Purpose of Blog

This blog describes an approach to learning to play a chromatic button accordion (CBA).

I solicit your comments and suggestions.

This blog documents my quest to become proficient on the CBA. I want this blog to be:

1. Useful to others seeking to play the CBA
2. Helpful to me and others as experienced players offer comments and suggestions.

I am located in the United States where button accordions are rare. I grew up playing the piano accordion which is the most common type of accordion. The piano accordion, with a piano-type keyboard for the right hand, is the most recently developed type of accordion.  It was introduced in the early Twentieth century, some time after 1900.

The original accordion is the button accordion, developed in Europe around 1850 in various forms that continue to be used in Europe to this day. The most compact style of accordion plays one note when the bellows is pulled out out to open and a different note when the bellows is pushed in to close (bisonic). This type includes concertinas and button boxes.

A larger style of button accordion plays the same note no matter which way the bellows is pumped (unisonic). This would require twice as many buttons to play the same number of notes. The diatonic button boxes have buttons arranged in a scale-like manner, somewhat like a piano accordion. The chromatic button accordion arranges the buttons in a repeatable pattern that allows easy playing of chromatic scales. The pattern used in Western Europe is the C-System, which arranges higher chromatic notes to the left.  The pattern used in Eastern Europe is the B-System, which arranges higher chromatic notes to the right.

The Challenge for the Player

The chromatic button arrangement offers fingering patterns that work in any key and provide multiple ways to finger a given set of notes.The disadvantage is that music notation represents the piano key layout. So although the chromatic button arrangement is very logical and consistent, it is not intuitive for playing music.

Consequently, to play a chromatic button accordion (CBA) requires a concerted effort to pattern your mind and your muscles through continual practice.