A short story excerpt from KJ Lawlor’s “Frost Place Stories.”
Accordion Wars
by KJ Lawlor
I just couldn’t get in to it. The sound of it, the sheet music, the damn song. No matter how hard I practiced, and no matter how much Mrs. Ghianati, my accordion teacher, praised my technique; I hated it! Ok, Burt Bacharach’s “Alfie,” sounds great on a grand piano, played ever so gently and sung by Dionne Warwick, but Jesus Lord, not on the accordion! Mrs. G didn’t see, or hear it that way. She was a good teacher, an expert and aficionado of the accordion; I can’t stress this enough! Mrs. G and her husband, Ron, aspired to show that ANY piece of music, can be played and sounds amazing on the accordion. At the age of thirteen, I begged to differ.
I began playing accordion when I was seven. It was by choice. I heard and watched my Aunt Margie play her shiny pearl lacquered accordion at her farm house in Iowa in 1966. I was sold. Something about this instrument mesmerized me. The buttons on the left side and the keyboard on the right. This was not only a fascination with gadgetry but to make music with this wind box was something I had to conquer; if not accordion, then the bagpipes. After coming home from the farm Thanksgiving, the search for an accordion teacher was in order.
