Mally's Traditional Music Store

The squeezebox family of instruments comprise a section of the free reed range which play different notes on the press and draw of the bellows. Before going any further it is extremely important to note that what you are about to read comes totally from my head, other musicians may be in total disagreement with my ideas. Instruments not included are piano accordions, continental chromatic button accordions and concertinas.

Instruments in the squeezebox family all have one, two or three straight rows of buttons on the right hand side. On the left are usually eight or twelve bass button arranged in two or three squares. Some instruments have the full Stradella bass system of up to one hundred and twenty buttons, arranged in a diagonal formation as is found on the piano accordion.

Some members of the squeezebox family

What you call these instruments seems to depend on where you live. In England they are mostly referred to as melodeons. In Ireland they are called accordeons except the one row which is called a melodeon. In the southern states of America even the one row is called an accordeon.

Whatever you call them, they all have straight rows of buttons each of which plays a scale. The first note of the scale is on the press, the next on the draw and so on. It is the relationship of the rows which split these instruments into two groups, diatonic and chromatic. Instruments with one row, and multi rows a fifth apart (G A B C D, D is the fifth note in the scale of G) are diatonic and are called melodeons, they don't have all musical notes. Instruments with with scales a semitone apart are chromatic and are called accordeons, they have all musical notes. All notes not found on one row occur on the other.

One row instruments tend to be favoured by Cajun players, diatonic instruments are played for morris and English country dance music and chromatics are used for the Irish reels and jigs.

My Personal Nomenclature

You may have noticed by now that I sometimes use accordion and other times accordeon. I use the spelling accordion when referring to piano and continental chromatic varieties and accordeon when referring to chromatic press/draw instruments.

Chromatic Button Accordeons

The most popular of these is the B/C, probably ninety percent of Irish players favour this system. The other system, the C#/D, comes a poor second but nevertheless, it is used by quite a significant number of players. The advantage of playing the C#/D is that tunes fall more into the natural key of the instrument but more bellows reversals are required than the smoother flow of notes produced by the B/C. Inside row buttons on the B/C can be regarded as being the whites notes on the piano and outside buttons are the black ones.

Other systems around are the C/C# and the D/D#. These systems don't really count as they are always played in the B/C or C#/D style, that is playing the bulk of the music on the inside row, crossing to the outside for notes not occurring on the inside scale, mostly F# and C# on the B/C and C natural on the C#D. When these instruments are played the music strays away from standard pitch, usually up one semitone. Irish players often refer to this as playing in E flat or playing the E flat box.

Until recently Paolo Soprani dominated the Irish accordeon market but now more modern, lighter instruments are coming into vogue. Hohner also made accordeons, the Double Ray and the Double Ray Deluxe, often called The Black Dot. For some strange reason they made a complete hash of the bass, most chords related to the scale of B. I was seriously caught out with this error as my first instrument was a Double Ray Deluxe. I could never understand why the basses didn't relate to popular keys or at least the key of C. To an absolute beginner this was totally confusing and I was far too green to believe I had a valid point. I gave up in the end and moved to the D/G. Years later I discovered that the basses on the Paolo Soprani did relate to popular keys and Hohner had got it totally wrong. This is one reason why my quest in life since opening the business in 1985 is to try to put put beginners on the right track as early in their musical career as possible.

Diatonic Melodeons

The most popular of these in this country is the D/G because they play in the standard pitch of traditional music of Britain and Ireland. They can be tuned in any two or three keys as long as they are a fifth apart. G/C, A/D/G and G/C/F are popular examples. The G/C tends to be popular in France and the G/C/F around the Texas/Mexico border. Melodeons are useful in folk bands where singing predominates, different systems can be employed when singers vary the keys. To accompany morris dancing the D/G melodeon is the instrument of choice nowadays, it is ideal; fairly light, robust, loud and relatively easy to play in this style. Musicians rarely use D/G melodeons to play Irish music, I seem to be the exception that proves the rule.

Hybrid Instruments

A combination of diatonic and chromatic systems is possible by tuning in the keys of C#/D/G, giving the best of both worlds. I have one myself, a nice Castagnari Benny. You can see it on the home page.

A session at Cleethorpes with Karen Tweed: What concentration