An Ill-Fated Accordion

This was going to be a video of me playing Spanish Ladies on my lovely accordion Benvolio. (Yes. It's Italian, he was Italian . . . close enough)

I've spent a few weeks practicing and figuring out good basal chords from the melody, and it was actually sounding decent. Until I tried recording the video.

You see, accordions work by forcing air over metal or wooden reeds when the bellows are moved. Pushing the buttons changes which reeds are open to create the chords. Loose reeds = open all of the time = horrible noises.

Benvolio has a loose reed. Benvolio chose to reveal this to me while I was recording.

This means that my accordion does not sound like this. (start at 0:50)

Not that I can play like this, but you get the idea

My accordion sounds like the noises you'd expect from an injured cat determined to kill as many as possible while raging against the dying of the light. That may be closer to my actual skill level than the lovely music above - but it makes for difficult practicing. At this point, the soonest I can get him fixed is mid-September. If I can get him on the plane back to Idaho.

Now I'll never get to be Lawrence Welk.

(In other news, I am destroying this infectious disease rotation and don't have to take the final. Muahahaha.)