When you decided to start learning accordion (either button or piano), you may think to have your instrument for home practice. Of course, from the beginning, you may rent one from the music studio, but in the long perspective, it is better to buy one for yourself.
So how to choose an accordion?
Just like clothes or shoes accordions have different sizes (by the way, violin, cello and other stringed and bowed instruments, too, are divided by size: For the smallest – is “eighths”, followed by, “quarters”, “half” ( 1/2), three-quarter-(3/4) and the whole).
Roughly the same thing happens with the accordions. So how do you choose the right accordion? Here it is necessary to look at the amount of bass, ie, the more buttons on the left keyboard – bass, the bigger instrument.
But I have to mention in this article, I will consider only instruments with Stradella (not Free Bass) on the left keyboard. Despite the range of the instruments being huge: from 3 to 12 bass buttons, 48, 60, 72, 80, 96, and 120 – I would divide all accordions into 5 main groups:
Very small accordions starting from 3-8 up to 12 buttons in the left hand. These are just the toys, suitable for very young students (from 2 years old till probably 4)
48 Buttons Accordion
This one is good for primary school students. Has 6th diminished row, which is not necessary for these students’ level.
60 to 72 Buttons Accordion
Similar sizes with or without diminished chords. Suitable for children from 6 years old.
80 to 96 Buttons Accordion
Accordions without diminished chords (16×5), with 80 bass buttons or with diminished chords (16×60), with 96 bass buttons. So-called “ladies size”. This accordion is good enough to play any standard bass songs as 120 full range accordion and it is much lighter.
Andrew started to learn an accordion at age of 8 at his home town in Ukraine. After spending 7 years in local music school he entered the Chernigiv Music College of L.Revutsky. Then in 1994 Andrew started to teach his first accordion students at local music school. Beside that he actively performed with school orchestra, participated in accordion contests, music festivals, etc. He also formed a music band at the time and participated in numerous national festivals such as Chervona Ruta Final (Kyiv), Alternative music festival in Zaporizhzhya, etc.
After arrived to Hong Kong in 2003, Andrew started to perform and teach the accordion here. He is an active musician on local scene. His goal is to promote accordion music to Hong Kong people.
