@catsalad
Pirates never played accordions
đŽââ ïžđ«đȘ
(Because they hadnât been invented yet)
Accordions were invented during the 1800s Industrial Revolution at the same time as the telegraph, steam engine and the typewriter
100 years after the Golden Age of Piracy 1600sâ1700s
So every pirate movie with an accordionist is a science fiction movie with a time-travel sub plot đâïž
@AccordionBruce @catsalad It fucks me up knowing that the bodhrĂĄn was invented in the 19th century, cus it feels like something that must have been around forever.
Granted it does depend on who you ask, there are people who insist it's ancient, but I think it's a question of how rigorously you define it. Like frame drums are probably older than dirt, but we're talking about a specific type of frame drum.
@Owlor @catsalad
The origin-stories of traditions are some of my favourite things
Like ~every~ tradition has to have been started by real live people just sitting around one day
The accordion is particularly interesting because it gained real global popularity after the 1860s or so
And recording started in the 1890s
So we have records of people who might have known the very first players of some âtraditionalâ styles
@Owlor @catsalad
Folk glorious of the 1800s and early 1900s hated the squeezeboxes
So they never talked about them or recorded them or interviewed any of the players
So folklorists canât do something similar to a comparative analysis of todayâs research on the impact of the boombox 100 years later
Mostly it makes you conscious of the question of the historical origins of âauthenticityâ and how it was used as a sales-pitch, or simply nostalgic amnesia
@Owlor @catsalad
So when I learned Bill Monroe invented #Bluegrass at the same time be-boppers invented modern #jazz⊠đ· đȘ
But one music still projects as âmodernâ while the other has an aura thatâs more and more antique and folkloric
Monroeâs mom played #accordion and was a really good fiddle player, and as far as I can tell, no interviewer ever asked him about that đ
(The key question? âWhat kind? And what repertoire?â Because a button accordion wouldâve indicated an older tradition)
@catsalad @Owlor @AccordionBruce
Edmonton has a huge annual Heritage Festival, with 100+ tents with food, dance, music put together by cultural associations representing and demonstrating the peoples that form our city. Our family makes jokes about the accordion because itâs the âtraditionalâ instrument of *so* many of them. A new, exciting instrument developed and spread in the heyday of spreading nationalism sentiment suddenly made ancient.
Cat đđ„ (D.Burch) 
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AccordionBruce
Owlor 
Ludwig Vielfrass
DavidM_yeg