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98-590: A hobby horse is a costume or character involved in traditional customs such as the morris dance and mummers' play. Hobby horse or hobbyhorse may also refer to: Hobby horse The word hobby is glossed by the OED as "a small or middle-sized horse; an ambling or pacing horse; a pony". The word is attested in English from the 14th century, as Middle English hobyn . Old French had hobin or haubby , whence Modern French aubin and Italian ubino . But

196-679: A concertina also featured the ability to easily tune the reeds from the outside with a simple tool. The Austrian musician Adolf Müller described a great variety of instruments in his 1854 book Schule für Accordion . At the time, Vienna and London had a close musical relationship, with musicians often performing in both cities in the same year, so it is possible that Wheatstone was aware of this type of instrument and may have used them to put his key-arrangement ideas into practice. Jeune's flutina resembles Wheatstone's concertina in internal construction and tone colour , but it appears to complement Demian's accordion functionally. The flutina

294-403: A PA system or keyboard amplifier to produce sound. Some digital accordions have a small internal speaker and amplifier, so they can be used without a PA system or keyboard amplifier, at least for practicing and small venues like coffeehouses . One benefit of electronic accordions is that they can be practiced with headphones, making them inaudible to other people nearby. On a digital accordion,

392-459: A besom broom (blurred). Two more men wearing military-looking jackets, buttoned to the neck, and white trousers stand astride small hobbyhorses of an apparently unique design: a cylindrical body, "about three inches diameter and two feet long", held between the rider's legs (supported at the front by a cord or narrow strap around the rider's neck), with a flat, curved wooden neck and a small, stylised head with snapping jaws (apart from their mouths,

490-601: A Christmas and New Year custom of going from house to house performing a short play or dramatised song called The Old Horse , T'Owd 'Oss or Poor Old Horse . The Old Horse was of the "mast" type, constructed in a similar way to the Wild Horse of the Soul-cakers and the hooden horses of Kent. The earliest record is from 1840, at Ashford-in-the-Water , Derbyshire. This type of performance still continues at Richmond, Yorkshire , at Christmas. Three men dressed in hunting pink lead

588-532: A band of musicians. The Poulain has a realistically carved wooden head, with a snapping jaws and an extending neck that can reach up to first-floor windows; money or other offerings put into its mouth tumble down inside its neck. Its semi-cylindrical body is covered with a dark blue cloth, now decorated with stars and the coat of arms of Pézenas. Below the frame it has a tricolor skirt. The Poulain carries two effigies on its back, one male, one female, called Estieinou and Estieinette (or Estieineta ). Although

686-545: A character in the Mummers play . The Fasnacht (carnival) procession in Sankt Lorenzen im Lesachtal, south-west Austria, features a large band of musicians, some in fancy dress, and is led by a large, rather frisky hobby horse. It has a hollow body, covered by a long white sheet that almost reaches the ground, with a long neck and head apparently made of cardboard or papier-mâché; it is carried by two people who are hidden beneath

784-429: A child's accordion to 19 inches (48 cm) for an adult-sized instrument. After size, the price and weight of an accordion is largely dependent on the number of reed ranks on either side, either on a cassotto or not, and to a lesser degree on the number of combinations available through register switches. The next, but important, factor is the quality of the reeds, the highest grade called "a mano" (meaning "hand-made"),

882-457: A deep-pitched tuba. Different systems exist for the right-hand keyboard of an accordion, which is normally used for playing the melody (while it can also play chords). Some use a button layout arranged in one way or another, while others use a piano -style keyboard. Each system has different claimed benefits by those who prefer it. They are also used to define one accordion or another as a different "type": Different systems are also in use for

980-413: A family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows -driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame). The essential characteristic of the accordion is to combine in one instrument a melody section, also called the diskant , usually on the right-hand keyboard, with an accompaniment or Basso continuo functionality on the left-hand. The musician normally plays

1078-586: A favorite of folk musicians and has been integrated into traditional music styles all over the world: see the list of music styles that incorporate the accordion . Early jazz accordionists include Charles Melrose, who recorded Wailing Blues/Barrel House Stomp (1930, Voc. 1503) with the Cellar Boys; Buster Moten, who played second piano and accordion in the Bennie Moten orchestra; and Jack Cornell, who did recordings with Irving Mills. Later jazz accordionists from

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1176-736: A fine colt, which was duly presented to him, adorned with ribbons. In return he decreed that the town should construct a wooden colt to be used to celebrate all its public festivities (this legend was first recorded in 1701). Accordion Depends on configuration: Right-hand keyboard Left-hand keyboard Hand-pumped: Bandoneon , concertina , flutina , garmon , trikitixa , Indian harmonium , harmoneon Foot-pumped: Harmonium , reed organ Mouth-blown: Claviola , melodica , harmonica , Laotian khene , Chinese shēng , Japanese shō Electronic reedless instruments: Accordions (from 19th-century German Akkordeon , from Akkord —"musical chord, concord of sounds") are

1274-427: A hobby horse "without a curtain" being connected with the morris dance at Winster; he also mentions a "Snap Dragon" made from "a real horse's head" (skull?) dug up for the purpose, but does not say whether it was associated with the morris. It seems he did not see them himself and his account published in 1924, long after his visit to Winster, is confusing. In 1966, Winster morris dancers stated that there had never been

1372-512: A hobby horse associated with their morris, but that there had been a separate horse ceremony involving a skull that was reburied each year. In notes published after his death, Llewellynn Jewitt noted how, in 1867, a dozen or so groups of traditional performers (several groups of guisers, the Wensley mummers, 'The Hobby Horse' and the 'Snap Dragon') called at Winster Hall in just four days between Christmas and New Year. He noted that, on 27 December, "In

1470-478: A hobby horse, accompanied by grenadiers , search the village for the Earl, who is finally captured, mounted onto a (real) donkey and paraded through the village. He is frequently shot at by the soldiers, falls from his mount, and is revived by the hobby horse and the fool, and returned to his mount. Finally, on reaching the beach, the Earl is executed and thrown into the sea. The Hunting of the Earl of Rone A hobby horse

1568-415: A hobby horse. The 1621 play The Witch of Edmonton , by William Rowley , Thomas Dekker and John Ford , features a group of Morris dancers with a hobby horse. Some historical English Morris dance "sides" (teams) had hobby horses associated with them, but the popularity of such animals with morris sides today probably dates from the early years of the morris revival, when Ilmington Morris created

1666-523: A horse "made from the stuffed skin of a horse's head on a pole" and the man who plays it hidden under a horse-blanket. The men sing the Poor Old Horse song and the horse snapped its jaws at the end of each verse. The custom as now performed in Richmond Market Place around midday on Christmas Eve involves the horse's "death and resurrection" (he crouches down and then rises up when a hunting horn

1764-437: A light nag that they may give instant information of threatened invasion. (Old French, hober, to move up and down; our hobby, q.v.) In medieval times their duties were to reconnoitre, to carry intelligence, to harass stragglers, to act as spies, to intercept convoys, and to pursue fugitives. Henry Spelman (d. 1641) derived the word from "hobby". Hobblers were another description of cavalry more lightly armed, and taken from

1862-487: A more pure sound out of low-end instruments, such as the ones improved by Yutaka Usui, a Japanese craftsman. The manufacture of an accordion is only a partly automated process. In a sense, all accordions are handmade, since there is always some hand assembly of the small parts required. The general process involves making the individual parts, assembling the subsections, assembling the entire instrument, and final decorating and packaging. Notable centres of production are

1960-567: A more realistic carving in recent years. A custom which took place at, or in the lead-up to, Christmas in eastern Kent, involving a group of ploughmen or other farmworkers leading a Hooden Horse (a horse's head made of wood, set on a short pole, with snapping jaws (sometimes set with nails for teeth) operated by a person hidden under a piece of sacking or a stable-blanket to represent the animal's body). The custom, described as "only just extinct" by folklorist Violet Alford in 1952, has since been revived in various places. A New Year custom from

2058-488: A non-speaking character called the "Wild Horse", made from a horse's skull mounted on a short pole. The horse was played by a man, hidden under a cloth attached to the pole, who bent forward to rest the pole on the ground. He could usually snap the horse's jaws loudly to frighten onlookers. A possibly unique custom involving three hobby horses is known only from a photograph taken at Winster Hall, Derbyshire, in about 1870. (The picture appears to have been taken in winter, as

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2156-411: A number of common components. The bellows is the most recognizable part of the instrument, and the primary means of articulation . The production of sound in an accordion is in direct proportion to the motion of the bellows by the player. In a sense, the role of the bellows can be compared to the role of moving a violin 's bow on bowed strings. For a more direct analogy, the bellows can be compared to

2254-586: A single octave on the right-hand keyboard, to the most common 120-bass accordion and through to large and heavy 160-bass free-bass converter models. The accordion is an aerophone . The keyboard mechanisms of the instrument either enable the air flow, or disable it: The term accordion covers a wide range of instruments, with varying components. All instruments have reed ranks of some format, apart from reedless digital accordions . Not all have switches to change registers or ranks, as some have only one treble register and one bass register. The most typical accordion

2352-404: A tourney horse, ridden by Sam Bennett for many years. Some modern revival sides have extended their animal repertoire in various imaginative and appropriate ways, e.g. Pig Dyke Molly molly dancers , who wear black and white costumes and makeup, have a hobby zebra . A hobby horse takes part in the ancient Abbots Bromley Horn Dance . The old original horse (see gallery, above) has been replaced by

2450-406: A woman) and the "dotted man", four dancers representing Turks perform a ritual dance in front of each house, to ensure wealth for the family and a good harvest. They must lift their legs as high as possible to ensure tall crops of flax . They wave handkerchieves, as in the English morris dance but originally wielded sabres instead. At the end of the day the men perform a ritual called "Killing

2548-530: Is harmonika , from the Greek harmonikos , meaning "harmonic, musical". Today, native versions of the name accordion are more common. These names refer to the type of accordion patented by Cyrill Demian , which concerned "automatically coupled chords on the bass side". The accordion's basic form is believed to have been invented in Berlin , in 1822, by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann , although one instrument

2646-734: Is a one-sided bisonoric melody-only instrument whose keys are operated with the right hand while the bellows is operated with the left. When the two instruments are combined, the result is quite similar to diatonic button accordions still manufactured today. Further innovations followed and continue to the present. Various buttonboard and keyboard systems have been developed, as well as voicings (the combination of multiple tones at different octaves), with mechanisms to switch between different voices during performance, and different methods of internal construction to improve tone, stability and durability. Modern accordions may incorporate electronics such as condenser microphones and tone and volume controls, so that

2744-518: Is a procession with the shrine of Saint Waltrude . The second part, called the Lumeçon , depicts the combat of St George and the Dragon and features a large processional dragon with an enormously long, stiff tail. Saint George's attempts to kill the dragon with his lance all fail, so he then dispatches it with a pistol . An illustration from the 19th century clearly shows the dragon with three hobby-horses of

2842-628: Is blown). The name of this creature from Cornwall translates as "grey head". It was a "hooden" or "mast" type of horse, either carved from wood or made from a horse's skull, like the Welsh Mari Lwyd , and accompanied the Christmas Guisers . Its body was a horse's hide or horse cloth. Sometimes it was led or ridden by Old Penglaze, a man with a blackened face who carried a staff. The animal has been revived in Penzance in recent years as Penglaz

2940-588: Is depicted in a stained-glass window, dating from between 1550 and 1621, from Betley Hall, Staffordshire, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum , London, directly below a maypole and surrounded by what appear to be morris dancers (accession no. C.248-1976). A painting from c.1620, by an unknown artist, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum , Cambridge, shows Morris dancers by the Thames at Richmond ; their party includes

3038-413: Is effected through the bellows. Bellows effects include: The accordion's body consists of two boxes, commonly made of wood, joined by the bellows. These boxes house reed chambers for the right- and left-hand keyboards. Each side has grilles in order to facilitate the transmission of air in and out of the instrument, and to allow the sound to project. The grille at the right-hand side is usually larger and

Hobby horse (disambiguation) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3136-485: Is not standardized, and may vary significantly from model to model. Accordions vary not only in their dimensions and weight, but also in number of buttons or keys present in the right- and left-hand keyboards. For example, piano accordions may have as few as 8 bass buttons (two rows of four), or up to 140 (seven rows of twenty) or beyond. Accordions also vary by their available registers and by their specific tuning and voicing. Despite these differences, all accordions share

3234-407: Is often shaped for decorative purposes. The right-hand keyboard is normally used for playing the melody and the left-hand one for playing the accompaniment; however, skilled players can reverse these roles and play melodies with the left hand. The size and weight of an accordion varies depending on its type, layout and playing range, which can be as small as to have only one or two rows of basses and

3332-593: Is probable that he existed in the 15th century. It rarely appears nowadays, being kept in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum , along with its companion Hob-Nob , a tourney-type hobby horse, a mischievous character which used to clear the way for the Giant in the processions that were held by the Tailor's Guild on Midsummer's Eve . Hob-Nob's rider's face and body were disguised with a substantial veil. The first clear mention of

3430-457: Is the main instrument in the traditional Mwomboko dance . Today the instrument is sometimes heard in contemporary pop styles, such as rock and pop-rock, and occasionally even in serious classical music concerts, as well as advertisements. The accordion's popularity spread rapidly: it has mostly been associated with the common people, and was propagated by Europeans who emigrated around the world. The accordion in both button and piano forms became

3528-420: Is the piano accordion, which is used for many musical genres. Another type of accordion is the button accordion, which is used in musical traditions including Cajun, Conjunto and Tejano music , Swiss and Slovenian-Austro-German Alpine music, and Argentinian tango music. The Helikon-style accordion has multiple flared horns projecting out of the left side to strengthen the bass tone. The word " Helikon " refers to

3626-629: Is their right-hand sides. Piano accordions use a piano-style musical keyboard ; button accordions use a buttonboard. Button accordions are furthermore differentiated by their usage of a chromatic or diatonic buttonboard for the right-hand side. Accordions may be either bisonoric, producing different pitches depending on the direction of bellows movement, or unisonoric, producing the same pitch in both directions. Piano accordions are unisonoric. Chromatic button accordions also tend to be unisonoric, while diatonic button accordions tend to be bisonoric, though notable exceptions exist. Accordion size

3724-508: The Isle of Man , involving a white-painted wooden horse's head with red-painted snapping jaws, with a white sheet attached. Draped in the sheet, a man would carry the head, racing unexpectedly into the room and chase any girls present out of the house, followed by the rest of the company. When the Laare Vane (white mare) caught a girl she would take his place under the sheet to carry the horse back into

3822-605: The Laare Vane , and knelt with his head in her lap. Another person would question the fiddler about events in the coming year (particularly who would become Valentines ) and his replies were believed to be true predictions. A similar creature, the Mari Lwyd ("Grey Mare" in English), also made from a horse's skull, with a white sheet attached, took part in New Year house-visiting, luck-bringing rituals in south-east Wales. Gaining access to

3920-468: The Languedoc area of southwest France, which is a stronghold for " totem " animals, with many towns and villages having their own particular creature; most appear at carnival time and/or their local patronal festivals, saint's days and other festivities. At Pézenas there is a huge creature called Le Poulain or Lo Polin ( Occitan for "the colt"), carried by nine men and led by another, accompanied by

4018-573: The Old 'Oss is decorated with white and red, and its supporters wear red scarves to show their allegiance; the Blue Ribbon 'Oss (or "Peace 'Oss") is decorated with white and blue and its supporters follow suit. A "Teaser" waving a padded club dances in front of each 'Oss, accompanied, as they dance through the narrow streets, by a lively band of melodeons, accordions and drums playing Padstow's traditional May Song. The 'Osses sometimes capture young women beneath

Hobby horse (disambiguation) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4116-785: The Shrovetide processions in the town of Hlinsko , in the Czech Republic , and six nearby villages (including Hamry , Blatno , Studnice and Vortová ), in the Hlinecko region of eastern Bohemia , is a ritual called "Killing the Mare". Accompanied by a brass band , men and boys wearing colourful costumes representing traditional characters spend a whole day going from door to door, visiting every household in their community (except those known to be in mourning ). Details differ slightly from place to place, but there are usually two or three hobby-horses (of

4214-482: The Stradella bass system , limiting the left hand to preset chord buttons, is a barrier to some jazz chord conventions. Jazz accordionists expand the range of chord possibilities by using more than one chord button simultaneously, or by using combinations of a chord button and a bass note other than the typical root of the chord. An example of the former technique is used to play a minor seventh chord . To play an Am chord,

4312-538: The United Kingdom have been categorised as follows: Not all hobby horses fit into these categories, even within the UK. The famous May Day horses at Padstow and Minehead are large constructions, suspended at shoulder level, with only the performer's head emerging; they wear tall, pointed hats and their faces are masked. The Padstow horses have circular frames, with fairly small, snapping-jawed heads on long, straight necks;

4410-452: The melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand side (referred to as the keyboard or sometimes the manual ), and the accompaniment on bass or pre-set chord buttons on the left-hand side. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist . The accordion belongs to the free-reed aerophone family. Other instruments in this family include the concertina , harmonica , and bandoneon . The concertina and bandoneon do not have

4508-642: The "tourney" type, but modern photographs and descriptions of the event show these animals are made of cow-hide and look more like dogs; they are known as Chinchins or Chins-Chins (a corruption of chien , dog) and their role is to aid St. George. The festival has been recognised by UNESCO since 2005 as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity under the general heading of "Processional Giants and Dragons in Belgium and France". The finale to

4606-450: The Am and Em preset buttons are pressed simultaneously, along with an A bassnote. An example of the latter technique is used to play the half-diminished chord . To play an E , a Gm preset button is pressed along with an E bassnote. For the left hand, the free-bass system is used in jazz as a means of creating complex chord voicings. Jazz harmony that would otherwise be difficult to replicate with

4704-776: The Dominican Republic; and norteño in Mexico), whereas in other regions (such as Europe, North America, and other countries in South America) it tends to be more used for dance-pop and folk music . In Europe and North America, some popular music acts also make use of the instrument. Additionally, the accordion is used in cajun , zydeco , jazz , and klezmer music, and in both solo and orchestral performances of classical music . Many conservatories in Europe have classical accordion departments. The oldest name for this group of instruments

4802-705: The Italian cities of Stradella and Castelfidardo , with many small and medium size manufacturers especially at the latter. Castelfidardo honours the memory of Paolo Soprani who was one of the first large-scale producers. Maugein Freres has built accordions in the French town of Tulle since 1919, and the company is now the last complete-process manufacturer of accordions in France. German companies such as Hohner and Weltmeister made large numbers of accordions, but production diminished by

4900-584: The Mare". One of the group's hobby horses, is judged and then "killed" for its alleged sins. It is then " brought back to life " (with alcohol) and a dance ensues, involving the onlookers. This custom has survived despite being banned in the 18th and 19th centuries by the Catholic Church and in the 20th by the Socialist government. It has now been recognised by UNESCO as an element of mankind's Intangible Cultural Heritage . Several hobby-horse customs exist in

4998-554: The Minehead horses are more boat-shaped, with pointed ends and, since about 1880, have had no heads, though they have long, trailing tails, about 2.2 m (7 ft) long. In the South of France , in Belgium (the Ommegang de Termonde ) and elsewhere, large hobby horses are carried by multiple performers; their hollow frameworks are constructed in various ways. The Danse du Baiar at Esquièze

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5096-468: The Old French term is apparently adopted from English rather than vice versa. OED connects it to "the by-name Hobin , Hobby ", a variant of Robin " (compare the abbreviation Hob for Robert ). This appears to have been a name customarily given to a cart-horse, as attested by White Kennett in his Parochial Antiquities (1695), who stated that "Our ploughmen to some one of their cart-horses generally give

5194-624: The Penzance 'Obby 'Oss and now appears on "Mazey Eve" and 23 June (St John's Eve) as part of a modern Midsummer festival, instead of around midwinter. In Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and some other parts of the East Midlands of England, mummers' plays were performed, on or around Plough Monday in early January, by teams known variously as Plough Stots, Plough Jags, Plough Jacks, Plough Bullocks or Plough Witches. In North Lincolnshire, large teams of elaborately costumed mummers, often having some of

5292-615: The United States include Steve Bach , Milton DeLugg , Orlando DiGirolamo , Angelo Di Pippo , Dominic Frontiere , Guy Klucevsek , Yuri Lemeshev , Frank Marocco , Dr. William Schimmel, John Serry Sr. , Lee Tomboulian , and Art Van Damme . French jazz accordionists include Richard Galliano , Bernard Lubat , and Vincent Peirani . Norwegian jazz accordionists include Asmund Bjørken , Stian Carstensen , Gabriel Fliflet , Frode Haltli , and Eivin One Pedersen . The constraints of

5390-582: The accordion can be plugged into a PA system or keyboard amplifier for live shows. Some 2010s-era accordions may incorporate MIDI sensors and circuitry , enabling the accordion to be plugged into a synth module and produce accordion sounds or other synthesized instrument sounds, such as piano or organ. Accordions have many configurations and types. What may be easy to do with one type of accordion could be technically challenging or impossible with another, and proficiency with one layout may not translate to another. The most obvious difference between accordions

5488-509: The bellows to keep it securely closed when the instrument is not being played. In the 2010s, a range of electronic and digital accordions were introduced. They have an electronic sound module which creates the accordion sound, and most use MIDI systems to encode the keypresses and transmit them to the sound module. A digital accordion can have hundreds of sounds, which can include different types of accordions and even non-accordion sounds, such as pipe organ, piano, or guitar. Sensors are used on

5586-733: 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 accordion is widely spread across the world because of the waves of migration from Europe to the Americas and other regions. In some countries (for example: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Panama) it is used in popular music (for example: Chamamé in Argentina; gaucho, forró , and sertanejo in Brazil; vallenato in Colombia; merengue in

5684-414: The buttons and keys, such as magnetic reed switches. Sensors are also used on the bellows to transmit the pushing and pulling of the bellows to the sound module. Digital accordions may have features not found in acoustic instruments, such as a piano-style sustain pedal , a modulation control for changing keys, and a portamento effect. As an electronic instrument, these types of accordions are plugged into

5782-461: The characters duplicated, paraded through the village streets, sometimes splitting up into smaller groups to enter houses and perform extracts from their traditional play. Photographs of teams from Scunthorpe , Burringham, Scotter, Burton-upon-Stather and elsewhere showed double gangs with two hobby horses. They were of the sieve type, made by hanging the wooden frame of a large sieve, with a small wooden horse's head and horsehair tail attached, around

5880-523: The class of men rated at 15 pounds and upwards. The Border horses, called hobblers or hobbies , were small and active, and trained to cross the most difficult and boggy country, "and to get over where our footmen could scarce dare to follow", according to George MacDonald Fraser , The Steel Bonnets, The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers . Hobby horses may be constructed in several different ways. The types most frequently found in

5978-407: The climbing plants on the wall are leafless.) Eight or nine performers are involved; all (bar one?) have facial disguise. The performers are grouped around a mast horse (possibly 'Snap Dragon'; see below) with a shiny black head made from a painted skull set on a short pole. Behind it are two men in threatening postures, one is waving a long stick like the handle of a brush or rake, the other probably

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6076-497: The complex and delicate nature of the internal parts of an accordion. Various hybrid accordions have been created between instruments of different buttonboards and actions. Many remain curiosities – only a few have remained in use: The most expensive accordions are typically fully hand-made, particularly the reeds; completely hand-made reeds have a better tonal quality than even the best automatically manufactured ones. Some accordions have been modified by individuals striving to bring

6174-512: The dancers wear a wooden horse head in their breasts when dancing. In Indonesia, flat silhouettes of horses are suspended between the dancers' legs (see individual entries, below). The most famous traditional British hobby horses are probably those of the May Day 'Obby 'Oss festival in Padstow , Cornwall . They are made from a circular framework, tightly covered with shiny black material, carried on

6272-488: The dancing area in pairs, with loud cries. Some wave clubs. Some have furry tails. There is a doctor and a nurse, in white coats with a red cross on the back. They all race around the dancing space in an anti-clockwise direction and then fall to the ground in a writhing heap. Also known as the "Doudou", the Ducasse de Mons is a festival that takes place on Trinity Sunday in the town of Mons and consists of two parts. The first

6370-603: The end of the 20th century. Hohner still manufactures its top-end models in Germany, and Weltmeister instruments are still handmade by HARMONA Akkordeon GmbH in Klingenthal . The accordion has traditionally been used to perform folk or ethnic music , popular music, and transcriptions from the operatic and light-classical music repertoire. It was also used by the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya and

6468-602: The evening the Winster 'Snap Dragon' and 'Hobby Horse' conjoined came to us — ten men, one as Snap Dragon, two with Hobby Horses, two devils, etc., etc. We had them in the kitchen and gave them money." The photograph may well show one such "conjoined" team. Similar customs include The Broad in the Cotswolds and Old Ball in the Forest of Rossendale in Lancashire. Originally created in

6566-509: The factories of the two masters were producing 10,000 instruments a year. By 1866, over 50,000 instruments were being produced yearly by Tula and neighbouring villages, and by 1874 the yearly production was over 700,000. By the 1860s, Novgorod , Vyatka and Saratov governorates also had significant accordion production. By the 1880s, the list included Oryol , Ryazan , Moscow , Tver , Vologda , Kostroma , Nizhny Novgorod and Simbirsk , and many of these places created their own varieties of

6664-563: The first written reference to the Poulain is from 1615, the creature is supposed to commemorate a visit to the town in 1226 by Louis VIII , during which the king's favourite mare fell ill. She had to be left behind in Pézenas while Louis continued with the Albigensian Crusade . On his return he was astonished to find that not only was his mare now fully recovered, but she had also given birth to

6762-399: The ground all round. A long tail is attached to the back of the frame. Each horse is accompanied by a small group of musicians and attendants. The Town Horse is accompanied by "Gullivers", dressed similarly to the horse but without the large frame; as at Padstow, smaller, children's horses have sometimes been constructed [2] . The horses' visits are (or were) believed to bring good luck . In

6860-537: The hall between 1868 and 1880. In 1931, Stanley Evans ("Folk Dancing in Derbyshire", Derbyshire Countryside , vol 1, no 2, April 1931, p29) suggested the performers may have been performing a mumming play. Cawte dismissed this suggestion: "if so it is a most unusual one, there is no sign of the combatants, the pair of horses is of an unusual design, and the mast horse seems to be the centre of attention." In his field notes, made in 1908, folklorist Cecil Sharp referred to

6958-574: The hobby horse is in 1572 (along with a " mayde Marrians Coate") in the records of the Tailors' Guild (who, in 1873, finally sold both hobby-horse and Giant to the Museum). The processions, which also involved morris dancers until around 1911, continued sporadically on various occasions into the mid 20th century. Some regional variants of the mummers play , performed around All Souls' Day in Cheshire , included

7056-431: The horse falls to the ground and is then "shod" (the smith hammers the shoe soles of one or other of the carriers, who kick out, wildly). The man who leads it sometimes breathes into its mouth or nostrils. It then revives and continues through the village. At Ezpeize the formal dancing is suddenly interrupted by a wild invasion. An unruly gang of rustically dressed characters, wearing masks or facial disguise, rushes into

7154-481: The horses look almost like simple rocking horses with the legs removed). The horsemen are masked in light-coloured cloth. Another character wears a rather voluminous, tattered, long, dark dress; busily brushing the ground with a besom broom, "she" is reminiscent of the character Besom Bet who appears in some mummers plays . The last two characters are playing rough music on bladder fiddles . The performance may have been arranged by Llewellynn Jewitt , who lived at

7252-505: The house was a challenge; the Mari Lwyd party and those in the house took turns to improvise verses of a song. If the household failed to come up with a final verse the Mari was allowed to enter; if not, it was turned away. The custom has been revived in recent years. In parts of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and around Sheffield there existed, into the early 20th century (and until 1970 at Dore )

7350-423: The house, sitting away from the others while a kind of sword-dance was performed with sticks by six male dancers to the tune "Mylecharane's March" played on the fiddle. As the climax of the dance the fiddler would enter the circle of dancers and be imprisoned by their intertwined sticks; the dancers then, with wild cries, "cut off his head" and he fell to the ground. The "dead" fiddler was then blindfolded and led to

7448-472: The instrument. The accordion is one of several European inventions of the early 19th century that use free reeds driven by a bellows. An instrument called accordion was first patented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian in Vienna . Demian's instrument bore little resemblance to modern instruments. It only had a left hand buttonboard, with the right hand simply operating the bellows. One key feature for which Demian sought

7546-414: The left hand, opposite to the way that contemporary chromatic hand harmonicas were played, small and light enough for travelers to take with them and used to accompany singing. The patent also described instruments with both bass and treble sections, although Demian preferred the bass-only instrument owing to its cost and weight advantages. The accordion was introduced from Germany into Britain in about

7644-510: The left-hand keyboard, which is normally used for playing the accompaniment. These usually use distinct bass buttons and often have buttons with concavities or studs to help the player navigate the layout despite not being able to see the buttons while playing. There are three general categories: Inside the accordion are the reeds that generate the instrument tones. These are organized in different sounding banks , which can be further combined into registers producing differing timbres . All but

7742-531: The melody–accompaniment duality. The harmoneon is also related and, while having the descant vs. melody dualism, tries to make it less pronounced. 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

7840-461: The name of Hobin, the very word which Phil. Comines uses, Hist. VI. vii." Another familiar form of the same Christian name, Dobbin , has also become a generic name for a cart-horse. Samuel Johnson , Dictionary of the English Language , 1755, glosses: "A strong, active horse, of a middle size, said to have been originally from Ireland; an ambling nag." Hoblers or Hovellers were men who kept

7938-433: The next "tipo a mano" ("like hand-made"), lower grades including "export" and several more. Price is also affected by the use of costly woods, luxury decorations, and features such as a palm switch, grille mute, and so on. Some accordion makers sell a range of different models, from a less-expensive base model to a more costly luxury model. Typically, the register switches are described as Reeds: 5 + 3 , meaning five reeds on

8036-506: The outskirts of town), 2 May and 3 May (when a ceremony called "The Bootie" takes place in the evening at part of town called Cher) New Page 1 . Each horse is made of a boat-shaped wooden frame, pointed and built up at each end, which is carried on the dancer's shoulders. As at Padstow, his face is hidden by a mask attached to a tall, pointed hat. The top surface of the horse is covered with ribbons and strips of fabric. A long fabric skirt, painted with rows of multicoloured roundels, hangs down to

8134-490: The past there was also a similar hobby horse based at the nearby village of Dunster , which would sometimes visit Minehead Obby Oss . The Minehead horse has also visited Dunster Castle on May Day. At Combe Martin in Devon a custom called "The Hunting of the Earl of Rone" took place on Ascension Day until 1837, when it was banned. It was revived in 1974 and now takes place over the four days of Spring Bank Holiday . A fool and

8232-578: The patent was the sounding of an entire chord by depressing one key. His instrument also could sound two different chords with the same key, one for each bellows direction (a bisonoric action). At that time in Vienna, mouth harmonicas with Kanzellen (chambers) had already been available for many years, along with bigger instruments driven by hand bellows. The diatonic key arrangement was also already in use on mouth-blown instruments. Demian's patent thus covered an accompanying instrument: an accordion played with

8330-472: The performer's waist, However, in an unusual variation, the "rider" was then disguised by wearing a horse-cloth which covered his head and body to the knees, so that he appeared to be a horse riding a horse. The Salisbury Giant, a 12 ft-tall (3.5m) figure sometimes said to represent Saint Christopher , is a processional figure unique in Britain. The current figure's wooden frame was rebuilt c.1850 although it

8428-482: The reed bank on the bass side. In describing or pricing an accordion, the first factor is size, expressed in number of keys on either side. For a piano type, this could for one example be 37/96, meaning 37 treble keys (three octaves plus one note) on the treble side and 96 bass keys. A second aspect of size is the width of the white keys, which means that even accordions with the same number of keys have keyboards of different lengths, ranging from 14 inches (36 cm) for

8526-441: The role of breathing for a singer. The bellows is located between the right- and left-hand keyboards, and is made from pleated layers of cloth and cardboard, with added leather and metal. It is used to create pressure and vacuum, driving air across the internal reeds and producing sound by their vibrations, applied pressure increases the volume. The keyboard touch is not expressive and does not affect dynamics : all expression

8624-571: The same way as a mast horse or hooden horse, the Derby Tup ( ram ) represented a male sheep. It took part in a dramatised version of the Derby Ram folksong, which was performed in northern Derbyshire and around Sheffield during the Christmas season by teams of boys. It is "killed" by a butcher and its "blood" is collected in a large bowl. In some versions it is brought back to life by a quack doctor, like

8722-419: The sheet. The horse has a few coloured ribbons attached to its mane, bridle and tail. Its reins are held by a man dressed in a red jacket, and it is closely followed by a boy (who occasionally prods it with a wooden hay-fork) and a blacksmith in an apron (who carries a bag containing a hammer). Other stock characters in the parade include four masked, smartly dressed "old men" with walking sticks. From time to time

8820-499: The shoulders of a dancer whose face is hidden by a grotesque mask attached to a tall, pointed hat. A skirt (made from the same material) hangs down from the edge of the frame to around knee-height. There is a small, wooden, horse's head with snapping jaws, attached to a long, straight neck, with a long mane, which sticks out from the front of the frame. On the opposite side there is a small tail of horsehair. There are two rival horses and their fiercely loyal bands of supporters at Padstow:

8918-631: The skirt of the hobby horse; often they emerge smeared with black. Children sometimes make "Colt" 'Osses and hold their own May Day parades. At Minehead in Somerset there are three rival hobby horses, the Original Sailor's Horse , the Traditional Sailor's Horse and the Town Horse . They appear on May Eve (called "Show Night"), on May Day morning (when they salute the sunrise at a crossroads on

9016-522: The smaller accordions are equipped with switches that control which combination of reed banks operate, organized from high to low registers . Each register stop produces a separate sound timbre, many of which also differ in octaves or in how different octaves are combined. See the accordion reed ranks and switches article for further explanation and audio samples. All but the smaller accordions usually have treble switches. The larger and more expensive accordions often also have bass switches to give options for

9114-454: The tourney type). Other characters include the Straw Men, dressed in costumes made of rice-straw, with blacked faces, and tall, pointed straw hats; they embrace women and roll with them on the ground, which is said to confer fertility. Housewives gather straw from the Straw Men's skirts as a good luck charm, taking it home to feed their geese and chickens. With the "Little Wife" (a man dressed as

9212-596: The treble side and three on the bass, and Registers: 13 + M, 7 , meaning 13 register buttons on the treble side plus a special "master" that activates all ranks, like the "tutti" or "full organ" switch on an organ, and seven register switches on the bass side. Another factor affecting the price is the presence of electronics, such as condenser microphones, volume and tone controls, or MIDI sensors and connections. The larger piano and chromatic button accordions are usually heavier than other smaller squeezeboxes , and are equipped with two shoulder straps to make it easier to balance

9310-620: The volume of the right-hand keyboard and the left-hand buttons can be independently adjusted. Acoustic-digital hybrid accordions also exist. They are acoustic accordions (with reeds, bellows, and so on), but they also contain sensors, electronics, and MIDI connections, which provides a wider range of sound options. An acoustic-digital hybrid may be manufactured in this form, or it may be an acoustic accordion which has had aftermarket electronics sensors and connections added. Several companies sell aftermarket electronics kits, but they are typically installed by professional accordion technicians, because of

9408-408: The weight and increase bellows control while sitting, and avoid dropping the instrument while standing. Other accordions, such as the diatonic button accordion , have only a single shoulder strap and a right hand thumb strap. All accordions have a (mostly adjustable) leather strap on the left-hand side to keep the player's hand in position while drawing the bellows. There are also straps above and below

9506-552: The year 1828. The instrument was noted in The Times in 1831 as one new to British audiences and was not favourably reviewed, but nevertheless it soon became popular. It had also become popular with New Yorkers by the mid-1840s. After Demian's invention, other accordions appeared, some featuring only the right-handed keyboard for playing melodies. It took English inventor Charles Wheatstone to bring both chords and keyboard together in one squeezebox. His 1844 patent for what he called

9604-527: Was discovered in 2006 that appears to have been built earlier. The earliest history of the accordion in Russia is poorly documented. Nevertheless, according to Russian researchers, the earliest known simple accordions were made in Tula, Russia , by Ivan Sizov and Timofey Vorontsov around 1830, after they received an early accordion from Germany. By the late 1840s, the instrument was already very widespread; together

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