Helena Simonett - The Accordion in the Americas. Klezmer, Polka, Tango, Zydeco, and More!

The Accordion in the Americas

MUSIC IN AMERICAN LIFE

A list of books in the series appears
at the end of this book.

Klezmer, Polka, Tango,
Zydeco, and More!

Edited by

HELENA SIMONETT

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS

Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield

2012 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 C P 5 4 3 2 1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The accordion in the Americas : klezmer, polka, tango, zydeco, and
more! / edited by Helena Simonett.

p. cm. (Music in American life)

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-252-03720-7 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-252-07871-2 (pbk.)

1. AccordionUnited StatesHistory. 2. AccordionistsUnited States.
3. Accordion musicUnited StatesSocial aspects.
4. ImmigrantsUnited StatesMusicHistory and criticism.

I. Simonett, Helena, editor.

ML 1083.a23 2012

788.8'6097dc23 2012008976

Introduction

HELENA SIMONETT

HELENA SIMONETT

RICHARD MARCH

MARK F. DEWITT

JARED SNYDER

CATHY RAGLAND

JANET L. STURMAN

JAMES P. LEARY

CHRISTINE F. ZINNI

JOSHUA HOROWITZ

EGBERTO BERMDEZ

MARA SUSANA AZZI

SYDNEY HUTCHINSON

MEGWEN LOVELESS

MARION S. JACOBSON

The Accordion in the Americas

Figure 0.1 Accordion traditions in the Americas. Map by Helena Simonett.

HELENA SIMONETT

When my grandfather would reach for his button accordion, a pre World War I Schwyzerrgeli (little Swiss organ), his grandchildren would gather at his feet and listen. I marveled how his calloused fingers could run so effortlessly up and down the keyboard and produce this magic sonorous tone: he made his instrument purr like a cat sleeping on the stove bench. I also remember the bellows changing color, showing beautiful wallpaper when pulled apart, and the alpine flowers that decorated the wooden frame. But I began to detest this sound of my childhood, and more generally Swiss folk music, when I entered my adolescent years. I dont think I ever knew, or wanted to know, the reason for my rejectionthe music was just old-fashioned and corny. Not so with Tex-Mex or New Tango, though! I fell in love with Flaco Jimnez, with his shiny gold crown exposed by his wide smile and energetic accordion playing, after seeing the documentary film Polka: Roots of Mexican Accordion Playing on the Borderline between South Texas and North Mexico, produced by the Dutch anthropologist Robert Boonzajer Flaes and filmmaker Marteen Rens in 1986. Boonzajar Flaes, who taught visual anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, cunningly juxtaposes Jimnez and Austrian accordionists trying to play each others polka styles (after listening to a tape), with the formerof coursemuch more successful than the latter. While I discovered an array of new world musics (many of which feature the accordion prominently, I have to point out), some young people from my part of the country thought Swiss folk was cool and began to fully embrace ethnic musica trend that grew after the mid-1980s and in the 1990s. Yet we all came full circle: folk accordionists such as Pareglishs Markus Flckiger play everything from urchig (original Swiss) to Finnish, Irish, Chinese, and klezmer; my own Schwyzerrgeli is at arms distance as I edit this volume. This volume is, in a way, my coming out of the closet, a way of dealing with my own ambivalence regarding the instrument that carries so many memories.

Throughout its history, the accordion, like no other instrument, has spurred intense reactions. Why is it that this object is so dearly loved by peoples around the world and so intensely hated at the same time by others? Is it the physical object itselfthat pleated cardboard contained by a square wooden box? Is it the soundthat rough tone rich in upper harmonics with a noise-to-sound ratio higher than the European (classical) norm? Is it the repertoirethe low aesthetic value of polkas and other ludicrous dance tunes associated with beer, brats, and bellies? Or is it the locales where the accordion found a homethe German taverns, the American dancehalls, the Argentine brothels, and all the other places of dubious moral standing?

The accordion worlds are far too complex for a plain answer to these questions, but maybe one first response can be found in a Garfield cartoon by Jim Davis. Jon explains to his cat: The accordion is my life, Garfield. You know why? Because I have soul! To which Garfield replies nonchalantly: No, Jon. You have an accordion.

People are drawn to the sound of the accordion because it strikes a chord inside; it triggers remembrance even though there may be no actual accordion experiences to which to relate. The sounding accordion elicits imaginary worlds of memory, tradition, and communityor what Marion Jacobson (in chapter 14 of this volume) describes, in an allusion to Raymond Williams with regard to the contemporary accordionist William Schimmels experimental sound work, as a structure of feeling. But if culture indeed would be understood as a structure of feeling lived and experienced by the vast majority of people in a given society, and not as high culture and low culture, concepts inherited by a premodern class society, one wonders why the accordion has so passionately been ridiculed and rejected. Richard March (chapter 2 of this volume) concludes that perpetuated sociological factors play an important role in the instruments perception as unsophisticated, simple, and low-class.

The genius of the accordion lies in its inner workings. Accordions have thousands of miniscule pieces that must be in their proper place: metal tongues, rivets, nails, screws, washers, springs, buttons, wooden hammers, bits of felt, leather, cloth, cardboard, and so forth. Each instrument is a mechanical marvel, a small masterpiece of mechanical ingenuity developed and perfected in the nineteenth century. The instruments very name reflects the unique and revolutionary feature by which, through the handing of one key or button, a full chord resoundsderived from the older German word Accord (chord). A closed system that sounds harmoniously, the accordion prevents disharmonious playing. Tuning is not necessary, and no previous musical knowledge is required to squeeze out a plain melody with some harmonizing chords.

To understand how sound is produced on the accordion, some technical information will be necessary (see also the glossary). As suggested by the instruments widespread nickname squeezebox, pulling and pushing the bellows generates airflow that is directed on reeds by depressing buttons or keys that raise palettes. The sound itself is produced by free reeds, steel tongues that are riveted to a metal reed plate with two slots of the same size as the reeds. One reed is attached on each side of the plate, and a leather tap covers the opposite side to each reed to prevent air from entering and actuating the reed. If the pair of reeds is identical, the same pitch will sound on either push or pull; this principle is called uni-sonor (used in the piano accordion and certain concertinas). If the reeds are of different size or thickness, each button actuates two different pitches, one on bellows push and the other on pull; this is called bi-sonor (used in diatonic accordions). Sets of reed plates are fixed on wooden reed blocks that are mounted on the palette board in alignment with the holes corresponding with the valves. The more buttons an accordion features, the more reed blocks are necessary to accommodate the palettes. Up to six reed blocks may be fitted in the treble casing, to which the right-hand fingering board is attached at a right angle. The bass side is similarly constructed. It is equipped with an air-release valve to enable the bellows to open and close silently when desired. Buttons and palettes are connected by rods and levers. Steel springs cause the buttons to return to their resting position after being released. Palettes are covered with fine leather or felt to make them airtight, as are the reed blocks where they touch the casing and the casings where they connect to the bellows. Bellows are made of layers of cloth and cardboard, folded and pleated, with soft leather gussets for the flexible inside corners and shaped metal protectors for the outside corners. All accordion types work on variations of this same principle.