Accordion

An accordion is a musical instrument of the handheld bellows-driven free reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as squeezeboxes.

History

The accordion is one of several European inventions of the early 19th century that used free reeds driven by a bellows; notable among them were:

Related Topics:
Europe - 19th century

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• The Aeoline, by German Bernhard Eschenbach, 1810.
• The hand-aeoline, by Christian Buschmann, 1822.
• The flutina, by Pichenot Jeune, ca. 1831
• The concertina, patented in two forms (perhaps independently):
• Carl Friedrich Uhlig, 1834.
• Sir Charles Wheatstone, examples built after 1829, but not patented until 1844

An instrument called accordion was first patented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian in Vienna. (Interestingly, the original patent shows the name "eoline" crossed out and replaced with "accordion" in different handwriting). Demian's instrument bore little resemblance to modern instruments: It only had a left hand keyboard; the right hand simply operated the bellows. One key feature for which Damian sought the patent were the sounding of an entire chord by depressing one key. His instrument also could sound two different chords with the same key: one for each bellows direction (press, draw); this is called a bisonoric action.

Related Topics:
1829 - Vienna

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Jeune's flutina resembles Wheatstone's concertina in internal construction and tone color, but it appears to complement Demian's accordion functionally. The flutina is a one-sided bisonoric melody-only instrument whose keys are operated with the right hand while the bellows is operated with the left. When the two instruments are combined, the result is quite similar to diatonic button accordions still manufactured today.

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Further innovations followed and continue to the present: Various keyboard systems have been developed; voicings (the combination of multiple tones at different octaves) have been developed, with mechanisms to switch between different voices during performance; different methods of internal construction to improve tone, stability and durability, and so on.

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