Just like the mouth organ, a squeeze box makes music using free reeds. The largest squeeze boxes are the accordion and the melodeon. Musicians usually carry these instruments on a strap around their shoulder to support the weight. Squeeze boxes have three important parts. They are the reeds, the keys or buttons and the bellows.
The bellows
The bellows are like a folded-up bag. The player opens and closes the bellows- bag with a push-and-pull action of the left arm. When the bellows are opened, air is sucked in and when the bellows are shut, the air is pushed out.
The air flows past the reeds, making them vibrate and creating a sound.
The player’s right hand picks out the tune on a keyboard.
The left hand presses groups of buttons at the other end of the bellows. On some accordions, there are as many as 120 buttons which can be pressed to sound chords. Each key and button controls a valve that supplies air to a reed or set of reeds.
Changing the sound
The keys and buttons on an accordion are called registers and complers. They can change the sound of the instrument completely. They allow one accordionist to sound like a whole group of musicians!
The concertina
Some squeeze boxes have different kinds of keyboards. A concertina is smaller than an accordion and is held in the hands with straps at each end. Both ends are hexagonal-shaped and both ends have buttons. Concertinas were traditionally used at sea to accompany sailors’ songs called sea shanties.
The harmonium
You have to be athletic to play the harmonium! It is a free-reed instrument with a keyboard like a piano. It works in the same way as a harmonica and an accordion, the difference being in the way the bellows are operated. To play the harmonium, you have to pump two large pedals at the base of the instrument with your feet to fill the bellows with air. If you stop pumping, no noise will come out of the instrument. Small harmoniums that are pumped by hand are popular in India.
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