Before you all bust out the tar and feathers, I should clear up that I did not buy the thing by choice.
My brother was going on a field trip to an odd place, and asked if he could get me a souvenir. I (being completely NOT serious) said a toy accordion. And sure enough, when I get home for the holiday weekend, there’s a toy accordion sitting on my desk. It’s supposed to be one that introduces the instrument to kids, to prepare them for the real thing later.
So I was trying to fool around with it for a while, got nowhere, so I read the instructions. Except the instructions were poorly translated from Chinese, so I can’t make head or tail of it.
It’s got a little piano keyboard on one end, and seven or eight buttons on the other end. I find I can’t even stretch and un-stretch it, because the keyboard end has no wrist strap or anything.
Normally, piano accordions have two shoulder straps. You put one arm through each strap. They hold the instrument against your chest. You move the bellows with your left hand, which fits through a hand strap on the bass (left) side.
If it doesn’t have shoulder straps already, are there attachment points on the top or bottom where you could rig up something?
Toy button accordions typically have a thumb loop on the right side. It would be difficult, if not impossible, though, to play a piano accordion that way.
Geez - I though he was a professional gonzomusicographer!
antstastegood - you might query MurphyStout about how to live down the infamy - we managed to get a couple of shots of him holding a full-sized piano accordion at the fall Bay Area get together.
Of course, he hasn’t been posting much since then . . .
I really HATE the noises it makes. It’s definitely going to be a joke, and definitely NOT a serious musical pursuit. I was after just enough to make my brother feel that he had not wasted his money.
I just might arrange an accident for it…
He scrambles back to his desk, reaching for the one instrument that can make him feel whole again. As the cold tin touches his mouth, his eyes close out of relief, relief that he has not fallen into the dark underworld of accordionism. The notes of that air he has worked on for weeks flow from his fingers, with all the confidence of a man that has truly found where he belongs…
Rest assured, my fellow Chiffers, I will not be led astray again.
