G'day buttonbox,

I've spent 40+ years fighting off suggestions that I should switch to the piano accordion because:

1/ It's more modern,

2/ It's chromatic and can play in every possible key,

3/ It has lots of 'jazzy' chords,

4/ It can play all sorts of different national styles.

Everyone proposing the virtues of the piano accordion just looks blank when I explain that I'm exploring the roots of a style of Australian music that was soundly based on the habits and limits of the popular button accordion ("bush accordion", as the salesman called my first one ... back in December 1963) ... and the Anglo-concertina ... and mouth organ - both of which I also play.

Having followed that course - and learned from it a lot about our musical roots and style - I find myself, in a modern world worshipping variety for its own sake, forced to play more and more on a variety of multi-row diatonic button accordions (a well-worn A/D/G ... a custom-made D/G/A - and, formerly, a G/C/F). I need these, not for style, but for the diverse key range sought by people whose 'classical' leaning pedispose them to a much wider key range. I often have to shake off the feeling I'm getting too far from authentic roots ... and I relax going back to my 2-row boxes (mainly my D/G Erica and my old (between the World Wars) "real" pokerwork (Hohner patterns burnt into blond wood) in G/C.

Anyway, getting back to buttonbox's BCC#s ... I do admire (if not aspire to) Jimmy Shand's mastery of this box - something he largely developed, as he moved from his button accordion beginnings. He learned to do anything possible on it in an orderly progression - as Hohner made boxes for him, with more range and bass.

However ... what does Jimmy Shand jnr play? Video I have seen of JS jnr, sems to be all piano accordion. Once you have set your mind to full chromaticism, it seems hard to justify grafting that onto the quite different diatonic button accordion ... and JS jnr's piano box ... or Torcgyd's Continental Chromatic seems to be the best path (if not for me!).

Arrrgh! I'll go back to my corner and get back to running both 3-row boxes through the 38 pages of additional music for this year's Heritage Ball ... in 6 or 7 different keys.

(An old "bush dance" copped a night full of bouncy, rhythmic, tunes ... all night ... in the key of the local melodion player's 1-row box ... and yelled for more!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton (unreconstructed push-puller)