves is, at the very least, an "exuberant claim".

 

[CJS Chiovarelli Jazz Syst]

The thing with snipping the pins is, once they are snipped you can't unsnip them.

Is it possible to have a converter switch - between Stradella (for traditional/popular styles) and CJS (for Jazz)? Just an idea...

Good morning, everything is doable. However, before making hasty and unfounded judgments, we recommend trying the system and consequently the instrument to also hear the phonic question that many here do not consider. The departure of the voices of the harmonies and basses is of fundamental importance, if we have arrived at this system it is certainly not an hour's work but years of experiments and tests, especially taking into account the phonics and the music on the instrument.

 

[dunlustin]

" Even forming a chord".......
As the commonest form of freebass is a mirror image of a C system CBA (or "Chromatic), the situation is the same as its RH.
Check with a CBA key layout to see how compact a Cmin6 or Ab7 is for 4 fingers. More than 4 fingers - not so easy.

 

[CJS Chiovarelli Jazz Syst]

The problem is not to make a single chord but to manage the conduction of the parts during a performance, to make a single chord even using the Stradella basses with the register of the harmonies you can build chords but that's not the point. Talking to well-known accordionists, all of them affirmed that they have left out the free bass system to play certain harmonies as difficult or almost impossible to manage

 

[Lucio76]

" Even forming a chord".......
As the commonest form of freebass is a mirror image of a C system CBA (or "Chromatic), the situation is the same as its RH.
Check with a CBA key layout to see how compact a Cmin6 or Ab7 is for 4 fingers. More than 4 fingers - not so easy.

The issue is that if you need all your fingers to play a single chord, even in a compact position, you won't be able to add any bass patterns. While this could be useful for playing chord pads or ethereal accompaniment without bass, it's hard to imagine how you could play a bossa nova or samba accompaniment with alternating bass, for example. Even a polka with alternating bass and 3 notes chords seems impossible to play on a free bass accordion with the same effect as on the standard bass.
Free bass accordions are great for polyphony but not as effective for playing rhythmic bass patterns. Am I wrong?

 

[Big Squeezy Accordions]

re Horovitz: Removing Thirds is common among diatonic players - some boxes even have a slider to do the job.
The result of a 'neutral' diad (Guitarists would say 'power chord') replacing maj and min means its the LH that is establishing the key - which it mostly does anyway.
The clever bit about the CJS idea seems to be the ability to recombine those diads.

Yes, certainly. I also always advise removing the 3rds on a 12 bass piano accordion. However, I believe that in the case of the Schrammel it was the 5ths which were missing - similar to the jazz accordion described here - so that the same button could function as, say, a C major or an A minor, depending on the bass note.

 

[Tom]

I suppose if you had a mídi or Roland accordion you could map to any chords you wanted with your computer.

 

[dunlustin]

" it was the 5ths which were missing"
Clever

 

[dunlustin]

"The issue is ..."
Point taken; maybe accordion variants are just different compromises each with more options than many other instruments?
Or fewer choices for less weight/cost and so on.

 

[Walker]

"The issue is ..."
Point taken; maybe accordion variants are just different compromises each with more options than many other instruments?
Or fewer choices for less weight/cost and so on.

Seems to me most other instrumentalists don't see their instruments as having limitations. Their instruments can have less notes or no capacity to make chords or poliphony - and yet they are some of the most revered instruments in creation (violin, cello, clarinet etc)! Accordionists on the other hand want everything in a box. We keep looking for more notes, more efficient systems and novel bass/chord systems. Yet, there is comparatively little admiration for the instrument. I wonder why. Maybe it's time to standardise after all...

 

[stickista]

I suppose if you had a mídi or Roland accordion you could map to any chords you wanted with your computer.

Actually, I was just in contact with Roland about this, and their answer was “nope”.
“
No, it is not possible to customize the layout of the left hand buttons on a V-Accordion. There are a number of griffs or layouts to choose from. However, the Chiovarelli system is not one of them.

There is no way for customers to customize left hand layouts.

Thank you for contacting us.”

 

[stickista]

Are you saying that you can play extended chords with a free bass accordion? Sorry if my question sounds naive, but I've never played a free bass accordion. How do you manage to play, for example, four buttons plus bass or counter bass? Even forming a chord with three buttons sounds extremely cumbersome compared to a system like the CJS. Three notes are too much, but a single note is too little if we are talking about playing extended chords.

The LH on a free bass is pretty comparable to LH on piano. So ‘extensions’, by definition, no. Those are the RH’s turf. But you get a wide variety of shell voicings, and counter melodies.

 

[stickista]

The issue is that if you need all your fingers to play a single chord, even in a compact position, you won't be able to add any bass patterns. While this could be useful for playing chord pads or ethereal accompaniment without bass, it's hard to imagine how you could play a bossa nova or samba accompaniment with alternating bass, for example. Even a polka with alternating bass and 3 notes chords seems impossible to play on a free bass accordion with the same effect as on the standard bass.
Free bass accordions are great for polyphony but not as effective for playing rhythmic bass patterns. Am I wrong?

I think you’d be surprised at how funky you can get with your left hand with free bass. The limitations are more related to the accordion’s intrinsic limitations such as its inability to emphasize individual voices.