Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type, colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina, harmoneon and bandoneon are related. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor.
Contra dance is a form of folk dancing made up of long lines of couples. It has mixed origins from English country dance, Scottish country dance, and French dance styles in the 17th century. Sometimes described as New England folk dance or Appalachian folk dance, contra dances can be found around the world, but are most common in the United States, Canada, and other Anglophone countries.
A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front.
Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS FRSE DCL LLD, was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope, and the Playfair cipher. However, Wheatstone is best known for his contributions in the development of the Wheatstone bridge, originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie, which is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy.
The bandoneon is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It is a typical instrument in most tango ensembles. As with other members of the concertina family, the bandoneon is held between the hands, and by pulling and pushing actions force air through bellows and then routing air through particular reeds as by pressing the instrument's buttons. Bandoneons have a different sound from accordions, because bandoneons do not usually have the register switches that are common on accordions. Nevertheless, the tone of the bandoneon can be changed a great deal using varied bellows pressure and overblowing, thus creating potential for expressive playing and diverse timbres.
The English concertina is a member of the concertina family of free-reed musical instruments. Invented in England in 1829, it was the first instrument of what would become the concertina family.
A Chemnitzer concertina is a musical instrument of the hand-held bellows-driven free-reed category, sometimes called squeezeboxes. The Chemnitzer concertina is most closely related to the bandoneón, more distantly to the other concertinas, and accordions.
A button accordion is a type of accordion on which the melody-side keyboard consists of a series of buttons. This differs from the piano accordion, which has piano-style keys. Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs categorize it as a free reed aerophone in their classification of instruments, published in 1914. The sound from the instrument is produced by the vibration of air in reeds. Button accordions of various types are particularly common in European countries and countries where European people settled. The button accordion is often confused with the concertina; the button accordion's buttons are on the front of the instrument, where as the concertina's are on the sides and pushed in parallel with the bellows.
A melodeon or diatonic button accordion is a member of the free-reed aerophone family of musical instruments. It is a type of button accordion on which the melody-side keyboard contains one or more rows of buttons, with each row producing the notes of a single diatonic scale. The buttons on the bass-side keyboard are most commonly arranged in pairs, with one button of a pair sounding the fundamental of a chord and the other the corresponding major triad.
A Schrammel accordion is an accordion with a melody keyboard in the chromatic B-Griff system and a twelve-button diatonic bass keyboard. It is named for a traditional combination of two violins, accordion or clarinet, and contraguitar known as a Schrammelquartet – a group that played Schrammelmusik in the Vienna chamber music tradition.
William "Merry" Kimber, was an English Anglo concertina player and Morris dancer who played a key role in the twentieth century revival of Morris Dancing, a form of traditional English folk dancing. He was famous both for his concertina playing and for his fine, upright dancing, such that in his day he was presented in the highest circles of society.
Noel Hill is an Irish concertina player from County Clare who has had great influence developing the modern playing style of the Irish concertina, as a performer and educator.
Irish traditional music is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland.
The Wicki–Hayden note layout is a compact and logical musical keyboard layout designed for concertinas and bandoneons.
The Anglo or Anglo-German concertina is a member of the concertina family of free-reed instruments.
Lachenal & Co. was a British firm producing concertinas from approximately 1850–1936. The firm was founded by Louis L. Lachenal, a Swiss emigrant to the United Kingdom, who arrived there in 1839, and by 1844 was working in support of the famous Wheatstone concertina firm before founding a supporting contract firm and by 1858, an independent firm.
Carl Friedrich Uhlig (1789–1874) was a German luthier, known for inventing the German family of concertinas, from which are descended variants such as the Anglo concertina, bandoneón, Carlsfelder concertina, and Chemnitzer concertina.
The Carlsfelder concertina is a member of the German concertina family developed by Carl F. Zimmerman, based on the earlier Chemnitzer concertina of Carl Friedrich Uhlig. Zimmerman, a native of Carsfeld, Saxony, unveiled his instrument at the 1849 Industrial Exhibition in Paris, the 1851 London Industrial Exposition, and the 1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York. Zimmerman expanded on Uhlig's early 1- and 2-row square concertinas, developing a 3-row chromatic bisonoric instrument, eventually selling his business to instrument maker Ernst Louis Arnold and emigrating to the United States, where he later became famous for his string instrument invention, the autoharp.
Paddy Murphy (1913-1992) is regarded as a founding father of modern Irish concertina music.
John Hill Maccann, or Professor Maccann was a concertina player and designer from Plymouth, England. In 1884, Maccann patented a new design of Duet concertina, which became the first successful and most widely accepted layout of that instrument. Maccann's layout was a refinement of the earlier "Duette" system developed by Charles Wheatstone, inventor of the concertina. Initially called the "New Chromatic Duet English Concertina", it was to later be called simply the "Maccann system".
