I don’t know how a button accordion works. I understand squeeze boxes with a piano-style keyboard. They say the sweetest sound in the world is when you throw an accordion into a dumpster, and it lands on a dulcimer you threw in there earlier. But this adding machine stapled on a bellows? No clue.
So this Gallic gentlemen, Marc Berthoumieux, has me double flummoxed. He’s playing Chinese checkers and music comes out. I don’t know how he squeezes such wonderful and inventive music out of it. Makes me want to move to Paris and learn to smoke greasy cigarettes and drink wine from a beaker and look existential while the waiter ignores me. If Rocky the Gibson wrangler announces that if you have a request, write it on a 20 Euro note and send it up, I’ll bite. Of course I’ll ask for Sunny. It was the official song of the twenty-teens, remember?
4 Responses
OK, I just looked up the layout for them Chinese Checkers, the accordion keys. I was instantly cured of ever again complaining about practicing piano chords. Consider me told.
If I could improvise like any of those cats, I’d tell the whole world to kiss my…
My uncle Kenny was well known in his area (Canton, Ohio) for his talent with the accordion.
Grandpa and uncle Mike walloped the stand-up bass. They were bricklayers in warm weather and made their money in the winter as a polka band. I miss them all.
Hi Jean- Thanks for reading and commenting.
An accordion is a jolly thing. I make the same jokes about it that accordion players do, but mean no harm. Besides, accordion players can always turn around and mock bagpipes if they’re feeling downtrodden.
That squeezebox looks like a version of the bandoneon used in Argentinian tango ensembles.
An oversized concertina according to the kids at the Wiki.
There’s a button map there too. Oy….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandoneon