Alfa Diatonic Accordions

Mitch Gordon

2003-09-23 22:03:04 UTC

Hi Paul -

I'm afraid that in the diatonic world, the key does matter quite a
lot. If you are interested in playing Irish music, to the extent of
being able to play in sessions, there are boxes in particular keys
that are suitable, and others that aren't. There are good
self-instruction materials available for learning Irish box, but
they're all intended for an instrument in the B/C tuning. There are
some other tunings that are suitable for Irish -- particularly C#/D --
but no instructional materials available. Most box tunings are not
suitable for Irish music, if you intend to pursue it at all seriously.

When you get your box, we can describe for you how to figure out the
pair of keys it's set up for. Most likely it's not B/C unless the
seller said it was for Irish (and it sounds like the seller didn't
have a clue). Hope you didn't spend too much, and/or you can get your
money back out again.

Your best sources, in my view, for an inexpensive but reasonable
quality first Irish student instrument in B/C would be either Billy
McComisky, at ***@aol.com (he sells a starter box called the
Learner for $450, including shipping) or a Weltmeister dealer like the
Button Box (www.buttonbox.com). The Weltmeister model you'd want is
the 86W, and you'd want them to install strap brackets and straps --
about $650 by the time you're done. A better instrument than the
McComisky (better button action) but both are reasonable first
instruments for Irish.

Mitch Gordon
Guerneville, CA, US

Post by pcullity
I'm new to this list, but not new to musical instruments. I just
bought an alfa diatonic accordion on Ebay, and I've never seen one, so
I don't know what I've purchased. I would hope to learn to play Irish
style accordion on it, but I would like to find out what anyone here
knows about these East German accordions. It is a 21 button/8 bass
accordion, but the seller didn't even know what key it's in. I should
be getting it in a week or so, but I'd like to purchase instructional
materials, so if anyone out there has one of these and can help me in
the process of learning about it, I'd be most grateful.
Peace,
Paul