Pressing lots of bass buttons to close bellows during "solos"

[Ignacchitti]

On the videos: Verbiest using it for effect. Better than empty air. Van damme uses bass mute so he doesnt need to release air from the up button. It may come from a habit of using diatonic accordions before. Another reason might be these accordions are modified for lightness to use only pulls. Push reeds are taken with the bass side also. Will make the accordion very light for hours of performance.

I feel it has to be that explanation, otherwise Van Damme's pushing while pressing many bass buttons wouldn't be so silent.
I still feel confused though when I see him in the same tune and with the same accordion actually playing left hand notes! Same in other videos of his.

 

[Ventura]

1: staccato non-chord bunched notes ire occasionally seen
in Rock and Jazz.. watch any John Lord vid off "Hush" to
see a very good example

2: AVD had a whole BUNCH of Excelsiors provided by and
regularly maintained by CEMEX throughout the decades

3: they were not all the same.. it depended on various things
what he used and when and why.. 6 reedblocks in the Bass
section is a lot of weight to shed and a consideration for some
long Gig fronting a large ensemble onstage with no chair or stool
in sight

what i mean is, with his Quintet there is little or no need to add
a bass note anywhere, with a session Bass and Drummer reading from
his charts for some gig in a Jazz Club in some far away place, perhaps more..
Studio work seldom needed the left hand, and he did a lot of that too..

he also had an occasionally twisted sense of humor, and he considered himself
to be, i believe, a Musician, and part of that community, feeling little affinity
or obligation to the accordion specific community.. in his latter days he softened
somewhat towards the accordion community

 

[murathan]

I feel it has to be that explanation, otherwise Van Damme's pushing while pressing many bass buttons wouldn't be so silent.
I still feel confused though when I see him in the same tune and with the same accordion actually playing left hand notes! Same in other videos of his.

It is also possible they use this to measure "rests". İn Jazz and also concerts, its hard to count the rest time. You cant feel how much time passed generally. I have nothing to say about the Italian "Gentleman" in the other video

 

[KLR]

I'm not an expert by any means but I believe Latino diatonic accordion styles are played largely on the pull. All diatonic instruments have more powerful air buttons, which are placed close to the buttons so they can be worked at the same time. I don't think you'd need to mash on the bass buttons to get out of having pulled or pushed too far.

The Steirische musicians seem to play in one direction, then the other.

This is all in stark contrast to the purely melodic Irish and Scottish styles, where the air button is in constant use to deal with playing primarily on one row - the other musics are more chordal, and use boxes with 3+ rows, facilitating crossing rows, allowing for playing in one direction.

I've always wondered if piano and chromatic players use the air button for anything other than closing things up to put the box back into the case.

 

[murathan]

I'm not an expert by any means but I believe Latino diatonic accordion styles are played largely on the pull. All diatonic instruments have more powerful air buttons, which are placed close to the buttons so they can be worked at the same time. I don't think you'd need to mash on the bass buttons to get out of having pulled or pushed too far.

The Steirische musicians seem to play in one direction, then the other.

This is all in stark contrast to the purely melodic Irish and Scottish styles, where the air button is in constant use to deal with playing primarily on one row - the other musics are more chordal, and use boxes with 3+ rows, facilitating crossing rows, allowing for playing in one direction.

I've always wondered if piano and chromatic players use the air button for anything other than closing things up to put the box back into the case.

There is a rule to start with pull to every piece. Thats the only addition to air button than you mentioned

 

[Ventura]

I'm not an expert by any means but I believe Latino diatonic accordion styles are played largely on the pull. ...... I don't think you'd need to mash on the bass buttons to get out of having pulled or pushed too far.

of course they don't ":need" to
but why not if they don't have any bass reeds anyway and the
airholes are not blocked off

consider the reality of the lower end Mariachi players, their skill
level, the need to make it look like they are doing something
important, the mind numbing boredom of using only a few
notes ever and mostly as a rhythmic sound effect

hey, why not press a few Bass buttons for the air gulp
while you smile and keep your sombrero from hitting anything

I've always wondered if piano and chromatic players use the air button for anything other than closing things up to put the box back into the case.

that's about it, yep... have never needed to do otherwise.. maybe i have
been lucky and my accordions sound equally as good on Pull as Push,
with only the variations of Musette flavoring being complex in their
note and frequency interactions. Any time a note acted up pull vs push
i just fixed it asap if not immediately

it might also be that i am almost always well amplified, so slight variations
in pull vs push sound are less noticeable right off the bat as the music sails
away into the night sky

to me, you Diatonic player are performing a miracle keeping track of
where the heck the notes are and how to get to them in time..
my brain is stuck on every note every combination is here all the
time somewhere if i can just reach it, and beyond that i typically articulate
individual notes, sometimes every note in a melody, with the Bellows control,
so i just don't have any processing power available to think also about
direction or air gulping

 

[murathan]

to me, you Diatonic player are performing a miracle keeping track of
where the heck the notes are and how to get to them in time..
my brain is stuck on every note every combination is here all the
time somewhere if i can just reach it, and beyond that i typically articulate
individual notes, sometimes every note in a melody, with the Bellows control,
so i just don't have any processing power available to think also about
direction or air gulping

Diatonic players generally dont learn from sheet music. They learn from push pull tab with specific keys shown. Most of them use one way for easiness, thats possible on many instruments, they also dont use bass most of the time, if they use, they have 8 something basses there anyways

 

[Pipemajor]

I Have a very old Italo American CBA which doesn't have a air button!!!

 

[Ignacchitti]

Regarding Art Van Damme's playing style, what I could find by looking this topic up was:

"Art once told me that with his horn-like bellowing technique, with every
phrase and note bellowed separately, he really couldn't figure out a way to
incorporate the left hand"
The purpose is not just to avoid getting in the way of the bass/guitar players.
But rather to be able to give the dynamics that you want to the right hand, without left hand notes interfering in it/sucking from it.
"This is why Art Van Damme sounds a LOT like a clarinet or a saxophone. His
dynamic range is much more extreme than 99% of accordion players, which is
one of the reasons his music swings so much."

And a quote Bob Berta, President San Fransisco Bay Area Accordion Club:
"Another interesting comment was that the only treble reed he used was the bassoon reed. He often stripped out the other reeds from his accordion. He has an early (about 1954) American made Excelsior that was one of his favorite accordions. He had previously removed the other reeds so when he recently found them in storage in his house, had them reinstalled in the accordion. He played the ten minutes to see how they worked out....that was it."
The purpose, most certainly to reduce weight.

 

[murathan]

There are a lot of tricks/hacks happening in "high-end" artists and accordionists but I dont put Art Van Damme into this category. To earn money/fame every artist has their tricks. They must be above a regular player and use everything possible. These tricks are explaining many things why we cant achieve these levels of play. Some newbies and fans are explaining these with "talent". Tricks doesnt work anymore because of computer use in music except some newbies and idiots. Art plays certainly super jazz accordion and thats enough for me to accept his art.

 

[Ventura]

Regarding Art Van Damme's playing style, what I could find by looking this topic up was:

"Art once told me that with his horn-like bellowing technique, with every
phrase and note bellowed separately,

well yes, this was one huge reason Jazz Accordionists overwhelmingly
accepted the Organ-Accordion, as the left hand suddenly we had a great
Upright Bass sound that didn't use any air

many of us with MIDI accordion as well, literally the only time we
used bass reeds was in Oktober

my MIDI rig had an amazingly fat Bass with a Rhodes piano for chords,
and it allowed for easy and precise bellowing with little muscle fatigue
even after 4 and 5 hour gigs

about the research, bear in mind AVD would sometimes say outrageous
things just to mess with some buttoned up accordionist asking him questions..
so what is true and what is legend ? very hard to tell sometimes..

 

[murathan]

Mystery must stay...

 

[KLR]

I remember reading about young Art practicing bellows changes on every note, going over Benny Goodman transcriptions, and some quote like "Once you're really in pain you're starting to get it!" But watching him play he certainly doesn't seem to play like that non stop. There's plenty going on.

Figures that he liked to spin yarns, or mess with people. I've read a lot of contradictory stories about him.

Tab is used in some diatonic traditions, like the Alpine musicians and their griffschrift. It's unknown in Irish and Scottish playing, though. All of these elements are dependent on the tradition in question, and the player. I've seen videos of norteno players really going to town on the basses. Can be done!

 

[breezybellows]

My daughters are experts at this. They didn't use the air button and they press random buttons on the bass side after finishing the song.