In 1829 Cyrillus
Damian patented the first accordion, and it
became one of the important folk instruments
in many countries. The accordion is based
on a bellows generated by the player's left hand, pushing air into many
holes, each opened by pushing the respective key on the keyboard, played
by the musician's right hand. Its principle is similar to that of the organ.
The left arm also operates chord valves, used
to accompany the tune created by the keyboard. That is the source of its
name - accordion.
A relative of the accordion is
the bandoneon,
which is popular in traditional tango
music. Another known version is the concertina,
with no keyboard, replaced by many buttons used for playing the tune itself.
Harmonica
The Harmonica
The harmonica is originally a folk
instrument, that is not a member of the symphonic
orchestra.
Originating from the Chinese
Sheng
It was invented in 1821 by Christian
Buschmann and developed by Charles
Wheatstone in 1829. Wheatstone created a wind
instrument simple for learning and of a pleasant sound.
The harmonica is known in two widely
accepted forms:
The diatonic harmonica -
a harmonica, all of whose sounds belong to only one key.
Thus, we find harmonicas for major
and minor
scales,
easy to play, since the interval
between neighboring reeds is a third. Hence
each group of such intervals produces a chord in the key (which explains
the instrument's name; it is a harmonic one).
The chromatic harmonica
- it is a harmonica that plays, in addition to the diatonic notes, chromatic
notes (sharps
and flats)
by means of a slide, at the side of the harmonica, which, when pressed
in, blocks off the basic row of reeds and opens access to a second row
a semitone
higher.
The harmonica became a particularly
popular instrument in America,
and Blues
music also makes vast use of it, for its ability
to produce crying-like sounds. Gershwin,
for example, composed blues works including a harmonica in the ensemble.