TREBLE SYSTEMS

Different systems are popular in different countries or even continents! Here in Scandinavia e.g., about 90% of the accordions are chromatic accordions and about 10% are piano accordions. In the U.S. it's the other way around. There are other systems as well and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. The uniform keyboard, although extremely rare (I've never seen one myself), seems to be the overall best choice. Here's a comparison I've made covering different aspects of piano, chromatic, uniform and the new Kravtsov accordion, abbreviated PA, CA, UA and KA respectively. I've considered the following aspects:

KEYBOARD LAYOUTS

I've tried to display the layouts below with correct relative sizes.

PA:

Ordinary black and white piano keys. (Only lower part showed)

Five row CA:

Round or rectangular equally sized keys. The two top rows are copies of the two bottom rows. Alternate fingerings are possible. There are different chromatic systems and this is a C-system:

The layout above is from a Swedish system. In Norway and Russia this layout is also common:

The system is called the B-system or the Norwegian/Russian system. In this system, the diagonals flow down and to the right as opposed to up and to the right for the C-system. The C is in the 3rd (middle) row and has the A to it's left and the D# to it's right. The C# is in the 2nd row with the A# to it's left and the E to it's right. The D is in the 1st (outside) row with the B to it's left and the F to it's right etc. Row 4 repeats row 1 and row 5 repeats row 2.

The C-system and the B-system both have their advantages and disadvantages. It may be easier to form chords and play melodic music on the C-system. On the B-system, your wrist is better angled for fancy fingerwork, but chords are a tiny bit harder to finger.

Three row UA:

Round or rectangular equally sized keys. The relative size is probably wrong when compared to UA/PA.

Look at more pictures and read an article by the inventor John H. Reuter

KA:

This system is actually new, invented by professor Nikolay Kravtsov from Russia. It was displayed at Musikmesse 99 (Frankfurt). It's been developed to try to open up the chromatic accordion repertoire to piano accordion players. There are for rows (or maybe 3 1/2). The keys are hexagonal and as seen in the layout below, some keys are connected and forms double sized keys. According to the inventor, he has trained several students to use it and they have adapted to it quickly and have also won international accordion competitions using this accordion. Victoria Accordions in Castelfidardo, Italy, has made instruments with this system. Also the Belarus company Slava has made instruments. I recommend a visit to www.accordionkravtsov.com, where you can order instruments using this system as well as the Excellent book, "N.A. Kravtsov, ACCORDION of 21st century".

The Slava Concerto model.

Professor Nikolay Kravtsov with students with the Slava model.

Professor Nikolay Kravtsov with students with the Victoria model.

INTUITIVENESS

PA: + The keys are all left to right and a higher note is always to the right of a lower.
CA: - A higher note may be to the right and/or up or down relative to a lower note since there's a diagonal pattern.
UA: +- Better than the CA since the diagonal is shorter - only two buttons compared to three buttons on the CA (not counting the extra rows) - but somewhat worse than the PA. A PA player should be able to play simple tunes without special training since the colour pattern is recognized from the PA keyboard.
KA: -- A mix of the PA layout and the diagonal CA layout but with keys also exactly above or below other keys.

KEYBOARD FEELING

PA: - Different size and feeling for white and black keys.
CA: + Same size and feeling.
UA: + Same size and feeling.
PA: +- Same size and feeling except for the double sized keys.

FINGERING

PA: - Long distance C-C. No extra rows for alternate fingerings.
CA: ++ Short distance C-C (about half the PA distance). With extra rows there are also extra fingering possibilities which could be handy for difficult tunes and when playing chords. Only three rows are necessary to play any scale. Five row CA:s have two extra rows.
UA: +- The C-C distance is between the PA/CA distances. Four steps C-C for the CA compared to six steps for the UA. Extra rows means extra fingering possibilities. Only two rows are necessary to play any scale. I've only heard about three row UA:s (one extra row). A fourth row would give you some extra fingering possibilities.
KA: + Short distance C-C and four rows gives fingering possibilities somewhere between the UA and the CA.

TRANSPOSITION

PA: - Different patterns when playing a tune in different keys. No extra rows available.
CA: + A three row CA is better than a PA, but the extra rows on a five row CA enables the use of the same fingering for all keys once you stick to three adjacent rows. If only three rows are available, the fingering would be different in different keys. This is somewhat compensated by the better keyboard feeling compared to the PA.
UA: ++ Even better than CA since every scale or chord pattern requires at most two rows while at most three rows are required on a CA.
KA: -Tricky to figure out. Better than the PA but the double sized keys seems to destroy the symmetry.

CONCLUSION

The only PA advantage is that it's the most intuitive at least for the beginner.
The CA is less intuitive but is superior to the PA especially with the extra fingering and transposition possibilities using extra rows.
The UA is more intuitive than the CA and requires only two unique rows compared to three for the CA. The UA fingering and transposition possibilities are somewhat better than for the CA if you ignore the fact that the C-C distance is greater than for the CA. I think that this greater C-C distance is the only significant disadvantage of the UA compared to the CA. In my opinion, the best overall accordion is the UA. I would love to try a UA myself but until then I'm happy with my five row CA.
The KA - Can't really understand the benefits of this hybrid of PA and CA.
With some intelligent software and a MIDI CA, it should be possible to alter the MIDI messages in order to transform a CA to a UA! You would of course have to play only through MIDI with locked bellows since the acoustic and the electronic notes would differ!
One important aspect is that five row CA:s are available (at least here in Scandinavia) while UA:s are not. Both systems, however, have enormous advantages when compared to PA:s. The CA is available (probably at a high cost) but I can't recommend this system when compared to the CA.
If you're already a good pianist and want to learn to play the accordion, there's no reason not to buy a piano accordion. In most other cases I think the uniform or chromatic accordion is the best choice. What about the KA then ? Well, the human brain seems to be able to adapt to almost anything......

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Hans Palm 2006, hans.palm@mailbox.swipnet.se , snail address