“..not related to my musical tastes or cultural background”, I just suggested. Is that totally true?
The fact is that my father, hailing from Northern Italy, told me he used to play the accordion back in Italy as youngster, and quite well, occasionally also the harmonica. Over time, and after migrating to the Netherlands in the 1960s, he played less and less (a few times), and eventually mostly forgot it.
My own father thus played the Italian accordion, but I had not so much interest in Italian folk music, especially when younger: later a little more. I even got to like Italian classical music (Puccini, Vivaldi, Monteverdi, etc.) better than German/Austrian composers (Bach, Beethoven) – that never did it for me - because of that connection to Italian folk music. Some aspects of it I liked, after all, and several instruments, cello, violin, but definitely also the accordion are part of that. The same appreciation I obtained for e.g. some French, Celtic-based folk music, e.g. from the Auvergne (Massif central) region..
My other side, the Spanish one on my mother’s side, more in the South of Spain, had less that accordion-connection, due to its own rich musical culture of guitars, castanets, flamenco, tambourines, and more, with accordions more associated with parts of Northern Spain, I vaguely heard (Catalonia, Pyrenees, Basque country). Flamenco has no role for accordions, neither other known (Central and Southern) Spanish genres like Jota and Fandango. Not traditionally, anyway.
I became a Reggae fan since my teens, and in Jamaican or non-Jamaican Reggae music you rarely – if ever - hear an accordion, safe for “novelty”, experimental purposes, as I believe on some Dub albums.
Yet, I also got an interest in Latin American, and Afro-Latin American music, especially with good grooves, studying later the percussion patterns. As I would become a percussionist, the accordion remained an “external” realm, yet it was used in genres I liked and studied in the Caribbean, Brazil, and Colombia, combined with (to me) more appealing, percussive rhythms. Think of Merengue in the Dominican Republic, Vallenato and Cumbia in Colombia, or Forró and Lambada in Brazil. The country of which the music I fell in love with most in Spanish-speaking America, Cuba, though, Afro-Cuban music, had little or no accordion use. Therefore my connection with or interest in the accordion as instrument was hardly sustained.
Nonetheless, I got intrigued by the instrument more and more, as sometimes happens with phenomena you first somehow “coldly” acknowledge or even take for granted, but then start looking at them from a different angle.
ORIGIN
My prejudice of the accordion’s association with European folk music in France, Northern Italy, and such, was not entirely just that: prejudice. It indeed plays an important role in parts of European folk music. I only forgot Germany and Eastern Europe.
I always thought the accordion was a French invention, seeing it there in folk culture, and a MIDI sound set I worked with had as sounds Accordion, and it subdivided into French or Italian. I knew the hand violin in the European tradition was of Northern Italian origin, so the accordion could also be an Italian invention, I then started to think.
Turns out that the accordion was neither a French nor an Italian invention: it was invented in Germany (Berlin), by a Christian Buchsmann, and around 1822. The partly related (instrument type-wise; both use “free reeds”) harmonica also, but more in the Southwest of Germany, I also recently found out.
Interestingly, the deepest origins can be traced to China, where the first instruments using "free vibrating reeds" were known to appear, with a bamboo (mouth) instrument called the Sheng or Cheng, already around 5000 years ago. So, it's not solely European in origin. This principle of "free (vibrating) reeds" reached Europe around 1777, inspiring instruments there (harmonica, and a bit later the accordion). So, ultimately partly Chinese in conception, but the accordion in this form was nonetheless a German invention, and first used in the musical culture there.
For tourism promotion reasons, recently Berlin was called “the capital of cool” – with which I did not agree (not my favourite city in Europe, let’s say), but “cool” is a personal definition, so no disrespect for people who like Berlin. Anyway, that accordion’s origin in Berlin didn’t make it per se “cooler” for me. I liked the folk culture of Italy and France better than the “Germanic spirit” (in parallel with the classical music from these countries). So I had my own personal, cultural reasons, due to my more Latin than Germanic background..
It is what it is: German-invented and spread, and it can still be interesting to study the origin and trajectory of the accordion, specifically since I heard – and liked – its creative, and “groovy”, rhythmic use in some Latin American genres.
The instrument itself is – like the Belgian-invented saxophone – quite interesting, in fact. The German inventor, Buchsmann, in 1822 at first named the accordion the “handa-online”, I read, and the keys pressed on both sides (melodic and harmonic functions) can only sound when moving, pulling the flexible bellows in between. That’s the reason it became known in e.g. the Netherlands as the “trek-harmonica” (“pull-harmonica”). By using this mechanic move, with wind, pressed through the bellow into metal (free) reeds, it became in fact categorized as “wind instrument”, despite the keys/buttons on the sides. You use wind, but not your mouth for it.
Soon after 1822, in 1829, the accordion further developed and first was "updated" in Austria, where a more complex type was patented called “diatonic”, allowing chord playing. It remained still somewhat limited, as the pulled/pushed bellows only played notes of the buttoned key, whereas a later German- (some say Russian-)-invented type, around 1850 – known as chromatic accordion - had more possibilities, was larger with more buttons, and made the bellow move per each note pushed. It could then include more semi-notes. The comparison is made between the chromatic accordion playing like all keys on a piano, and the diatonic only able to play the white ones.
The simpler “diatonic” accordion was however smaller and more portable for travel, than the more complex “chromatic” one. The chromatic accordion is popular in former Yugoslavia, I understood.
I can imagine, anyway, why this instrument would be interesting or fun to play, as my father chose to do in his younger days.
From Germany and Austria, it soon spread to other European countries, France, Italy (in both places obtaining an important place in folk music), but also Eastern Europe and Russia, equally gaining an important place. Especially in (Northern) Italy the accordion became very popular, and even “claimed”. This included unfortunately by dubious figures like erstwhile dictator Mussolini, seeing it as a sign of Italian invention and industriousness, stimulating its production in e.g. Castelfidardo (Marche, E. Italy), still an epicenter today of accordion production.
Despite some dubious connections with Fascism, it remained popular, and one can say that after Germany and Austria, as explained above, Italy became the accordion’s second/third “main” homeland.
It would, however, travel globally, and especially to the Americas too.
Predictably, to the US, with e.g. much German migration, to some French colonies, but also to parts of Latin America, colonized by Iberian countries that had less that accordion tradition.
LATIN AMERICA
There it became more interesting, at least for me. When examining the reasons why the accordion came to the Dominican Republic, it also has a link with Germany: German traders coming into the Dominican Republic, around the mid-19th c., spreading the instrument. Something similar occurred on the Caribbean coasts of Colombia and Venezuela, while in Brazil there was much German and (Northern) Italian immigration, bringing the accordion to the mixed society.
Similar as in the Dominican Republic, where a culture developed from the mix of Hispanic and African elements, and some Amerindian elements, but with also some other influences. The rhythmic structures remained mostly African in local Merengue from the Dominican Republic, song structures and guitars showed Spanish influences, and some instruments Amerindian influences.
The accordion was simply fitted within this musical context (added or replacing guitars): mostly playing counter-rhythms and –melodies in the Afro-Caribbean tradition, including syncopation and polyrhythm. Both rhythmically and melodically, sometimes even more rhythmically. This meant an evolution from the accordion’s first European uses, when it rendered popular folk melodies – like the well-known Polka - with some harmony (or on mostly simple rhythms). The patterns on the accordion in Dominican Merengue (típico) in turn show rhythmic and call-and –response retentions from Africa, later translated to modern Merengue (or other instruments, like the “salsa” horn section).
The – I know: over-simplified – distinction between the continents and their folk music’s main focus: - Europe’s “big” on harmony, Asia on melody, and Africa on rhythm -, more or less applies here.
The same can be heard in a genre I recently also studied: NE Brazilian (Bahia a.a.) Forró: a mixed genre with African (drum), Amerindian, and Portuguese influences, and over time other European influences. I was inspired by this study for my own instrumental composition Xaxado Adaptado (Xaxado is a subgenre within Forró).
The accordion became thus a prominent instrument in Forró, but adapted to stronger rhythms, as happened with Merengue. Another instrument commonly used in Forró, besides the double-sided tambor (drum), and seen as European, the metal triangle, also obtained a rhythmic, percussive function within the whole. The triangle played in a “funky” way, believe it or not.
The Lambada dance becoming famous as Brazilian “dirty dance” due to the catchy world hit Lambada by Kaoma (and another catchy one: Dançando Lambada), is also on music with accordion, as influenced by Forró (and other NE Brazilian music genres).
While a commercial hit, Lambada is interesting as an example of the accordion’s global development over time, to another, Brazilian context: more rhythmical. Much earlier in the century, the accordion was in popular music in the US and Europe, associated to quite other genres, - with Slavic, Germanic , Celtic, or Latin touches (like the Waltz, Mazurka, a.o.) - though sometimes dance-oriented too, as in Eastern European traditions. People also danced to Polka.
In Colombia, the accordion gained in time a place within the Vallenato genre, in its Caribbean region. Again, German trading travelers probably introduced it, via ports. It even became used within Cumbia, like Vallenato an Afro-Colombian genre, with African, Amerindian, Spanish, and various other influences. Mostly the piano accordion (keys instead of buttons) drove the melody in Colombian Cumbia (or Cumbia in other Latin American countries, like Mexico), as the diatonic accordion does in the Vallenato genre. That same melodic – or semi-melodic – function the accordion (usually the diatonic one) got in Merengue or Brazil, usually replacing guitar types, that nonetheless played quite rhythmically.
Elsewhere in Latin America, the accordion got used in Northern Mexican music (Norteño), and the Bandoneon or “concertina” in Argentina (also for Tango) is a related instrument, developing as the accordion reached Britain by 1829.
ME, MYSELF, & I
My point in this blog post is, however, what my personal connection with the accordion is, related to my musical tastes and passions, as a Reggae fan, and also, as musician, mainly a percussionist, influenced by Afro-Cuban and African musical patterns.
And my songwriting activities. I write and record songs under different influences, and used the digital MIDI (faux, but sampled well) “accordion” sound from the keyboard on some of my songs. I made a few “Merengue”-like songs, and felt it appropriate to use this MIDI “accordion” on them, within hopefully Dominican Merengue vibes.
Likewise the few French “chansons” I once made, could, in my opinion, not do without the in my idea typical “folk French” accordion. I used it on my songs Pluie Sur Paris and my “soul cry” ‘Un Artiste’ (also featuring a Midi-samples bagpipe).
Yet, in Reggae, which I love and follow, I rarely encountered or heard sounds of the accordion. The related, more “bluesy” harmonica sometimes (several artists, incl. Bob Marley on Rebel Music), but very rarely the “hand-bellow” accordion. The related harmonica/mouth-organ I do play (the actual one, not the MIDI one), by the way.
OTHER POP
Other “pop” music artists I kind of liked or followed – outside of Reggae or Latin - had some accordion in songs I liked. Some examples: Paul Simon’s Boy In The Bubble, within an interesting South African musical mélange, and Tom Waits on the nice song Innocent When You Dream. On both these songs the accordion added to the nice, overall feel, in the way that it’s played.
I like some of the albums of the unique “cabaret” blues/folk-like music of Tom Waits, as some work of Paul Simon. Partly because of their creative use of instruments and genres (and “lyrics”).
While Tom Waits uses the accordion on some of his songs – and fit the folksy vibe on more songs -, and also has one of his album cover with an accordion, Waits is also know to have said: “A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t “. The same cryptic yet intriguing message as in much of his lyrics, and seemingly a “diss”, a critique of the accordion. Or not? Irony? Who knows, haha.
IN CONCLUSION
My bond with the “accordion” is less insignificant than I care to admit. I used, after all a MIDI sound imitating the (French) accordion on some of the songs I released, such as the Merengue-influenced Soy El Chévere, a Forró instrumental, as I mentioned, and even more melodically on my French-language “chansons”, that I also mentioned earlier. Not the real thing, as I don’t even own an actual accordion, but still.
I go jamming sometimes in clubs in Amsterdam with my percussion, and sometimes someone plays an accordion there nicely (on e.g. Jazz or Blues). Indeed, the accordion has found a place in Jazz, by the way. The owner of the oldest Blues club in Amsterdam, Maloe Melo, plays the accordion.
Other main influences on my musical tastes - and consequently my main musical activities (songwriter, percussionist) - are often (poly)rhythmic and from sub-Saharan Africa, Reggae/Jamaica, and Afro-Cuba, and a bit also from(southern) Spain and its Flamenco culture, where my maternal family hails from. All these “regions” and cultures have very little of an “accordion” tradition, yet shaped me.
Spain is as said hardly in the “heartland” of the accordion within Europe. This “heartland” must be placed in Central Europe: Germany, Austria, Northern Italy, most of France, and parts of Eastern Europe, including Russia, (up to the Balkan), with some outliers (under German, Austrian, French, or Italian influence, or through travelers).
The accordion obtained a place in northern parts of Spain (Catalonia, Pyrenees, and Basque music), even in folk music, but not much beyond it. In the Basque country, the Accordion is called locally Trikiti – or Trikitixa (meaning “small” accordion) -, and came there probably through Italians in the port of Bilbao or through Alpine Italian migrants or workers. Not via neighboring France (as more to the East and in Catalonia), as one would assume. It adapted either way to Basque folk genres.
Later, some Basque younger artists used it more creatively and experimentally, mixing traditional Basque music with modern influences. Probably the best known accordion/trikitixa player in Spain, Kepa Junkera, from Bilbao, is such a “composing” artist.
Elsewhere in Iberia or Spain, I heard it less in folk music. The “own invention” of Spain itself (albeit with some Persian-Moorish antecedents), the acoustic guitar, is there heard much more, and is also associated strongly of course with Flamenco. Like the accordion, the Spanish guitar spread widely globally of course, also outside Europe: perhaps even more so than the accordion.. In Spanish colonies like Cuba that guitar has a predictable historical presence, but pretty soon also in Jamaica, the US, parts of Africa, Asia, etcetera. The accordion – in turn - more in other parts of the world, related to different national (German, French, Italian), colonial or historical influences, or migrations.
I may – safe some interest and experiments – overall not be an accordion “buff” or “fanatic”, but still find it interesting to learn how a 1820s-invented German, bellowed wind instrument like the accordion, got to spread so widely, to be ultimately used in and adapted to different musical idioms, even in exotic cultures, and in groovy, rhythmic ways.
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