13th January: Accordion Day

It's Accordion Day because on 13th January 1854 the Accordion was patented by Anthony Faas in Philadelphia, PA. Here are ten more facts about accordions:

1. The basic accordion is thought to have been invented in Berlin in 1822 by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann, although Timofey Vorontsov had been making similar instruments in Russia from 1820. An instrument called an accordion was first patented in 1829 by Armenian Cyrill Demian in Vienna.
2. The word accordion comes from the 19th-century German word Akkordeon, from Akkord, meaning "musical chord, concord of sounds".
3. The accordion is colloquially referred to as a squeezebox; in other countries it has still more names. In China, the accordion is known as the "Sun-Fin-Chin"; in Russia, it is the "bayan"; in Norway the "trekspill"; and in Italy, the "fisarmonica."
4. An accordion consists of two wooden boxes joined together by a set of bellows in the middle. It produces sound when the air produced by the bellows passes over a set of reeds inside the instrument.
5. Aficionados will tell you that a hand made accordion is best. Wax is used to make them, which means they need to be stored at room temperature and very carefully so the consistency of the wax does not change.
6. The accordion is most commonly heard in folk music, but it has been used in classical pieces like Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 2 in C major and Prokofiev's Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, op. 74.
7. The "Golden Age of the Accordion" was the first half of the 20th century when the accordion was often heard in popular music. Its popularity has declined since the 60s but there are some artists who use it. The Swiss melodic-death/folk metal band Eluveitie have used a rare type of Swiss accordion, and "Weird Al" Yankovic, who plays the accordion on many of his musical tracks. He has played the instrument since he was seven, and his grandmother would pay him a dollar every time he came over to visit and play his accordion for her.
8. In 1990, there were an estimated 75,000 accordionists in the United States.
9. There used to be a game show on television in the Soviet Union called "Play Your Accordion!"
10. The accordion is the national instrument of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the USA, it is the official instrument of Detroit, Skokie, Illinois, St. Paul, Minnesota and San Francisco (specifically the piano accordion in the latter).

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