page_title: Accordion
section_title: Unusual accordions
hierarchical_section_title: Accordion / Construction / Unusual accordions
caption_attribution_description: Busking Accordionist in Dorsten. Pictured accordion is the Russian instrument called a Garmon'.
context_page_description: Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type, colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina and bandoneón are related. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor.
  The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing pallets to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called reeds. These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instrument's reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block. The performer normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand manual, and the accompaniment, consisting of bass and pre-set chord buttons, on the left-hand manual.
  The accordion is widely spread across the world because of the waves of immigration from Europe to the Americas and other regions.
context_section_description: Various hybrid accordions have been created between instruments of different buttonboards and actions.  Many remain curiosities – only a few have remained in use:
  The Schrammel accordion, used in Viennese chamber music and klezmer, which has the treble buttonboard of a chromatic button accordion and a bisonoric bass buttonboard, similar to an expanded diatonic button accordion
  The Steirische Harmonika, a type of bisonoric diatonic button accordion particular to the Alpine folk music of Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, the German state of Bavaria, and the Italian South Tyrol
  The schwyzerörgeli or Swiss organ, which usually has a three-row diatonic treble and 18 unisonoric bass buttons in a bass/chord arrangement –  a subset of the Stradella system in reverse order like the Belgian bass – that travel parallel to the bellows motion
  The trikitixa of the Basque people, which has a two-row diatonic, bisonoric treble and a 12-button diatonic unisonoric bass
  The British chromatic accordion, the favoured diatonic accordion in Scotland. While the right hand is bisonoric, the left hand follows the Stradella system. The elite form of this instrument is generally considered the German manufactured Shand Morino, produced by Hohner with the input of Sir Jimmy Shand
  Pedal harmony, a type of accordion used sometimes in Polish folk music, which has a pair of pump organ-like bellows attached
caption: Garmon player
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