These instruments come in all kinds of different types, suited to all types of music. If you want to play Irish, Scottish or English dance music (jigs, reels and the like) or Morris dance music, or European folk music, or Cajun music, or even song accompaniment, there’s an instrument for you. So here are all the different types of squeezeboxes you might find, along with the uses you might put them to. If we give you the right advice here, we’re sure your partner won’t use it for lighting the fire!

MELODEON OR BUTTON ACCORDION - IT’S ALL A QUESTION OF GEOGRAPHY.

There is a lot of confusion around as to when we should call one instrument a melodeon or another a button accordion, or indeed whether we should spell the word accordeon instead. For those of you who are new to the instrument, the purpose of this brief introduction is lay down what we hope will be the foundation of your squeezebox vocabulary and understanding. To those of you who are not so new, we can be safe in the knowledge that we speak the same language.

As a rule of thumb, in Ireland, an instrument with one row of treble buttons and two bass is usually called a melodeon, while all other button instruments (with the exception of the concertina and bandoneon) are known as button accordions.

In England both 1 row and two row instruments would be classified as melodeons. The two row variety is further divided according to keys into diatonic (D/G, G/C, C/F and A/D) and chromatic (B/C and C#/D being the most popular).

Accordions with buttons are then further divided into those instruments which

(a) play different notes on the push and the pull of the bellows, usually with 8 but sometimes 4, 12, 14 or 16 bass buttons, and are known as button accordions, and

(b) have buttons that play a different note in to out on the right hand and the same notes in to out on the left hand or bass end. These are known as button accordeons (note the spelling) and are often refered to as British chromatics, magnificent in the hands of maestros such as Jimmy Shand and John Kirkpatrick.

A third instrument within the same branch of this squeezable family is the continental chromatic button accordeon, recognised by having anywhere from three to five rows of treble buttons and two to six rows of bass buttons. These play the same note on any given button regardless of the direction of the bellows.