Steirische Harmonik: Austria musical instrument

The Steirische Harmonika is a kind of bisonoric diatonic button accordion that is essential to the alpine folk music of Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, the German state of Bavaria and the Italian South Tyrol. The Steirische Harmonika is differentiated from other similar diatonic button accordion by the aid of its rich bass notes and by the presence of one key per scale row which has the same tone on both compression and expansion of the bellows also called “Gleichton.” The name Steirische Harmonika originally came from Germany as Styrian accordion but the use of the word Steirische came from the Viennese dialect and it refers to the folk music in general.

source of picture: www.akkordeon-weltmeister.de

The Steirische Harmonika possesses a right-handed melody side and a left-handed bass side, it has three to five rows of button and each of the rows has its own key. Accordion that has about five rows are not very much in use, but most manufacturers do produce a few. On the expansion of the bellows, the buttons of one row play tones from the key’s dominant seventh while the button of one row plays the tone from the key’s tonic on the compression of the bellows. The button which plays the same tone on both compression and expansion of the bellow is called the Gleichton. For every row on the right hand melody side, there are two connected buttons on the outer row of the bass side, one of the roots and the one for the harmony. On compression they manipulate the tonic and on expansion, the dominant. The manufacturers are putting the difference between the function of the inner row.