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:

First octave
Button Push Pull
1 C D
2 E F
3 G A
4 C' B

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.

Second octave
Button Push Pull
5 E' D'
6 G' F'
7 C' ' A'
8 E' ' B'

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

Read more about this topic:  Diatonic Button Accordion

Famous quotes containing the words distribution of, distribution, notes and/or range:

    The man who pretends that the distribution of income in this country reflects the distribution of ability or character is an ignoramus. The man who says that it could by any possible political device be made to do so is an unpractical visionary. But the man who says that it ought to do so is something worse than an ignoramous and more disastrous than a visionary: he is, in the profoundest Scriptural sense of the word, a fool.
    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

    The question for the country now is how to secure a more equal distribution of property among the people. There can be no republican institutions with vast masses of property permanently in a few hands, and large masses of voters without property.... Let no man get by inheritance, or by will, more than will produce at four per cent interest an income ... of fifteen thousand dollars] per year, or an estate of five hundred thousand dollars.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    The night is itself sleep
    And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
    Our notes to each other, always repeated, always the same.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    A girl must allow others to share the responsibility for care, thus enabling others to care for her. She must learn how to care in ways appropriate to her age, her desires, and her needs; she then acts with authenticity. She must be allowed the freedom not to care; she then has access to a wide range of feelings and is able to care more fully.
    Jeanne Elium (20th century)