closing the bellows

[andrewjohnsson40]

You may want to open and close the bellows when not playing.
I find some people talking about a button they have for doing this. I guess it realeses the air without making a sound. What do you call that button? And you who do not have such button how then do you close the bellows?

 

[fjsys]

They are called an "Air Button" or "Air Release Valve"

I have run across perhaps two accordions in my life without one.
Sometimes they can be in different places.
The two most common places are:
1. On the back and you can use your thumb to get to it.
2. In the bass the top (closest to your chin) row of buttons, the last one will be the air button. (This is most common on Titano accordions)

If the accordion is one of those that doesn't have one then the only option is to either make a lot of noise closing it, or mash all the bass buttons and close the bellows slowly so the reeds don't sound.

HTH
Ben

 

[debra]

They are called an Air Button or Air Release Valve

I have run across perhaps two accordions in my life without one.
Sometimes they can be in different places.
The two most common places are:
1. On the back and you can use your thumb to get to it.
2. In the bass the top (closest to your chin) row of buttons, the last one will be the air button. (This is most common on Titano accordions)

If the accordion is one of those that doesnt have one then the only option is to either make a lot of noise closing it, or mash all the bass buttons and close the bellows slowly so the reeds dont sound.

HTH
Ben

Good summary! Actually the air button is not the best for *quietly* closing the bellows. It makes a wind-like noise and there are compositions that require the use of the air button to create a wind effect. The quiet way to close the bellows is to push lots of bass buttons, preferably a collection of base notes (best done on the melody bass).
I had many accordions all with option 1: on the side where the strap is for controlling the bellows. My AKKO bayan has option 2 which makes sense as the melody bass starts with E which is on the second row so the air button (on my C-griff instrument) is where Es would be if the bayan had that. The B-griff (russian) version has the highest notes there and the highest is Cis and the air button then is where D would be if the bayan had that. It does imply that the 120 bass stradella in fact is only 119 bass...