Comments on: From ‘Band Union’ to bandoneón?

By: Tis

Tis — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:37:35 +0000

Something funny struck me (already a few times), looking for bandos on Ebay etc.
Many of them, especially the early and non-AA ones, have the air valve covers in the shape of the word Band-onion.
In the middle is a lyra, which by its shape van easily read as a U. More than once I have come across ads for ‘Banduonion’ ….
Not sure when these covers first came up; but i have seen them on quite early ones.

Or is such an explanation to profane?

By: Simba

Simba — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:58:11 +0000

@GUille: Muchas gracias por su comentario!

By: bandonoeon.cursos

bandonoeon.cursos — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:33:12 +0000

Excelente que escriban sobre el bandoneón
saludos desde Argentina
GUille

By: Andreas

Andreas — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:33:26 +0000

@Simba: I apologize profusely, geek it shall be.
And the geek shall inherit the earth.

By: Simba

Simba — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:54:20 +0000

Thank you all! And thanks for linking.

@Andreas: Thank you… I guess? (I think I prefer the term geek That is basically what I got out of that too, they suddenly pull the Band Union name out of thin air, so not easy to understand what they really mean.

@TC: Yes, that seems to be all bandoneonists’ favorite trick; showing how difficult their instrument is to handle.. Ms H wrote that it makes it easier to do chords, but one would think playing baroque music would be challenging.

By: tangocommuter

tangocommuter — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:03:27 +0000

Thanks for all this serious scholarship! It really is an instrument of legend. I remember Astor Piazzolla showing how challenging it is to play a simple scale on the bandoneon because the notes aren’t in any order. It’s like a piano with the notes jumbled; C isn’t between B and D, it’s at the other end of the keyboard. Worse, the two sides, the left and right hands, are jumbled in different ways, which again changes as the instrument is pulled or pushed. ‘So it’s very diabolic, and the person who is interested in learning this instrument must be a little out of his mind’ said Piazzolla. (In ‘Tango Maestro’, broadcast by the BBC a few years ago, now available on DVD as ‘Astor Piazzolla: In Portrait’; an excellent documentary, a lot of interviews, music and archive material.)

By: Andreas

Andreas — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:25:50 +0000

Simba, you are wonderfully nerdy!

“Vermutlich hat der Musikalienhändler Heinrich Band aus Krefeld diesen Instrumenten den Namen Bandonion -aus Accord ion = Band Union -gegeben).” Which I can’t really make much sense of. Anyone?

Nope, the sentence doesn’t make any sense that I can see, and I’m a native speaker. Could be the author is weakly suggesting some kind of word play by Band, who might have used “Band Union” as his company name before and now cleverly modified this along the lines of “Akkordion” to come up with “Bandonion”. Seems a bit vague.

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:03:52 +0000

Great post Simba! I’m definitely linking to this!

By: Ms Hedgehog

Ms Hedgehog — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:22:57 +0000

Ooooo! This is good. Link coming up.