Welcoming a New Accordion Into the Family: He who dies with the most accordions wins

[AccordionUprising]

Quite amusing post by Gary Chapin

Welcoming a New Accordion Into the Family​

He who dies with the most accordions wins​

https://medium.com/muddyum/welcoming-a-new-accordion-into-the-family-f3e18cbad930

Joyous news! You and your partner — or just you! — have finally succeeded in bringing an accordion into the family! Possibly your first. Possibly your second or sixth. You’ve dreamed about it for years, and struggled! There were fights with the spouse and recriminations! Resentment and secret vows to “punish him for now and all time!”
But that’s over! Huzzah! But it’s no time to give up on the anxiety and worry! Only a sense of lingering dread will help you successfully navigate this difficult new stage for the family.
Here are some tips to make the transition successful for you and for the new box of joy.
...
Sit the family down — spouse, kids, dogs, cats, gerbils, squatters, day laborers, and decorative hermits — and let them know that, for the sake of the new accordion they are all expendable.
...
Talk to the other accordions, but not too soon
If you tell the other accordions too soon, they’ll have time to gin up angst that you’re bringing in the new box because you’re unhappy with the current herd. They fear they will be replaced! This is absurd, of course, because you’ve already sold off the accordions you don’t want in order to pay for the new one. But accordions gonna worry.

 

[olivigus]

Oh my. That was so spot on! I am currently waiting on a new accordion "find" to arrive, and I have not told my significant other yet. Perhaps this article is the way to break the news...

 

[Waldo]

Not dead yet, and still in the running!

 

[nora-schom]

Oh my. That was so spot on! I am currently waiting on a new accordion "find" to arrive, and I have not told my significant other yet. Perhaps this article is the way to break the news...

Sounds so familiar to me.....in 2020 I ordered my new (+ currently 2nd) PA Bayerland (Piatanesi) and confessed it to my spouse just before arrival of DHL (I almost even considered having it sent to the company I work for, but dismissed that), but he was not as uncomprehending as feared. Now I'm slowly preparing him about further instruments "being planned"

 

[Tom]

I just acquired the 3 we fixed. My wife is pretty understanding as she knows they tend to come and go on various occasions.

 

[olivigus]

@nora-schom I relate. But I don't know why I feel so shy/secretive about my growing accordion collection (I'm up to three now). I play and enjoy them all, and since I really have a soft spot for the vintage ones (and access to a very reasonably priced repair expert) we're only talking in the hundreds (versus thousands) of dollars cost-wise, so it's not like I'm bankrupting the family over an accordion obsession. Perhaps because it's a relatively new passion/fascination I feel a little vulnerable about it? Or worry that someone's disapproval is going to derail it? It's a mystery, because my spouse is actually very supportive of all my creative endeavors, so I don't know where the impulse to conceal comes from. Curious what you think drives it for you. Anybody else got some secret shame about loving accordions?

 

[Ffingers]

olivigus: "...(and access to a very reasonably priced repair expert)..."

?...somewhere over the rainbow...?

"If wishes were horses, then beggers would ride."

If only.

 

[Mr Mark]

I can see the other accordions getting jealous.

So I use them to make a wall and keep the world out.

Somehow this has managed to end up excluding humans also.

This makes me Lord Snark, for I am the sole provider of their tuning and thus responsible for their inner harmony.

I exact a shameless toll on their existence by forever moving them in and out of the lineup, yet they are grateful.

I reward them all with a dance now and then, oh how we love to dance. No better partner have any of us had than each other.

This might be weird but this can't be hell or the wax would melt.

Rather an endless reed chamber stretching on forever with no end in sight, and no light at the end of the tunnel either.

Which is good, because no one likes a leaky tunnel.

Good night.

 

[nora-schom]

To be quite honest: until abt. year 2000 (when I bought my big converter) I never even got the idea of having/playing more than 1 instrument, and I also started playing recorders with 1 single alto recorder. And then slowly internet surfing began, and youtube viewing - in the meantime I've gathered a collection of abt. 25 recorders (from cheapest plastic ones to hand-made!).

But the wish for more than 1 accordion came later, during the last 3-4 years - via internet "stimulation". Maybe this sort of "seduction" causes this underlying feeling of "bad conscience", and like olivigus mentioned, I wouldn't buy anything I cannot afford, too (I'm normally very cautious with expenses).

To Mr. Mark: very poetically expressed! I use to say I will make music until my last breath ?

 

[olivigus]

@Ffingers I know, I am REALLY fortunate. I bought my first accordion from a young man who had apprenticed at the accordion repair shop in San Jose, and he'd done a beautiful job with it. He's since moved away, but his mentor is now my accordion teacher and go-to repairman. I feel like all the stars lined up for me to take up the accordion--I wound up with a very nice starter instrument and a great teacher.