Marotta Piano Accordian
plantsman
daughter. It has twenty five treble keys and twelve bass buttons. It is a
white pearloid body with red trim and is in almost unused condition and came
with a case. I could find no serial number or model number on it. Only a
"Made in Italy" marking on the underside of it. It has a nice sound and is
quite loud considering it's size.
Does anyone know anything about these. The person I bought it from had it
for over twenty years and an uncle that had it before had it for about the
same time, so I expect it's around 40 years old. I'm still trying to figure
out the bass buttons on this one. Any info would be appreciated.
David
plantsman at prodigy.net
craig hollingsworth
It is a student model - a 12 bass is what they often started children
on when they just started the accordion. At Milton Mann studios in
southern California, we rented a 12 bass. At the end of 10 weeks came
the hard sell to upgrade the kid to a 120 bass. In the early 60's
the studio was selling the new 120 bass accordions for $600 plus! You
would see a lot of parents carrying these big cases for all these kids.
That said - you can play an awful lot of music on a 12 bass accordion.
Back to your accordion's bass side. There are two columns.
The first (closest tothe bellows) is the tonic or single note.
The second colum is the major chord for that note. In the middle of
the first column, usually designated with a dimple, cross-hatching or
rhinestone is the C note. Find C on the right hand side and
verify that it is the same note. Play the C major chord on the right
side: C, E, G.
The bass side is arranged in the circle of fifths. From C, going
up, is G, D and A. Below it, going down, are F and Bb.
The most common chord pattern is some variation of oom-pah.
A beginning sequence:
C, Cmajor, C, C major, G, G major, G, G major, C, G major
Good luck
Craig Hollingsworth
www.gypsywranglers.com
W.D.
Hi Craig,
I would only add to your posting that only few of these small 12 bass
piano accordions are configured on the treble side to M/M or musette.
Overwhelming majority of them are made in L/M configuration due to the
fact that the manufacturers did not have to spend time on tuning
musette.
Small 12 bass piano accordion tuned to L/M has no value for playing in
band but if it is changed to M/M it can compete with the best and
larger accordions. In addition it's an excellent instrument for
camping and travel.
When buying small 12 bass accordion on eBay ask for musette sound,
otherwise do not buy it, or if you bought it already, change its
configuration yourself, or pay somebody to do it for you.
It is possible to change that configuration with replacing low reeds
with the middle reeds in one reed block bank on both blocks. Only 12
extra middle upper reeds are needed at the cost of about $5-8 per reed
if you do the work yourself. I even have rebuilt few small 12 bass
piano accordions with entire reeds blocks so accordions looks inside
like they were always musette, sound better, and play as nice as
Crucianelli's or Paulo Soprani's small 12 bass piano accordions.
Enjoy it,
W.D.
Ike Milligan
"plantsman" <plan...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:P7onb.16527$y76....@newssvr32.news.prodigy.com...
Bb F C G D A Major chords.
W.D.
> > for over twenty years and an uncle that had it before had it for about the
> > same time, so I expect it's around 40 years old. I'm still trying to
> figure
> > out the bass buttons on this one. Any info would be appreciated.
> >
> > David
> > plantsman at prodigy.net
> >
> >
> Bb F C G D A the bass notes nearest the bellows.
> Bb F C G D A Major chords.
I want to add that in majority of 12 bass accordions in the second row
"the mojor chords" are actually only two notes playing together not
like in bigger accordions where major, minor, diminished chords have
three notes and the septima or "seventh" plays four notes at the same
time. There are other schemes where seventh also usees three notes.
In 12 bass accordion second note of the chord or so called "third" are
removed like in majority of diatonic accordions. In 12 bass PA, the
second row should imitate all chords - CM, Cm, C7, Cd in the
horizontal row positions. It makes very easy to play left hand.
In case the 12 bass piano accordion, the second row plays only
"major," and uses three notes like in "C" major chord as "C,E.G" then
the "E" in bass chords should be removed or re-arranged for the sake
of harmonic uniformity.
Enjoy it,
W.D.
Ike Milligan
"W.D." <wj...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:288cdd5c.0311...@posting.google.com...
the old 12 bass accordions seem to have 3 note chords. Now that you mention
the 120 bass, of course we know that some of them have 3 note 7ths and older
ones have 4 note 7ths. I've even seen where the 7ths were actually
identical to the diminished on the next row so to play C7 dominant 7th you
would actually be playing G Bb E. Also once saw a pretty Paolo soprani PA
which had 4 note diminisheds. Lastly just re-assembled an Accordiona PA
bass where most of the 7ths were having the 3rds removed but about 4 of them
were diminisheds. It put me off for a while, since I couldn't get all of the
7ths the same.