Melodeon

2007-10-24T13:15:31Z

DonWise:

The Melodeon, as defined by folk music performers in England, is one of the major instruments in the English folk tradition.

Despite the use of the name 'melodeon' to describe a range of instruments, (See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodeon Wikipedia entry]), English folk musicians understand the instrument to be a button accordion with the following features:

* one, two, two and a half or three rows of buttons on the melody side
* between two and eight buttons on the bass side
* bisonoric in nature - ie. a different note for each button depending on the bellows being compressed or expanded (popularly referred to as a Push/Pull instrument).

The buttons are not in a chromatic format but in a major scale format. The C major scale is played as C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C (where as the C chromatic scale is C,Csharp,D,Dsharp,E,E sharp etc).

For the latter years of the 20th century, the most popular melodeon was the ''Poker Work'' instrument manufactured by Hohner of Trossingen in Baden-Wuerttemberg. There were several other models manufactured by Hohner including the ''[[Erica]]'' , the ''[[Double Ray]]'' and the ''[[Club]]''. There were also many ''[[Hohner One-Row]]'' melodeons in use.

In more recent years, players have favoured melodeons from other makers including ''[[Salterelle]]'', ''[[Castagnari]]'', ''[[Scarlatti]]'', other European makers and also melodeons sourced in Louisiana where the instrument is integral to Cajun Music.

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Melodeon