Accordion chronicles

EDIT: This post is pretty long. I won't erase it because I spent ages writing it, and I may want to read it someday, but you can just not read it. The gist of it is, I'm going to get an accordion. Knowing this and watching the video below is all you really need.

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For a few months I'd been thinking it would be cool to play the accordion. Yes, I think the accordion is cool, as opposed to the guitar, bass, drums, recorder, trumpet, tuba, clarinet, oboe**, violin, cello, harmonica, kazoo, sitar, banjo and the oh-so-popular ukulele***.

No, I'm kidding. Kazoos are cool.

But anyway, back to the accordion. A few weeks ago I started to think seriously of learning to play, so I conducted a little Internet research, established a budget, picked a type of accordion, and set out to find one to buy. I'll have an Italian one, I thought. A piano accordion, and I'll spend about 3000 pesos.

HA!!! HA HA HA!!

Here, let me give you a brief lesson in accordions. This will be boring and maybe a bit unnecessary fun.

This here, children, is called a piano accordion (it says "Hohner" because that's the brand; 'tis a good brand). There are other accordions, which have buttons on this side, but since I already play some piano this is easier for me.

Now, on the side that doesn't have the piano keys, you will notice a series of white dots. Those are buttons, and they are the bass buttons. If you press them (and move your accordion around), this allows you to create harmonies that will come out of the accordion! Just like magic!

See, the more bass buttons you have, the more stuff you can play. There are some with as little as 12 buttons, which are really useless. You can play basically anything with 72 bass buttons, and any extra ones after that are repeated so that your hand doesn't have to jump around so much to reach distant buttons. 12o buttons is the most there can be.

120 is very expensive. I settled for 60 or 72 bass buttons.

I suppose I was even lucky to find accordions at all. Fortunately, here in Mexico accordions are widely used by homeless people who play them on the street to earn money, and by bandas, the likes of Los Tigres del Norte:

Lovely.

THIS IS WHY I WANT TO PLAY ACCORDION!! NO NOT REALLY!! Hell, no.

But anyway, since people that play in bandas are apparently the ones who buy most of the accordions around here, what they sell is mostly 12-bass accordions. This is because in banda music, the accordion player only uses the keyboard side of the instrument, since there's no point in using the bass buttons because there's already 15 more members of the band that are playing bass instruments (really, those groups are huge).

Come to think of it, they could just use a keyboard with a patch. But whatever.

Add the bass lackage to the fact that nearly all the accordions available for sale were Chinese. The Chinese have accordion factories, so their product lacks a special ingredient: love. The Germans and Italians don't just slap them together with machines and enslaved children, but rather with wise old accordion experts that work 20-hour days, so their instruments are way better quality. Also they cost a lot more.****

So I'm going to buy a Chinese accordion with 60 bass buttons for more than double of what I was originally hoping to spend. Although I'll only be paying two-thirds of the price, since my Dad hopped in to save the day. Well, not really, it's because I caught him in a good mood one day when he was listening to a podcast that said we should all take time to enjoy the little things of life! Like playing childrens' games, and learning an instrument! He went, "Oh, this is true! You should listen to this podcast!"

I seized the opportunity, and sidled over to him, and was all, "Well, actually, Dad...". So he offered to pay for a part of it. Whee!

But it's okay that my accordion won't be a good one, because it's not like I've ever played before. I won't be needing anything very good, you know? It would be a bit of a waste, I suppose, to buy a complete beginner something along the lines of a 25,000+ peso Hohner accordion with the 120 bass buttons. Which was the only non-Chinese accordion I found.

WHEE!!

** actually, I think the oboe is cool. It sounds like it should make a low, tuba-ey sound, but it's all high and melodic and sweet.

*** I do have a ukulele. I can play one song on it. Well, not really-- I can play half of one song and half of another.

**** It is a widely known fact that accordion experts can eat only caviar and truffles, the expensive kind. Their employers are obligated to provide lunch and dinner, so it costs them a lot. I mean, this is the only way I can explain the price tags on their accordions! Oh, it might have something to do with all the work it takes to assemble a good instrument, too, but I'm not too sure.