button box advice

Squeezebox & Harmonica
1

in the past few months since dragging out an old altimoroN piano accordion to entertain my 4 month old and accompany the singer in my trio, i have become fascinated with accordions and am thinking about getting hold of a decent but not too expensive button box to give it a try. i have been playing the pipes for a decade so the coordination issues are not too concerning.

i have read (here and elsewhere) conflicting opinions on whether BC or C#D is smoother or simpler to play irish trad tuneage…

quoted below from StevieJ who is gracious with his advice

"B/C is more comfortable with keys that have fewer sharps and even a flat or two. D minor and F are easy. A major is a bit awkward.

C#/D is better with sharps. E minor and G are easy. A major is easy. D minor is quite possible but a bit awkward.

In most of the the common keys B/C will involve less changing of bellows direction, giving a smoother, more flowing feel to the tunes. C#/D will tend to be punchier, more driving. (It’s a little more complicated than that, depending on the particular key and on whether a tune is built around linear note progressions or arpeggios, but it’s still a fair generalization.)"

i have heard the opposite as well.

Can anyone offer any advice on this topic, and perhaps which makers to consider. In your advice, please note that i am a piper which means i am flat broke due to buying several sets, with another on the way so I am not looking for the absolute most wonderful box at THIS time.

thanks for any help anyone may wish to offer.


maze

ps

i did a search for this question, so please don’t condemn the asking as i only found a couple of past topics similar.

pps

i will spend some time with Patty Furlong at next month’s tionol seeking her advice, and will do the same amongst the other free reed players in the Catskills this summer… but would hope to have a box in hand to take with me.

ppps

as a piper and bodhran player, i do see the irony of adding yet another instrument of annoyance and destruction to my life.

2

As far as B/C or C#/D, the best advice I’ve heard is to find a teacher in your area, ask which one they play, and buy that one so that they’re actually able to teach you.

3

B/C is the choice of the two very good box players I know (One studied with Billy McComiskey, the other with John Williams). In each case they seem to be perfect at our sessions; however, we only do a handful of A tunes.

Congratulations, and good luck! I looooove the button box!

4

Regarding makes, Castagnari are considered the Rolls-Royce of button boxes.

Paulo Soprano, Dino Bafetti and Saltarelle are all good makes, and have their followers. Hohner are the workhorse, the maker by which all others are measured.

The entry level makes, Scarlatti and Delicia, look attractive on price, but players grow out of them very quickly, and they don’t hold their value for re-sale, so they’re not a good investment.

When I was looking for a D/G melodeon, I wanted the smallest lightest thing I could get, which turned out to be a Castagnari Lilly. This has a single treble reed, so it has a concertina-like sound, which suited me fine. The two rivals to this box would be the Saltarelle Epsilon and the Bernard Loffet Toupetit. Carrying one of these around for a day of Morris dancing is a lot less straining than a 3-voice monster.

I recommend you ask around on Melodeon.net for advice on makes/models from people who have been playing a lot longer than I have.

5

Brother John,

Wie gehts?

It all depends on what you want to play, or who you’d like to play like. I prefer, and play c#/d. You’ll find lots of people who like both for different reasons. If you’re into polkas, slides, etc. (Sliabh Luachra stuff) then the concensous seems to be for c#/d (though Dan Herlihy would disagree). I like to call this the Johnny O’Leary/Jackie Daly school.

If you’re into some of the Clare/Galway players, most of them play b/c. Billy McComisky and PJ Hernon come to mind. There are probably more b/c players out there if I had to guess. I’m experiencing a Monday morning at work fog of the brain however and can’t think of anyone else at the moment. Cooley didn’t play that tuning though, now that I think about it.

One is not better than the other, they’re just different. Paddy is a great person to ask since she plays both. One thing to think about. There is almost nothing out there as far as teaching material for c#/d. There are a few tutorial books and tapes for b/c. Don’t know if that matters to you, though.

Mark

PS Let’s have a tune up in Durham this summer.

6

A Weltmeister and a B/C Paolo (absolutely brilliant on that old Paddy O’Brien stuff) in our specific neck of the woods.

But heck, you know you’re going to end up getting both eventually, so … it’s really a question of which one first?
:smiley:

There was a Billy McComiskey Signature Series for sale here just a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, I’m mildly fascinated with the Boxeen (probably mostly because of the name).

Anyone tried one?

Oh, Cat, don’t go there. No. No. Don’t go to the akkordjuns.

7

As I understand it, he played D/D# (playing up a step in Eb) or C#/D if he wanted to play in concert pitch. Good enough reason for me to get a C#/D.

There are also lots of interesting (if more obscure) players who only play a one row, which is basically the same as playing in D on a C#/D – Frank Maher and Micheal Kennedy come to mind.

8

But we have these fellows, all on Csharp/D and at least two of them playing Saltarelles (and both saying it’s the best for the job)

Conor Keane, Jackie Daly, Eoghan O Sullivan

9

And that is why we content ourselves with scrounging amongst your leavings! :laughing:

10

Jokes aside … is that a Saltarelle Jackie’s playing now? He used to play a red Paolo back when, didn’t he?

What is it that’s so cool about the Saltarelles? They seem to be the Holy Grail over here, but mostly it seems it’s the people with a little more money who have them … I’m thinking that’s what Billy M. talked our Paolo-playing pal into because its dry tuning sounded more “modern”, but she ended up going back to the “old-fashioned” box. She said she could have the Paolo’s tuning dried up some on it, but since she plays a lot of old-style stuff she likes the sound.

(It is cool – like a big musical flashback)

Anyway, just curious … is it playability as well as the sound?

Edited in a relatively unsuccessful attempt to get this post to read more like English.

11

Jackie got the blue one around four or five years ago but he was playing a Saltarelle before that one too.

I took this one around 1999, he has the previous one there:

12

Thanks all for your input so far! Does anyone know the push/pull layout on the B/C and C#/D in order for figure out which is a smoother scale?

I do not tend to play a whole lot of polkas and slides… left those in charlottesville with tess… mostly clare tunes and piping tunes (duh)… though that may just be a matter of locale and what is played down here in the swamp…

I have been told that even though most of the old Clare box players, they have always played B/C and always will, but that newer and younger players have figured out that the C#/D is smoother, or more efficient or something to play… but what do i know…

13

Mystery solved, but it was waaaaaay back … before the beard! :slight_smile:

http://www.jackiedaly.com/PHOTO%20ALBUM.htm

Thanks for the cool pictures, Peter. I’m clueless, but I really love his playing (and am quite fond of boxes in general), so enjoy the chance to learn more whenever I can!

Speaking of, I was listening to Phil Cunningham’s tour de force “Jackson’s #2/Jean’s Reel/The Moving Cloud” this morning and HOLY SMOKES! I wonder what he was playing – a chromatic pipe organ? :laughing: Must be a piano accordion at least? Anyway, I was waiting for flames to start shooting out of my iPod.

14

‘Always have and always will’ is maybe a bit of an overstatement. I remember Martin Rochford telling me about the first accordeonplayer he ever heard. Joe Cooley and that was by the end of the 40s. Before Paddy O Brien developed the B/C style (during the 50s).

15

Here is what I say. If you are playing a B/C you will be playing in two rows most of the time, as the C row is C (no sharps or Flats). The B row has the chromatic notes. To me this doesn’t make much sense, but the reason people do it is for the flowing style.

C#/D has the D scale in the D row and the C# is the chromatic notes. So D is really simple on a C#/D box. If I were to take up box I would go for C#/D, it is more straight foward.

16

Can you just keep your opinions to yourself until they are founded on something? Events in recent days should have told you you are pushing your trolley a bit beyond peoples’ tolerances. Take the hint. You don’t need to contribute to every thread if you don’t have anything relevant to say.

17

More keyboard layouts than you could ever want to look at: http://www.melodeon.net/info.html

Scroll down for the Irish ones.

Smoothness depends on what key you’re playing in. It also depends, as I said in your quote above, on whether you’re playing linear passages or arpeggios.

Take the key of D: on a B/C box you can play the part of the scale from A through to E (going up) without changing bellows direction - on the pull. On a C#/D you’d have to play push pull-pull push pull. (Or push pull push-push pull.)

Now on your B/C try playing an arpeggio or a figure such as DF#A DF#A - you are changing bellows direction for every F#. Not so smooth my friend! Whereas on a C#/D these notes are all in the same bellows direction.

Let’s face it, the button box is a perversion and will drive you nuts for the first few months until it has your brain tamed. After that you settle down to learning its ways as best you can and then it doesn’t much matter what system you have. Read what Peter Browne (B/C box player) says in this discussion: he says, it’s a bitch either way you look at it!

http://thesession.org/discussions/display.php/4345

I’d say you should take up the B/C. The system is losing ground so fast to C#/D that soon nobody will be taking it up. (All Jackie Daly’s fault!)

Failing that, borrow a B/C or C#/D box somehow and experiment with the two fingerings. Pretend it’s one, then the other. You’ll soon find out what speaks to you.

A final thought: if smoothness is what you want, why don’t you look into a continental chromatic button accordion? Seriously… they have the great advantage that you can use the same fingering for any scale (as long as the box has 4 or preferably 5 rows of buttons - the last 2 are duplicates to allow you to use the same finger patterns) and therefore transpose instantly. You can back up singers beautifully or play jazz. And you won’t fry your brain with the old pull and push.

Another final thought: get a D/G box. Yes you’ll be stuck in same keys you can play in on pipes or whistle - but you’ll have nearly every note (except D and the Cs) in both bellows directions. Potentially much smoother than a B/C.

18

Nah, just take up the one-row button accordion (melodeon) and then you won’t have to make these tough decisions. That’s what I did. :slight_smile:

However, this route leaves you with a bunch of other tough decisions (like how to play around the c-naturals), but they are fun creative decisions.

-Brett

19

thank you a lot for all of your help. on top of all the complexities of a decade of uilleann pipes, i have a lot to think about. if anyone has an old button box with which to part, let me know.

slan.

john

20

I have been playing a Dancemaster BC for the last year and I am switching to a C#D! http://www.irishdancemaster.com/accordion.html

One of the earlier posts suggested that you take a BC or C#D and try the same tune in one fingering and then the other and see for yourself wich one soots you! That’s kind of what I did after playing the BC for a while. I chose the BC because it seems to be what alot of players are using these days and because all of the teaching materials I found were on the BC. I found that the fingerings on a BC are alot more stretched out and more compact on the C#D. The bellows movement on a BC is more in one direction, but I found that I was always pulled out in one direction, needing to release the air button to get back to a better playing position. I also found that alot of tunes that I wanted to played involed going back and forth between F# and B very cumbersome on the BC.

A plus for the BC is that there are more possibilities for ornaments if you are into fingerboard gymnastics. I love the straight sound of a C#D.

In short, it took me about a week to relearn all the tunes I new in BC on the C#D and now I play them better and faster. I also pick up new tunes very easily on the C#D

If you don’t play the accordion right now, it is hard to know for yourself.
I don’t regret the time I spent on the BC. It helped me get started.

Nate