Diatonic Button Accordion - Distribution of Notes On The Keyboard and Range

Distribution of Notes On The Keyboard and Range

Because each button produces two notes, the diatonic scale can be covered in four buttons on a melody row.

For example, on a melody row pitched in C, the notes of the lower full octave of the instrument’s range are assigned to four buttons as follows:

Note: the first button in the example above, numbered 1, is likely to be the 3rd or 4th button in a row on an instrument.

When the bellows are pressed, every button produces a note from the major triad of the home key; in this case, the pattern CEG repeats itself throughout the keyboard. The remaining notes of the diatonic scale are produced when the bellows are drawn or pulled.

Since there are seven notes in the diatonic scale, and since each button produces two notes, the note pairings on the buttons change in each octave. In the second full octave of the instrument’s range, E is paired with D (instead of with F in the first octave), and so on.

Because the range of each row is typically restricted to two complete octaves (with a few notes above and below), the inconsistent note pairing from one octave to the next remains manageable.

For detailed diagrams of typical note layouts on various types of diatonic button accordion, see melodeon.net