My new acquisition!

[ritaxis]

A few months ago I heard a sound in the Cost Plus store over by the credit union: it was muscial, but not really music, eaxactly: somebody was tinking around on an accordion.  It actually sounded sort of pleasant.  So I wandered over in that direction and found a toy accordion, one octave and two chords in the ket of C, twenty-five dollars! and, like I said, sounding surprisingly pleasant.


Still, I couldn't bring myself to buy it.


But a couple of days ago I did.  I bought me a red-white-and-blue child's toy plastic-and-paper one-octave, two-chord accordion.  And tonight I have been playing it for two and a half hours.  I am still getting the hang  of the mechanics of the thing so I haven't really begun picking out tunes but a little bit -- the first half of "Jambalaya" came out of its own accord, and something else I don't even remember now -- but I can usually pick out a tune by ear if I give it enough time, so that's not a real concern.  I still have to get the scale under control.  The push-pull relationship reverses halfway up the octave for reasons I don't understand (each reed has a push tone and a pull tone, a half-step apart) -- is it to create the place in the octave where there's a half-step between whole notes (I can hardly believe I once took a music theory class -- I have no access to terminology to express myself at the moment, I can only hope that I'm making any sense at all)?  In that case, why aren't there two of those places?


I don't seem to be bothering Frank very much with it.  Of course, he has been shoving earphones in and having at his new games so as to pass the time till he gets back to his darling (she is, actually).



Also: Loch Lomond on a paddle boat, today.

Comments

[hrj.livejournal.com]

As you surmise, the push-pull relationship reverses so that, in theory, you could play a major scale all on the push (or the pull, depending on how they have it set up). I'm guessing it goes something like this (with one direction in the first column and the other in the second):

C C#
D D#
E "E#" (i.e., F)
F F#
G G#
A A#
B B# (i.e., C)

Since it's a toy, I suppose there's no reason that it should follow any of the standard button arrangements. There was a time when I could pick things out on the two standard concertina types -- they're non-intuitive for those with music theory but have a fascinating relationship to the types of tunes developed/adapted for them.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a lot of fun!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

This is a little button accordion, what the English (like me) call a melodeon.

The explanation above from hrj is wrong, as your little toy melodeon doesn't have all the chromatic notes available. Instead, it's a lot simpler than that; the push notes give you the notes of the major chord (CEG), the rest (DFAB) are on the pull. This works together with the basses, because you find that when playing the notes on the push, the push basses (which will be a C and a C chord) 'fit' reasonably well, and when playing the notes on the pull, the pull basses (which will be a G and a G chord *I THINK*) fit better.

YouTube has plenty of inspiring examples of people playing the toy melodeon -- but my favourite is this from the fantastic melodeon player Anahata, which should give you something to aspire to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V91S2w4JZ0

So you see they are quite capable toys. And you should be able to play all sorts of easy tunes on yours.

For everything you could possibly want to know about melodeons, melodeon.net. There's a beginner article there, which I wrote with some help, which is pretty well entirely applicable to toy melodeons. There are also various threads about toy melodeons in the forums.

Have fun. Melodeons (the big ones) are the best instruments in the world.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I was misled by the description of the push-pull tones being a half step apart.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

They are, though.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

No, it turns out I must have read the brochure wrongly, though, becayuse I notice that I'm getting a perfectly fine tune following the buttons around with the push-pull, which wouldn't happen with half-steps.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I wouldn't have wanted to mislead you! I am pretty sure all these little melodeons are the same; the fundamental C is the second push note and you have, in total, many of the notes of two octaves, from G below middle C to a top G. (G, B, then a complete octave and a half up to the top G). Melodeons, even the full-size kind, were designed to just play tunes on rather than learning from written music; Hohner famously advertised their melodeons as 'requiring no musical ability whatsoever'. So by picking out tunes you know you are following a grand tradition.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

There are seven buttons, though, and the brochure that comdes with it describes the arrangement she gave, not yours.

I expect to be able to pck out tunes as soon as I get over the desire to just make tunes up as I go along.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

No, it turns out you're right after all, and I misread the brochure. My ear tells me, because I can get tunes following the buttons around, rather than a simple scale.

I can't hear the video yet -- no audio on the computer. I have a guy making a house call on Tuesday.

[pameladean]

That's really delightful.

P.