Accordion Memories

          

My Hohner Accordion

             Often, conversations where I mention my accordion playing start with… 

            “What have you been up to these days?” a friend might ask.

 

            “I got out my accordion am playing some each day….It’s fun reconnecting with it because I haven’t played in ages, ” I reply.

 

            I know that if I tell people that I am practicing my guitar, or banjo, or dulcimer there would be more recognition such as… “Oh, I didn’t know you played.”  Something about the accordion stops people in their tracks because they are so unfamiliar with it. It’s not a common or popular instrument in the United States.

           Most of the time, people don’t respond when I mention my accordion practicing. What I don’t go into is that my accordion connects me to an unusual past, a time long ago that I now like to remember.  I didn’t realize this connection I have to my accordion until recently.

 

            Because the accordion is an not an ordinary instrument, it appeals to me now.  I didn’t used to feel that way. When I was a little girl, all I ever wanted was to play the piano.  A piano is what I wished for when blowing out my birthday candles or wishing on the first star in the night sky.  When I was eight years old and living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, my parents bought me a child-sized German made Hohner accordion.  It was white pearl with three change of registers and a keyboard that was less than two octaves.  I knew then, that I was not going to get a piano.

 

            Mother found a German music teacher who gave accordion lessons in her home in Belgrano, a suburb of Buenos Aires.  She drove me to my lesson every week after school.  She, too, started taking lessons and bought herself a full-size dark red Hohner accordion. My lessons were in Spanish because my teacher only spoke German and Spanish.  Because she was a strict, I learned to read music, something I’ve appreciated all my life. Mother and I took lessons for several years and played duets together at the annual recital held in the teacher’s back garden in early December, the beginning of summer.

                                     Mother and I playing at a recital in Buenos Aires (cir 1954)

 

            The accordion was popular in Argentina especially in musical groups playing the romantic rhythms of the tango.  As a child, I heard the mournful, haunting sounds and staccato rhythms of this music all around me.  The high-walled back garden of our house was adjacent to the Coq D’Or Bar and Restaurant.  In the summer the tango music wafted through my open bedroom window late into the night.  My German Swiss friend Marga, who lived across the street, had a college-aged brother who played the accordion in their walled-in back garden.  Next door lived los Alemanes, (the Germans).  We didn’t often speak to them but on Sundays we heard them singing nationalist German songs accompanied by an accordion.

 

            My accordion lessons ended when I was twelve and we moved to Washington DC.   This was my first time living in the U.S. and I struggled to fit in with American kids my age.  I never talked about accordion lessons for fear of kids making fun of me and noticing I was different. I knew American kids did not grow up playing the accordion. Because I wanted to be like them I didn’t talk of my life abroad at all.  Over time I forgot the accordion.

 

            It wasn’t until 50 years later when Art and I retired to Vermont, that I thought about playing the accordion again.  I had a neighbor who also played the accordion when he was young and was playing again.  We “connected” over talking about our long ago accordion experiences and I bought myself a used Hohner…adult size now.  He encouraged me to practice, gave me some music and occasionally we’d get together and play duets. 

            When I told Mother, who was in her nineties by then, that I had started playing the accordion again.  She replied, “I would give anything to hold an accordion once again.” Now I know what she meant.

 

            My Hohner accordion is with me now in Asheville.  During the many months at home because of the Covid19 pandemic I have been inspired to get it out and play more.  Yes, I am rusty and don’t play very well, but when I practice, my fingers seem to find the familiar keys even though my arms tire holding and managing the bellows.  Other than hearing myself play the familiar music I have, I like reconnecting with that long ago past in Buenos Aires.  Playing my Hohner brings me close Mother as I remember how we played together.  She would be happy knowing I’m practicing again.  Recently as I was playing some simple Christmas carols I saw myself sitting on the wide stones of our floor to ceiling stone fireplace in Vermont playing on Christmas Eve surrounded by family and friends.

 

            I have come full circle in life since I was 12 years old. Now what I like most of all about my accordion is that owning one, and playing it is not something anyone else I know has or does.  I like to think that sets me apart as being different and is proof of my adventuresome life abroad. At last, at 75 I am grateful for all the things that make me unusual and distinguish me from others around me. I celebrating that,  but won’t be giving any public concerts anytime soon.