The bandoneon is the last step of the evolution of the accordions and concertinas. All these
instruments have two keyboards attached to a bellows, and the sound is produced by thin metal
ribbons or reeds. These reeds are fitted inside holder plates, with holes for each of the reeds. When
the keys, or buttons, are pressed, they open valves allowing the wind to pass through the free reeds
producing the sound.
The earliest known free-reed instrument was the Chinese sheng, which was mouth-blown, dated as
early as 2000 years BC. The sheng was introduced, or discovered in Europe in the 19th Century, and
it inspired the “luthiers” or instrument makers to create new instruments based on the principle of
vibrating reeds.

The inclusion of the bellows and buttons started in the 1820’s in Germany. These instruments were
called Harmonicas, the same kind of instrument was registered in Austria with the name of Accordion.
The first accordions had around 10 buttons on each side. The left played a chord with a single button
action.
This instrument was very easy to play and nice for people who wanted to enjoy accompanying
dancers by just making rhythm with the chords.
Musicians criticized the invention because of the restriction of playing melodies and composing the
chords in a different way than the prefixed ones.

In 1835 the German Uhlig, split the notes of the chord in independent buttons, allowing changes in
the harmony, this instrument was called Concertina.
During the 1840’s, Zimmerman of Germany improved the accordion, or concertina, increasing from
30 to 70 the number of buttons, all with independent sounds.
In these instruments each button produces a different sound depending on the sense of the bellows,
opening or closing. They are chromatic; that is, they have all the 12 sounds per octave.

During the middle of the Century, the concertinas became very popular. Musicians could play any
kind of music. No matter the country or the century, there have always been two kinds of musicians,
the ones that like to play the easy way, and just have fun accompanying party dancers, or the serious
ones who tried to play Bach or Mozart.
There is a version about the origin of the bandoneon, which says that it was invented as a
replacement for the organs in small churches that couldn’t afford the expense of an organ, or as
a portable instrument to accompany funeral processions.

In the 1850’s, Heinrich Band, musician and dealer of musical instruments contributed to the diffusion
of these improved concertinas. He proposed the factory to design new concertinas with more
buttons on each keyboard and started selling them with a label of “bandonion”.

By the end of the 19th Century there were accordions, concertinas and bandoneons, exported from
Germany to the whole world.
The accordions were more popular in France and Italy (called fisarmonicas). There were some
accordions with a piano keyboard on the right side, called piano-accordion. British people adopted
the concertina in one English version, smaller than the German instrument.

The factory that produced bandoneons, owned by Zimmerman, was bought in the 1860’s by Ernest
Louis Arnold, and since the beginning of the 20th Century most of his bandoneons (ELA) and the
ones made by his son Alfred Arnold (AA) were exported to Argentina, with the name of bandoneon.

At that time a new dance was born, with the name of Tango, and it grows with the special sound of
the bandoneon. You can play any kind of music with the bandoneon, but it is the most famous
instrument to play tango. The real tango is identified by the sound of the bandoneon.
All the typical structures of tango groups include this instrument.
Duo: bandoneon and piano, or bandoneon and acoustic guitar. Trio: bandoneon, piano or guitar,
and double bass. Quartet: bandoneon, piano, violin, bass. The Quintet adds a guitar or another
violin.
The traditional or typical tango orchestras in Argentina used four bandoneons and four violins in
addition to piano and bass.
The fusion of bandoneon with string quartet in chamber music is excellent.
My favorite ensemble is the combination of the basic trio plus a string quartet, that means:
bandoneon, piano, bass, 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola and cello.

The current bandoneon is known also as argentine bandoneon, in spite of the fact that there are no
bandoneons manufactured in Argentina. After the Second World War, the Arnold’s factory was
forced to change its production, the need for pieces of diesel engines was more important than
the double A’s, and no more bandoneons of that quality were constructed since.

I consider the bandoneon to be the most difficult instrument to learn. I do not mean to master it;
most of the musical instruments require a lot of effort to reach expertise. I set out just to learn how
to play it.
In the most common configuration the right hand contains 38 buttons and the left hand has 33,
totalizing 71 buttons.

There is no rule or pattern to follow the scales in the bandoneon layout of the notes; they are located
totally at random, like the letters in a typewriter.
It implies that just to learn the location of the notes in the two keyboards it is necessary to remember
142 different positions (71 buttons with one sound opening and another different 71 closing the
bellows).

The left hand goes chromatically from C2 to A4, almost 3 octaves. The right hand covers another 3
octaves, all the sounds from A3 to B6.
The music scores for the bandoneon are the same as the piano parts, the left hand reads F clef,
and the right hand reads G clef.
                                                                                    David Alsina
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