Guerrini
I bought a button accordion today, a triple row, made by Guerrini, a very beautiful instrument. I'll be picking it up on Saturday, and you'll see pictures then.
Meanwhile, I have more pictures from our trip, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow. Pictures of NASA in Houston next. Tuffy P is making pralines, and I'm going downstairs to take on the role of quality control expert.
5 comments:
OK, people PAY for accordions????
no offense.....;)
Well Bridget, last week Tuffy P, Candy, Stagg and I were at the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio Texas. We heard traditional music from a Native-American band, two Tex-Mex bands, a Quebecois band, a Bulgarian-Gypsy band, a Texas Swing band, a rock & roll band, a band from the Canary Islands, an Argentinian band, a Cajun/Creole band and an Irish band - music from around the world, and all featuring accordions of different types.
Everyone is entitled to their musical taste, and I respect that yours doesn't include free-reed instruments.
The multi-national corporate conglomerates aren't mass-marketing traditional music. It is a kind of music better played in communities among families and friends, than marketed as product for mass-consumption. It is, to use Michelle Shocked's phrase, "home-made jam". People pay for accordions because they are beautiful instruments, with delightfully complex mechanics and a staggering variety of sound. They put you in touch with the history of our cultures and communities in a way that is important to many people around the world. They are capable of playing melody, bass, rhythm and harmony at the same time.
When I was growing up, my mom wanted me to play the accordion, to keep me in touch with her family's culture - Polish dance music. I resisted and didn't learn. I thought it wasn't cool. I wanted to hear the big groups with the big records. Today, I regret not trying to learn as a kid. I picked up the accordion when I was 40, and I've tried to make up for lost time. I think home-made jam is important, and I think accordions are beautiful, wonderful instruments.
I appreciate that you were making the usual accordion joke (there are several variations, and yes, I've heard them all). What that joke really says to me though, is that the cultures and traditions of our parents and our parents' parents don't matter.
I think they do matter.
As it happens, a good accordion can be very expensive. The one I bought today was made with precision and love in Italy. I'm not a rich person and spending a lot of money on an instrument of quality is a really big thing for me. I'm really excited about buying this instrument. I hope you don't mind my taking the opportunity to tell you why.
Welcome back, and congrats on the new accordion. (which I think are fab ever since I saw Buckwheat Zydeco when I was a teenager)
But I will search for new accordion jokes anyway.
Sorry I missed you there. Sounds like you and Tuffy P. managed to bring some culture and music home with you! It meant so much to me to be able to see the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra, and I also would have given my pinky finger to have seen the others that you mention.
Excellent comment, and I have to thank you for exposing me to that magnificent instrument, the accordion. Send me a photo when it arrives! I'm excited for you.
Now that's well worth controllin' the quality of!!
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