– 1829
Oom, pah, pah!
On this date in 1829 Armenian-born Cyrill Demian received a patent for a musical instrument he dubbed an accordion. It had two to four keys that could play chords while the “squeeze box” (or bellows) was compressed. Many versions of accordions exist today; most have a keyboard on one side, to play a melody, and buttons on the other side, to play chords. The keyboard and buttons don't have any way to give expression to a musical piece—there is no volume control, for example—so the pleated layers of cloth and cardboard known as the bellows are the mechanism through which musicians play loudly or softly, smoothly or energetically.
Celebrate the accordion's birthday by listening to folk music with an accordion, or accordion music by Weird Al Yankovic or folk metal groups.
Here's Weird Al's Yoda...
Here is a nice Sicilian tarantella...
And you gotta love this folk metal accordion battle... (Note: I presume the band is speaking Finnish, which I do not speak, so I don't have any idea whether or not there is cursing on this video.)
I want to read a poem on YouTube that features and accordion and I'd love to use the photo of the little boy. Is it your photo or are there any copyright restrictions on it do you know?
ReplyDeleteHAPPINESS
by Carl Sandburg
I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell
me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of
thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though
I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along
the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with
their women and children and a keg of beer and an
accordion.
dadpoet --
ReplyDeleteI got the photo from Wikimedia. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Accordion_playing_boy_in_Rome.jpg
Go to the link to see what restrictions there are, if any...
That's a cool poem. I had never read that one before!