Das Akkordeon

The accordion. Fascinating, diverse and awesome. Unlimited sound colors and endlessly different possibilities in usage—from classical to tango to rock. Are you reading this for the first time? No accordionist would be surprised. Because accordion players often get to hear: “Funny, you play the squeeze box?” or “Do you play folk music?”

No, only a few accordionists still play that today. Now is the time to help people to overcome their prejudices and to show what the accordion really is. An instrument with which one can accompany oneself. The accordion is a multifaceted and wonderful community instrument. The accordion offers the opportunity to experience the most different styles of music. Classical music, jazz, waltzes, tangos, Latin, film music and folk music, just to name a few. It’s so much fun to play an instrument that has that many different possibilities and where the entire timbre can be changed by the touch of a button. But unfortunately many people do not notice this diversity and still dismiss the accordion as an instrument for folk music exclusively.

The 142-page coffee-table book Das Akkordeon is created to show the world what an allround-talent the accordion really is! In order to reveal the haze covering the accordion, the book exclusively contains quotations from various accordionists in order to create an objective point of view. The photographs were taken exclusively in situations in which the viewer is right in the middle. The idea to create honest moments that inspire and convince worked immediately for every player through their own fascination for the instrument.

“Das Akkordeon” is the thesis of Marlene Kobel in her communication design studies at the HfK+G Stuttgart, supervised by Prof. Michaela Köhler and Sarah Chand.