Tech: 120 bass accordions

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 07:55 PM

Foolestroupe,
You've just explained to me the difference between 140 bass & 120 bass accordions, I think. It bugged me for years but I wasn't so motivated to actually get up and explore it.

Tootler,
Around the folk scene you'll commonly see Hohner Corona III button accordions. They're usually diatonic (like three-row melodeons) in A, D & G or G, C & F although I've seen them in almost every combination imaginable. Physically they're the same size as Hohner's smaller (40 bass?) piano or club accordions. Bob would probably be able to even quote you Hohner's model names. Occasionally you'd see a button accordion with a Stradella bass end. While most of these would have been Shand type 'British Chromatic Accordions (the B,C, C#) I've occasionally seen the Corona III with a Stradella bass end. Your sighting, though, is the first I've heard of the counterswap.

Bob,
You're right, of course about them being specialist but I got the impression that Dazbo might have (unexpectedly?) seen one. I've only ever seen one (40 years ago, in the hands of a Russian) and could recognise from a distance that he was playing it with dexterous use of the bass for a countermelody (tricky on a Stradella bass) but I have no recollection of whether the buttons have even the same physical appearance as the usual piano accordion

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 07:24 PM

"If you play a note from the second column, the note inside it and the note above it, you are playing the major chord of the scale"

That's the Major chord. Some Accordions also had an additional row outside that in which the same trick gave you the Minor chord - they were more expensive, and less popular.

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: Declan
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 07:20 PM

The inside row of counter bases represent the 3rd note of the scale so E is inside C, B is inside G etc. If you play a note from the second column, the note inside it and the note above it, you are playing the major chord of the scale. Interestingly if you hold down these three buttons, the button inside on the third row will automatically also go down, because this is the button that plays the same major chord. The same is true for any chord, if you hold down the constituent notes the chord button presses in automatically.

I learned to play a P.A years ago, but being a gentleman I don't do so any more. It was a great way of learning about chord structures, related chords and other parts of musical theory which has stood to me in learning to play other instruments over the years.

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 06:57 PM

Once saw on a doco about WWII (the one with the colour footage) a german soldier playing one of those.

More info please!

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: Tootler
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 05:34 PM

Just to reverse things, I saw someone last week playing a piano accordion which had melodeon style basses. 12 bass buttons IIRC.

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: Greg B
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 04:54 PM

Not a bit of it...John Kirkpatrick plays a melodeon with a
Stradella bass side. Jimmy Shand style.

Of course John Kirkpatrick actually has two fully functional
brains where everyone else on earth has only one...

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: Lester
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 03:02 PM

Dazbo
You will be struck off at melodeon.net asking questions like this. :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: treewind
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 02:45 PM

Bob's got the key to the original question. The 12 note pattern repeats so the ends are duplicates. That's very useful if you're playing in a remote key, so the chords your need are always nearby.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 08:31 AM

Bob

that's all in the Permathread...


"most useful chords for popular music. "

of the 1920's to 1950/60s..... {:p

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 12:30 AM

G'day,

Dazbo:

I'm surprised that Foolestroupe (definitely the local piano accordion guru ...) didn't point out that the 120 bass gives 20 "starting points" ... and there are only 12 keys (scales) ... each, of course, having many different modes. I would presume that this means there is an "overlap" of 8 keys ... keys that occur at each both the top and bottom of the bass keyboard.

They don't have extra reeds ... just 'links' so that they can be placed in either position. This means you can transfer any bass pattern vertically without having to nip back to the top (or bottom) to complete the accompaniment.

Rowan: The "free bass" layout can exist as the sole bass end of some (very) specialist accordions ... or as another 3 rows of (~)20 single bass notes ... arranged as a mirror image of the central keyboard of a Continental Chromatic Accordion (or "chromatica"). These allow playing of single bass notes ... or selected groups of them in order to play written accompaniments ... not the 'Stradella Bass' system's arrangement of the most useful chords for popular music.

Regard(les)s,

Bob

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 12:14 AM

While everything posted above is correct, watch out for "free bass" accordions. Tricky, but I'm sure someone with full details will fill you in.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 08:13 PM

Add:

selecting various combinations of appropriate chord buttons allows you to 'assemble' other less 'basic' chords.

I did have a link somewhere to a site that went into great detail on that.

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: HiHo_Silver
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 07:51 PM

This is probably a better and more detailed explanation:

The standard 120 bass accordion is composed of forty single bass notes and eighty chords. They are arranged in a series of six rows, each containing twenty buttons. The second row contains Fundamental
Bass notes. All bass and chord buttons are gauged from this row, as each bass is a key-note to the relative chord buttons below. The first or top row are counter bass notes, each being two full tones, or a major third higher than the Fundamental bass directly below. This arrangement places all the notes of the scale within easy reach of the fingers, as both rows are used for bass runs. The third row is composed of major chords; the fourth row of minor chords; fifth row of dominant seventh chords; sixth row of diminished seventh chords; each in the same relative position to the fundamental bass.

Each short row of buttons placed at an angle, contains bass notes and chords related to one key. Beginning from C, each consecutive row down is in the key of one added flat.

Example: C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb Cb E, A

Up from C, each consecutive row is in the key of one added sharp.

Example: C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, G#, D#, A#

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 07:39 PM

There's a lot of relevant info on the Stradella Bass system in the Accordion Permathread.

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: HiHo_Silver
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 05:59 PM

FYI: First Row At Bellows, Counter Bass - 2nd Row, Fundamental Bass - 3 rd Row, Major Chord - 4 Row Minor Chord - 5 th Row Dominant 7th Chord - 6 Row Diminished 7th Chord. Flats on all rows on bottom end, Sharps on top end. PM me with your email address, I will send a diagram of the fingerboard. Cannot figure out how to paste it in here.

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 01:07 PM

Thank The Deities for that.... I thought you meant there were 120 accordions!

Manitas would be able to help but he's away and computerless at the moment.

LTS

Subject: RE: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 12:33 PM

I dont play accordion , but I think there are a lot of 'silly' chords on the 120's - Diminished and Augmented and such fripparies !!

Subject: Tech: 120 bass accordions
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 12:27 PM

As a player of an 8 bass button accordion I'm intigued by all the bass buttons on a 120 bass accordion. I understand the 48 and 72 varieties whereby each row of bass buttons is the counter bass note, bass note, major chord, minor chord etc. But what are the extra buttons for outside this central matrix of 12 x 7?

I found a site but it was in German so I couldn't make much sense of it but it wasn't an extension, up or down, of the central system?

Also the counter bass buttons: I presume they are there so that, for example, when playing in C major the bass notes C, E and G are close together. Is this correct?