Please enlighten me

[Bohemiansecret]

Hello friends,

Could anyone explain difference between piano and the button accordion? Why would one prefer one over another?
With thanks Sonia

 

[JerryPH]

A lot of it starts with simple preference and doesn't make any difference until you possibly get to much more advanced levels. Then, basically you can have more buttons in a smaller area maximizing distance the fingers to play (only on higher end instruments). Another advantage is that changing keys on a button accordion is easier.

My reality was that when I was playing at my peak and playing along side other advanced button accordion players, there was nothing that they could play that I could not, and changing keys was a bit of a chore but possible, and there were not many times in my life that I needed to play a song in multiple keys, but the few that did, an extra 15 minutes of practice in the new key solved that easily enough.

For the newer breed of electronic instruments, that is made even easier by pressing a button and having the accordion change to any key for you... lol

Glissandos sound strange to me on a button accordion, as you are moving up in minor thirds, more natural on a piano accordion, that is the only things I can think of... There are so few songs where this can be used that again, its of no real consequence.

 

[dan]

Just to clarify, what is usually discussed on this forum is the chromatic button accordion (CBA), which has 3-5 rows of buttons on the right hand side but otherwise works just like a piano accordion. Nydanas Accordion Resources has a comprehensive comparison between piano accordion (PA) and chromatic button accordion (CBA), and the issue has been discussed before on the forum (although I cant find it at the moment). The CBA is less common in the UK and US, so depending on where you live and what languages you speak, you may have more difficulty finding an instrument, a teacher, and a method book (most are in French, German, Italian, or Russian). Ive been making faster progress since I switched from PA to CBA, but as Jerry says, its very much a matter of personal preference.

Button accordion can also refer to the diatonic button accordion or melodeon family of instruments, which have 1-3 rows of buttons on the right hand side and play a different note on the push and pull of the bellows. Range can be limited--a one-row cajun box gives you two octaves, and none of the black keys. You either pick a box tuned to the keys youre most likely to play, or (with certain layouts, like the club, Irish B/C and British chromatic B/C/C#) master the challenging art of playing across the rows. If youre playing mostly folk music and dont mind those limitations, the advantages are lower cost, lighter weight, and punchier sound.

 

[george garside]

the lower cost and lighter weight does not apply to the british Chromatic boxes but the 'punchier sound probably does, provided you know how to do it!

george

 

[yc360]

CBA is much more friendlier to small hands when it comes to covering octave and things. Also, it's a lot easier to switch through multiple keys without significantly changing your fingering pattern in the same piece of non-stop music. I chose CBA when I started accordion several years ago when switching from piano. Also, some of the CBAs can have a lot more treble notes than the PA's 41+, which can be very important, depending on the type of music you want to play...

 

[Bohemiansecret]

Thank you so much!

 

[debra]

Im a bit late in the game here (the initial topic was not really clear from the title).
I played the PA for about 40 years (and piano for longer) before taking the plunge to move to the CBA. So far its been a challenging and also very expensive move (expensive because it took me 4 accordions to finally end up with the one that fits me best).
If you watch between 0:50 and 0:55 you will see a simple example of what is possible on CBA and not on PA: he is holding an A and then first plays Fis-Gis-Fis-F-Fis one octave higher and then (while still holding that A) two octaves higher. The distances you can cover are simply much larger on CBA than on PA and you can for instance also play a scale in octaves in legato because you can do use a 1-5 and then 2-4 fingering. (You can do an octave with index and ring finger easily.)
As a result the range of the instrument can also be larger. Professional PA instruments typically have 45 notes. Some exceptional ones have 47 notes and the largest that I know of has 49 notes. Professional CBA instruments all have 64 notes (and smaller ones have 58 or 61 notes).
My wife and I are not 9 years into the switch and there is simply no turning back.

 

[Anyanka]

I switched to buttons after 4 years of piano accordion, and while the first year required a lot of work & practice, I never had a moment's doubt that it was the right thing to do. Some people prefer the linear nature of the piano keyboard, but I find the CBA much easier and faster than the PA, and the patterns of playing suit my intuitive nature.

Jerry says "when I was playing at my peak and playing along side other advanced button accordion players, there was nothing that they could play that I could not" but that kind of misses the point - MY playing is much better than it would be if I had not switched, although there are still many PA players who can outsmart me I also use the trick described by Paul de Bra, where I hold on to notes an octave higher or lower than the melody I'm playing - I've always liked doing that, but on the PA it hurt!

 

[Bohemiansecret]

Thank you so much.
Interesting journey it will be.

 

[JerryPH]

but on the PA it hurt!

In the tones of "more cowbell...", more practice!
Kidding aside, I can cede that octave+ reaches are easier on the button, especially for people with smaller hands.

 

[george garside]

The daddy of all accordions was the one row diatonic button box of around 1829. the unisonoric 9 same both ways piano accordion was do doubt developed and became popular because many would be players could play a piano keyboard and therefore, in theory at least, would be able to pick up a box and play it without a great deal of further learning. In other words the piano keyboard was introduced in order to popularise the box rather than for its intrinsic merits or lack thereof!. Button boxes of the continental veriety on the other hand required specific techniques unrelated to the piano keyboard but are in fact are more logical for the melody side of a box. The other chromatic button box, the Bcc# or British Chromatic also has certain advantages but is not suitable for 'classical stuff and needs a fair amount of learning before its undoubted qualities can be taken full advantage of.

george

 

[TomBR]

As a PA (piano accordion) player I'm happy to acknowledge that in isolation, the CBA (chromatic button accordion) has many advantages and is probably a superior system in many ways.

But we play our music in the real world.
Many people come to the accordion with some "piano" skills - they therefore have a head start on PA. Paul DeBra has always been very honest on this forum about the length of the transition from PA to CBA (playing at a high level, it can be said.)
For myself, I want to keep that commonality of keyboard between accordion, piano, electronic keyboard and melodica. (Yes, the CBA melodica equivalent the "Accordina" exists, but they are very expensive.)
In some countries, UK, USA, etc, there are far more PAs than CBAs - finding what you want in the used market is therefore much easier, and there's much more fun to be had trading used instruments because they are plentiful and cheap.
There is much more instructional material available for PA in English.
The way we think about music theory in the broadest sense is deeply related to the piano keyboard, naturals sharps and flats etc.
The piano keyboard is logical and consistent - up and down in pitch are always consistent and any given interval will always be the same number of keys away. ("Black keys are your friends" - is also an important lesson to learn on the piano keyboard.)

I'll confess to being deeply tempted by CBA but I've "restarted" on too many different instruments over the years. For what I want to do, playing with and for other people, PA is the way to go.

A little more peripherally, all the accordion players I most enjoy play PA - if it's good enough for Phil Cunningham, Karen Tweed, Gordon Patullo, Alan Kelly and Sergiu Poppa, it's good enough for me!

(In countries where PA is the default, I think the "converted" minority of CBA players tend to be rather more vocal about their choice than the PA majority! Natural enough. )

Tom

 

[donn]

Another thing, with an interesting parallel to your point about music theory and the piano keyboard. As a matter of immediate perception, the piano keyboard presents a visible and tactile octave, as the groups of 2 and 3 black keys clearly orient your eyes and fingers. CBA is an array of notes with no particular focal point or anchor.

I'm not sure I really agree with your notion of the importance of black keys to thinking about music -- you know, looking at it from the other side as a CBA player, they do kind of disappear (my accordion buttons are all white), and yet the music remains. But I'll have to think about whether there might a cognitive advantage to that structure, in the same way I'm saying there is a perceptual advantage to the physical keyboard.

[By the way, I have to say, there are better and worse topic subject titles, and this is one of the worse.]

 

[debra]

...
Many people come to the accordion with some piano skills - they therefore have a head start on PA. Paul DeBra has always been very honest on this forum about the length of the transition from PA to CBA (playing at a high level, it can be said.)
For myself, I want to keep that commonality of keyboard between accordion, piano, electronic keyboard and melodica. (Yes, the CBA melodica equivalent the Accordina exists, but they are very expensive.)
...

Yes the transition is difficult, and I still do maintain my keyboard skills on the piano.
I probably have mentioned this before but the main reason I started learning CBA was because I wanted to learn to play the accordina. Let me tell you: the accordina is absolutely NOT the CBA melodica equivalent. It is a very different instrument that sounds very different from a melodica. Had it just been equivalent I might never have started on the accordina, let alone CBA.
In Belgium CBA is now the default to the extent that children attending music school are not even allowed to start on the PA. In the Netherlands PA and CBA coexist next to each other and while CBA is gaining PA is still largely dominant, even among new starters.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with PA and many professional players are proof to that. I have never considered PA to be logical, and especially for people who start learning melody bass CBA makes a lot more sense (more similarity between left and right hand. The piano keyboard is also not logical in that it is very dependent on the key the music is in. There is only one glissando you can play easily (C scale). On CBA every glissando is a mix of white and black keys and you can easily do a chromatic glissando. On the piano keyboard many people think playing in C (no sharps or flats) is easiest but in reality B is easiest to play a it uses all black keys. People just have trouble reading scores with 5 sharp signs. In some sense the Morino VI has the worst keyboard as it has narrow black keys that are hard to play, just when black keys are supposed to make playing easier... but I digress.
Hopefully we can just agree that PA and CBA are just different instruments. When I arrange music for an accordion ensemble I often do not make the arrangement completely generic: I know who has which type of accordion and adapt accordingly.

 

[TomBR]

Point taken re Accordina - thanks.
Tom

 

[JerryPH]

Hopefully we can just agree that PA and CBA are just different instruments.

More like different branches on the same tree.

 

[debra]

Hopefully we can just agree that PA and CBA are just different instruments.

More like different branches on the same tree. [/quote]
Agreed.
I guess the root of the tree would be the sheng (dating back to 1100BC). I would suggest it first splits between the mouth-blown instruments (melodica, harmonica, accordina and some strange other instruments) and the bellows-operated ones, then diatonic versus chromatic, and PA versus CBA is a much smaller variation than all the others. So in the big picture PA and CBA are really closely related family members.

 

[Anyanka]

re Transferring keyboard skills - although it helps right at the very beginning, briefly, really there is little similarity between a piano and a piano accordion. The vertical keyboard feels quite different from the horizontal (and visible) one; the feedback from the instrument is different and as a piano player, one has a desire to hit the keys harder to produce a louder note!

I still play piano (and harmonium, which is more closely related to the accordion in a way), and transfer tunes between the instruments as quickly as ever.