Western New York Accordion Club

Said to be several thousand years old, the Sheng (Cheng, Zheng), is one of the oldest musical instruments and is the ancestor of the accordion. The Sheng consists of 17 to 36 bamboo pipes mounted on a gourd shaped wind chamber. Each pipe is affixed to a reed. Notes or chords are produced by blowing or inhaling air (like a harmonica) through a metal tube connecting the base while covering one or more air holes on the bamboo pipes.

Legend has it that the mythological Yellow Emperor of China, Huangdi, dispatched Ling Lun to establish a central pitch to which the nation’s music would be tuned. Traveling to a valley in the Tibetan Himalayas, Ling Lun selected a bamboo stalk of 3.9 inches and the pitch blown through that stalk became “standard pitch.”  Ling Lun then observed six male and six female phoenix’ (also a mythological bird which symbolized harmony) and chose eleven other bamboo pipes of varying lengths to reflect the birds’ beautiful voices. This division of the octave into twelve parts represents cosmic harmony (yin and yang). Ling Lun affixed these bamboo pipes into a gourd, arranging them in the shape of a phoenix and presented the Sheng (“sublime voice”) to the Emperor.

The Sheng continues to be used in modern China, updated with brass reeds and a metal wind chamber.

[Modern day Sheng]

The introduction of the Sheng to the West is also steeped in legend. By some accounts, Marco Polo returned to Europe with a Sheng. The Sheng was also known to the Court society of St. Petersburg, Russia in the 1740’s. French sources claim that that the first Sheng was sent from China by missionary in the 1770.

By the 19^th Century, a wave of free reed instruments developed including the mouth blown harmonica, later to be manufactured by Matthias Hohner by mass production in Trossingen, Germany in the 1850’s.  (Later to become the Hohner accordion factory).

In 1821 Christian Buschmann of Berlin patented a “Handaoline” which operated with levers. In 1829, Cyrillus Damian of Vienna patented the “akkordeon” with accompanying chord buttons. M Button of Paris introduced an accordion with piano keys (but without any chord buttons.)

[Damian Accordion]

Sir Charles Wheatstone patented the concertina in 1829.  In the 1850’s, Heinrich Band of Germany developed a square accordion which became known as the “bandoneon.”  The bandoneon became popular in Argentina and typified tango music.  See diuscussion in http://www.inorg.chem.ethz.ch/tango/band/bandoneon.html

[Bandoneon]

Italy became the center of accordion manufacturing in the late 1800’s. Paolo Soprani became manufacturing accordions in Catelfidardo in 1872.  Tessio Javani of Catelfidardo developed an accordion with pre-set registers including violin, flute, organ and tremolo. Mariano Dallape developed a system of bass buttons arranged in the Circle of Fifths (see Accordion Anatomy) with  bass and counterbass rows and four rows of chords.  This became known as the “stradella system.”

In the early 1900’s , the Hohner accordion of Trossingen, Germany, expanded its harmonica factor to the production of accordions and in the 1920’s introduced an accordion orchestra which played classical pieces from sheet music and toured Europe.

In 1909, Guido Diero introduced the piano accordion to the United States and soon became one of the most popular (and highly paid) accordion players of the early 20^th century. He was, for a time, married to Mae West.  See www.guidodiero.com.  Accordions became popular on the American vaudeville circuit.

By the 1930’s accordion schools began to flourish.

By the 1930's accordion schools flourished.

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