{"id":1860,"date":"2023-05-27T07:01:02","date_gmt":"2023-05-27T11:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/?p=1860"},"modified":"2023-11-19T14:40:27","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T19:40:27","slug":"neacm-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/neacm-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"NEACM 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 27, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We (my mom and I), just spent the last couple of days visiting one of my most favourite places to visit… the New England Accordion Connection & Museum! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul and his wife were ever welcoming and we are now more family than friends (and quite honestly I can count the number of people that I really call “friend” down to fingers of one hand and have fingers left over!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This place fascinates me… it is almost like a living entity, it changes and evolves on a near daily basis and I just really like being there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, like in the past, I get the tour, look at the new items and hear the latest stories and am constantly fascinated, I really am drawn in to another state when here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like in the past, Paul offered me the permission to play pretty much anything that I wanted on the side where he has accordions for sale, but I was also blessed in being let try two of his precious museum pieces!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried an Argentinian Bandoneon and a one-of-one unique free bass button accordion. More on that one in a bit. The Bandoneon is beautiful, but treacherous. A foreign button layout AND diatonic (different sounds when pushing vs pulling). It would take me a long time to get that one sorted out in my head!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must have played a dozen or more instruments, loving each one and wanting to take them all back to Canada, as if each was a little puppy in need of a home… lol<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that I am sorely disappointed with myself… I had my cell camera and a little tripod, but simply got all caught up in the joy of being there, and didn’t video anything (though I did take a few pictures that I will share later on). I am kicking myself hard for not doing that! Maybe because I was just so caught up in living the moment, the thought of taking more pics or making a few videos just never invaded my head. Bad Jerry!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A few of the more memorable accordions:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

First story I want to start with… I had a chance to play my first quint system!  The accordion was a Petosa AM-1100 Concert Century Edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was probably the 8th or 9th accordion played that afternoon, with many more waiting to take their turn and it was easy to have one’s mind go a little thick and sensation overdosed with pleasure and fun as you try to take it all in and retain the details from every accordion, so here are my impressions from 10 minutes of futzing with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, *if* you can play Stradella, you can figure it out the QUINT Free Bass system pretty fast, but of course to get good at it, it would take the same level of serious commitment, like any Free Bass system… but it was fun to know that it took me 1-2 minutes of experimenting to start doing slow 2 octave scales and arpeggios up and down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a couple of things that put me off this accordion… though it was a super fast and smooth 45-key extended keyboard, the start and ending keys were “weird” and it offset the rest of the entire keyboard just enough that when instinctively placing the hand on the keyboard “blind”, one was consistently off by 2 notes (just something to get used to in time, but it was something that I never had an issue with on any other accordion, extended or not), and the tone was the thing that stood out the most for me… it is really hard to describe, but while pitch perfect, the tone was lifeless and dull compared to the Scandalli, Beltuna, Excelsior, and Hohner accordions I had just played. It just placed a bit of a furrow on my brow when listening critically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, though sonically my least favorite, it was the one that I had the most fun experimenting with that day and it really was very interesting to experience. It was literally the FIRST<\/span><\/strong> Quint and true acoustic converter accordion I had ever played (not including the “virtual” converter of the Roland).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That accordion put lots of smiles on my face!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the next one… some accordions can put a chill in your bones!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was looking around and in my usual state of jaw dropping surprise when I came upon 3 smaller accordions and one full-sized one, and read about them and then heard the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These 4 came from the infamous Dachau concentration camp… the smaller ones, boxes taken from “prisoners” of the camp and the larger one bearing the carved out design of the 3rd Reich Eagle, facing in the proper left direction (it’s right) in blood red… chilling. That one was likely a Hohner accordion that was commissioned for an officer as it was too expensive and ornate for the average person to have ordered and purchase during that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One can do naught but imagine the people that played these instruments under the most inhuman of conditions that man has ever endured both before or since. To be able to touch and feel these instruments, you feel that they exude not just the sadness, but the sense of hope and happy moments that only an accordion could provide for these people as they played and heard the music that came from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next one I call the “Masochist Accordion”, and for good reason!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mom and I were on the way out and after the hugs and promises, we were about 10 feet away from the door when my eye caught this old button accordion… but after the briefest of glances, it told me that something was “off”. It looked really old, perhaps 1920’s-1930’s, but the shape, design and layout was just different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me share that with you…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out that side view:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That old woodwork, the grain mirroring, it’s like WOW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out the mother of pearl inlays, so neat and perfect, just incredible!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Look at that art deco keyboard backing… silver metal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now… here is the part that instantly caught my eye from across the other side of the room…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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See it? Let me get closer for you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thats a crap load of buttons! I knew instantly what it was… the number of buttons and the angles at the top and bottom gave it away to me the second I took a good look… that’s an MIII Free Bass! Now the question was… what system?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me that was easy… I knew the second I hit the 3rd note… they were chromatic, minor thirds… it was a C-System MIII !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cool, so what would make this a masochistic accordion? That was courtesy of the right hand. Again, within playing 3 notes, I saw it was NOT a C-system, it was a B-system right hand!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, my question is… what masochist would order an accordion with 3 different keyboard layouts??? A B-system right hand, C-system left hand and of course, standard Stradella… only a masochist would want to learn to play 3 different layouts on the same single accordion!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the blessed opportunity to take this accordion off it’s shelf (with permission of course!), and play a few notes, and though I do not play a button accordion, firstly the surprise that it even generated sounds was amazing and I knew enough to identify a few of it’s key features that made this accordion likely a one of a kind in the whole world… what a perfect diamond!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I really wrote about all the marvels and all the accordions I saw there, I would be literally writing a book or three, but we have to stop here for now… almost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was one other accordion that is so special that it deserves it’s own page on this site… and it comes in the next post!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The story of my May 2023 visit to Caanan where TONS of amazing memories were made! … Continue readingNEACM 2023<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}