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[Gerard374]

Gerard, very informative info you posted. Love the dbl notes on the tunes.

Thanks Cliff.

My point was without the gleichton you're playing something else again.  Perhaps pretty close to a "standard" Dutch 2.5 row box?

Well the "Dutch" boxes are mostly 2 rows C/F.  But you are correct that my club is becoming close to a "standard" dutch 2 row box, because of the turned fifht button on the second row.

I'd be interested to hear how your modified Club differs from the other boxes you encounter in your neck of the woods, and how that works for you.

Well the club model has al lots of extra's.
-Not only accidentels in the third row so you can take a Cis for example just by stretching your finger to the third row in stead of stuck to the row ends. Or a Bes in the push. 
- One of the first extra's I directly liked on the club model, is that I have no bellow problems any more. On my hohner pokerwork I constantly had airproblems.
- In the first and in the second row you have two buttons extra in the lower regions. This gives you the oppertunity to make very nice chords. I like playing in thos low regions.
- The club model IIIM de luxe has very easy going bass buttons on it. Its is making the word luxe reality. The club is playing very light on the right hand and the bellow is easy going. I have played different instruments but this club model is my favorit.

I recently bought on Ebay the same clubmodel for a sharp price, at first for students of me, so they can hire a nice melodeon but lately I thought I keep it myself and build a A/D in it with accidentals. I am still thinking about it.   

[waltzman]

What kind of music was the "club" intended to facilitate?

[Matthew B]

Gerard,
Interesting.  Given what you say, I'm surprised there aren't more people in the Netherlands who are modifying club boxes.  Like you, I like their quality, and their sound.  The key combination means they're not much good for playing many common dance tunes in "standard" keys in my part of the world but they're great for all sorts of other tunes.   

The only thing my current club lacks is a switch or two on the bass end to drop thirds and low basses --- they can be a bit overwhelming to my ear at times.  However, I know some clubs have some left hand switches, so one day I'll probably track one down. 

Also, you should try the "mini" clubs, like the liliput: great travel boxes, and amazing how much music you can get out of them, even with fewer accidentals.

What kind of music was the "club" intended to facilitate?

As far as I've been able to tell, they were invented (or perfected?) by Hohner in the 1920s to provide an accessible and affordable alternative to the PA.  The idea was to provide a mostly chromatic box, based on a C scale, that could be played solo or in ensembles.  There were a lot of "club" clubs founded in Germany at that time, and many survive, though few now use the original instruments.  From what I've been able to discern from the available tab music, most of the tunes that form the backbone of the club repertoire have names like "Alpine Flowers", "The Jolly Shoemaker", and "Bavarian Waltz".  There's a fair amount of oom-pah bass, and lots of big fat chords.

However, most modern club players I've communicated with seem to have either abandoned this style of music, modified the boxes, or both.

[rees]

I have only ever heard the Club played "properly" once. I mean using the full Club system, not as an extended melodeon.
It was a brief recital but the music seemed to conjure up a 1930s/40s style Germanic Jazz Orchestra type stylee.
It was around 1986 and the player was Helmut Rheingans, a banjo maker from Halifax or Huddersfield - somewhere up North anyway.
Anyone come across him lately?

[Matthew B]

Rees,

Interesting note on the German Jazz.  I read somewhere that in Nazi Germany accordion renditions of any music other than "traditional folk" were lumped in with all the other "decadent" art forms, and were banned.  If all the club players busy swinging away in the 30s and were suddenly told to drop the "entartete kunst" music, it might explain the decline of the instrument.  After all Jolly Shoemakers are all well and good, but its nice to mix it up a bit.

I'm now tempted to refer over to the discussion of Women in Morris Dance, but as I'm neither a woman nor a morris dancer, I might quickly find myslef out of my depth.

[Theo]

Helmut Rheingans was at Whitby this summer and had a stall near mine.  I sat with him in a couple of sessions.  His daughter Rowan is studying in Newcastle now and is a fine fiddle player.

[rees]

Aha!.........and I've just found his website at http://www.stirrings.co.uk/orb/helmut.html
No mention of the Club though. Perhaps he's given up like the rest of them.
He also makes fiddles and stuff.

[Matthew B]

What kind of music was the "club" intended to facilitate?

And then some days I just want to quit altogether . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP644pBh_lo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8sg48i44iE&NR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvpHsDzEW5c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAXhJIhqTMU

[Gerard374]

I understand, and when I look outside it is raining too!

[Willh]

Gerard,
Interesting.  Given what you say, I'm surprised there aren't more people in the Netherlands who are modifying club boxes.  Like you, I like their quality, and their sound.  The key combination means they're not much good for playing many common dance tunes in "standard" keys in my part of the world but they're great for all sorts of other tunes.   

The only thing my current club lacks is a switch or two on the bass end to drop thirds and low basses --- they can be a bit overwhelming to my ear at times.  However, I know some clubs have some left hand switches, so one day I'll probably track one down. 

Also, you should try the "mini" clubs, like the liliput: great travel boxes, and amazing how much music you can get out of them, even with fewer accidentals.

What kind of music was the "club" intended to facilitate?

As far as I've been able to tell, they were invented (or perfected?) by Hohner in the 1920s to provide an accessible and affordable alternative to the PA.  The idea was to provide a mostly chromatic box, based on a C scale, that could be played solo or in ensembles.  There were a lot of "club" clubs founded in Germany at that time, and many survive, though few now use the original instruments.  From what I've been able to discern from the available tab music, most of the tunes that form the backbone of the club repertoire have names like "Alpine Flowers", "The Jolly Shoemaker", and "Bavarian Waltz".  There's a fair amount of oom-pah bass, and lots of big fat chords.

However, most modern club players I've communicated with seem to have either abandoned this style of music, modified the boxes, or both.

Matthew, can you point me to a good source for these sorts of tunes (the ones that the club was intended to play)? You mentioned some tabs. Where can I find these?

I'd very much like to learn some continental tunes of the 20s, 30s and 40s.

Many thanks,

Will

[Sebastian]

Matthew, can you point me to a good source for these sorts of tunes (the ones that the club was intended to play)? You mentioned some tabs. Where can I find these?

I'd very much like to learn some continental tunes of the 20s, 30s and 40s.

I'm not Matthew, but if you are interested, I could send you some tunes I play on the Club (in abc). The Club melodeon is an extension of the two-row melodeon. The two-row melodeon is not really good at playing in the third tonality many polkas, marches &c. are in (1. tonality F major, 2. tonality C major, 3. tonality Bb major). It is possible to some extent to play in Bb major on a C/F-melodeon, but a C/F-Club is made to play in all three tonalities and it provides the LH-chords.

[Willh]

Matthew, can you point me to a good source for these sorts of tunes (the ones that the club was intended to play)? You mentioned some tabs. Where can I find these?

I'd very much like to learn some continental tunes of the 20s, 30s and 40s.

I'm not Matthew, but if you are interested, I could send you some tunes I play on the Club (in abc). The Club melodeon is an extension of the two-row melodeon. The two-row melodeon is not really good at playing in the third tonality many polkas, marches &c. are in (1. tonality F major, 2. tonality C major, 3. tonality Bb major). It is possible to some extent to play in Bb major on a C/F-melodeon, but a C/F-Club is made to play in all three tonalities and it provides the LH-chords.

Hi Sebastian,

Yes, that would be terrific. Thanks very much.

I was thinking this morning while I was out for a walk that I'm going to need to try to find out more about the theory behind how a club should be played (best way to traverse scales, fingering patterns, etc.).

It's also interesting what you say about the tonalities/key centres on a C/F club. Over the weekend I downloaded a Hohner club fingering chart and was rather surprised to find that although these are called "C/F" boxes, you can't play all the usual diatonic chords in the key of C in the left hand (no Em chord or way of realising it between a bass button and some other chord button), but you can do this in the keys of F and Bb.

I just wonder why it isn't called an "F/Bb" club with an incidental key of C. Ok, you can play a I IV V in the left hand (or "the three chord trick" as I've seen this referred to here), which is enough to cover the key of C major if you don't need any "jazzier" harmonies, but I don't understand why this is called the home key for the instrument. Well, unless it's because the key layout in the right hand is designed to suit C major over the other two keys.

Anyway, just one of my musical musings. I do a lot of that. :)

But back to the real topic at hand - yes, anything you have that you think sounds good on club I'd be very happy to get stuck in with. And any advice you have will also be very welcome.

All the best,

Will

[Willh]

I've got the german book also, it's helped with the scales. but i'm thinking that this is a great instrument to play chords or partial chords on.
I think that is why the middle c goes both ways. that helps with the chords with a middle c which usually are quite frequent in most key of c pieces.
also, when i get a tune in my head i tend to play more by ear. This might not be proper to start out.
I really like the b/c but why not try them all if you can.
cliff.

Does anyone know whether it's possible to get a copy of this book somewhere?

Thanks,

Will

[Willh]

I'm another fan of the club system: I've been playing various C/Fs for some time now.  I play a couple of standard 2-rows as well, but I find use the club a lot.  I'm fond of them because they sound nice and they're very well built.  You can find most mid-range notes in either bellows direction, so you can choose your music either with or without lumps, depending on the need of the moment.  Because of the extra notes you can play a whole lot of chords not readily available on a standard two-row, and you can play some runs and ornaments not easily found on other boxes.  The "funny" push chord is, if I'm not mistaken, an Eb, which means you can pull the 3-chord trick in Bb.  It also give a few more options when you're playing something other than oom-pah bass in other keys and because of the reversals on the half row you don't loose much by sacrificing the push Bb chord.  All those accidentals open the way to some kinds of tunes not immediately obvious on a quint box, tangos and klezmer and jazz tunes spring to mind as possibilities. 

As for tips: you've probably found Jax Delaguerres Club tutor http://www.delaguerre.com/delaguerre/pedagogy/club/index.html, and I have an old club tutor translated into English that I'm happy to share.  Beyond that, practice!

Hi Matthew,

Can I get a copy of that club tutor from you? Can you mail it or would you need to post it? Am happy to pay postage.

Will

[TomBom]

Will, thanks to our Anahata there are two Club tutors for download on his web site:
https://treewind.co.uk/melnet/

The DHB-Elementarschule is written in standard notation, the other one uses a kind of tabulature. I think these are quite good to get started (It helped me trying out a borrowed club box some time ago).

[Willh]

Will, thanks to our Anahata there are two Club tutors for download on his web site:
https://treewind.co.uk/melnet/

The DHB-Elementarschule is written in standard notation, the other one uses a kind of tabulature. I think these are quite good to get started (It helped me trying out a borrowed club box some time ago).

Thanks, Tom (and Anahata). Those are really great.

The first one in particular makes me wistful. My aunt was an Austrian from Vienna and seeing the Sütterlinschrift (older German handwriting style dumped during/near the end of the war), it put a smile on my face.

I look forward to reading (and learning) from all of these.

Very much appreciated.

Will

[Sebastian]

I was thinking this morning while I was out for a walk that I'm going to need to try to find out more about the theory behind how a club should be played (best way to traverse scales, fingering patterns, etc.).

I had a look on all three Club tutors here in PDF some years ago. If I recall correctly they don't go into detail about the theory.

although these are called "C/F" boxes, you can't play all the usual diatonic chords in the key of C in the left hand

You can't do this on any (normal) diatonic box. They provide you with the three main functions (as they are called in [german] music theory): the tonic chord, the dominant chord and the subdominant chord.

The accordion started historically with the one-row accordion (melodeon) with two basses and chords: tonic on push and dominant on pull. Than where added two buttons for playing the subdominant (both on push and pull).

When they added the second row on the right hand side a fifth appart, they added two buttons on the LH side to play the new tonic on push and the new dominat on the pull. (The new subdominant is equal to the old tonic chord, so they didn't need to add buttons for that.) And there came the addition of two buttons for tonic (pull) and dominant (push) in the parallel minor to the main tonality (e. g. D minor to F major).

Than they changed the two lowest buttons on the treble side to add the four chromatic alterations, so that the instrument has one fully chromatic octave.

The Club system took these two "chromatic" buttons and put them on a new third row, added there one button for reversals and one "chromatic" button for the next octave. It changed one button in the main row and one button on the outer row, so that the fifth of the main tonality is available both on push and pull in all octaves (C in F major). Finally they changed the subdominant chord buttons (which are "gleichtönig" on a two-row melodeon) on push to the tonic chord in the third tonality.

Nursery rhymes usually don't change their tonality. You can play them on a one row.

(German) folk songs usually change in the middle part into the dominant tonality (e. g. F major ==> C major), that's why you add a second row a fifth appart.

(German) folk dances usually add a third part in the subdominant tonality (e. g. F major ==> C major ==> F major ==> Bb major), that's why they added a third tonality a fifth appart in the other direction.

To accompany this music you need only the three main functions or their substitutes. In the tonality of F major the chord of F major is the tonic chord. It can be replaced by its minor parallel D minor. In the tonality of F major the chord of Bb major is the subdominant chord. It can be replaced by its minor parallel G minor. (That's in fact a ii-V-I.)

I think that's most of the theory behind diatonic accordions.

On a C/F two-row box you can't play E minor on the LH side, because the main tonality is F major and all is centered around F major. That is: The minor chords are planned only in relation to the inner row.

I just wonder why it isn't called an "F/Bb" club with an incidental key of C.

Because for all diatonic instruments the name relates to the two diatonic treble rows.

[Willh]

Thanks, Sebastian, for taking the time to explain all that. I find it all extremely interesting.

If you have any club-specific tunes or learning materials, please do let me know.

I'm going to have a look at those PDFs tomorrow I downloaded from here tomorrow.

Schönen Abend noch!

Will

[Sebastian]

If you have any club-specific tunes or learning materials, please do let me know.

Du hast Post.

The tunes are not really club-specific, but it works the other way round: You can adapt most tunes to be played club (and sometimes the necessary adaptions are less drastic than for the two-row).

[Matthew B]

Hi Matthew, Can I get a copy of that club tutor from you? Can you mail it or would you need to post it? Am happy to pay postage.  Will.

Sorry Willh, I'm afraid that old tutor got lost or passed on to other hands somewhere in the shuffle of moving houses several years ago  -- I originally posted about it in 2008!

Some tutors periodically show up on German ebay, I've noticed.  If you search with terms like "handharmonika club noten" a fair bit of stuff appears.  If you can speak German you might come up with better search terms.  There are some clubs (groups of like-minded folks) that still play clubs (handharmonikas), but most of them seem to have switched to piano accordions.  A few still have diatonic groups like these folks:
https://www.hhc-geislingen.de/index.php/musizieren/diatoniker-gruppe
http://www.hc-albtal.de/mitglieder/

I'm guessing they'd be just as happy to chat about this stuff as the rest of us are.