When the button accordion came on the scene here some 150 years ago, dance players quickly adopted it wholesale. It had some huge advantages over the fiddles and occasional tin whistles which had provided music for dances in Newfoundland in an earlier era.  For one thing, accordions are way easier to learn at a basic level, and relatively easy to maintain.  Unlike finicky and temperamental violins, accordions were pretty much immune to the punishments of climate. Accordions also had the advantage of volume, something very useful at community dances where drums and guitars, not to mention PA systems, were pretty much unheard of.

I spoke before about the differences between Cape Breton and Newfoundland traditions. If I can digress even further, the Cape Bretoners solved their volume problem by massing fiddles, two or three together with accompaniment from the ubiquitous parish hall piano. They also transferred many tunes from the big pipes, which forced some complex and unusual fingerings and styles. This has led to their complex fiddle repertoire, held in common by all decent players, one in which virtuoso playing is held in wide regard. There is really no equivalent in the Newfoundland tradition. There are lots of fiddle tunes here, but they rarely make it into the repertoire of the accordionist. Conversely, the Cape Bretoners never really took to the button accordion - too many of their Scottish tunes would be unplayable. When I was learning to play the fiddle, I learned dozens of Irish & Scottish tunes. They were easy to find on record, and I found them much easier to play than the choppy and propulsive Newfoundland tunes. Melodies which practically rolled off the buttons on my accordions turned into complex and ugly finger exercises when translated onto the fiddle. Diatonic accordions, (which are pretty much the only ones used in Newfoundland), are very restricted musically. Each row of buttons is fixed to the notes found in the scale of the chosen key. Therefore, all the accidentals and sharps and flats that fall outside that key become unplayable.  On the other hand, the resulting ease of playing up and down the straightforward scale allows one to play with a forceful precision, ideally suited to step dancing, waltzes and set dances. Forget playing fiddle tunes, for the most part - the legato sway of good Irish reels often become clattering and popping bundles of 8th notes, about as melodic as reciting the ABC’s.

That is not too say there are not accordion virtuosos found in abundance in Newfoundland. Two of my favourites are Vince Collins and Frank Maher. I recorded Vince myself a few years back, for an album called Lifting Out The Stove. Vince is an extremely old-fashioned player, with a style that pre-dates most modern influences. His repertoire is a mix of Irish tunes, learned from local players and half-heard Irish radio broadcasts from Boston, and more idiosyncratic local dance numbers. He learned to play first and foremost to accompany dancers, and you can hear the spaces he leaves for them in every note.

One of the best tunes on the album is the Irish jig The Blackthorn Stick. This tune is very popular among uillean pipers In Ireland, and though that weird and wonderful instrument never made the journey to Newfoundland, you can hear echoes of them in Vince’s playing. The notes bubble and pop, as fluid as a waterfall. On a fiddle it would be awkward, a much slower and tortuous expression, but in Vince’s accordion the tune is as light as a daisy.

Frank Maher is the senior hand among Newfoundland accordionists, and much loved for his ebullient character and powerful playing. His repertoire is similar to Vince’s, a mix of Irish and Newfoundland tunes. Unlike Vince, Frank traveled the world with bands like Figgy Duff, and has compared his own technique to many others. He recently released his debut album, Mahervelous, and it has some dandy tunes on it. Most instructive may be his version of the Goat Dance, a Newfoundland set dance that by any standards is an exercise in force. Over the years, the four tunes have been reduced to their simplest form, in order to aid the fast and driving half-time rhythm the set dancers prefer. Frank plays them furiously, as if he was trying to rip the accordion in two. For a man in his seventies, it is an incredible demonstration of the possibilities of the instrument. Although his band accompanies him, their presence is at best superfluous. He squeezes a mighty sound out of his simple instrument. It is easy to imagine that if he was playing alone somewhere in an isolated outport parish hall, with dozens of dancers stomping around him, and nary a drum nor microphone to be seen, you could be sure of one thing: Frank  and his accordion would more than suffice.