Q 01/05

The accordion takes its name from a German word meaning what?

A) Musical chord

B) Folding bellows

C) Little organ

D) Wind box

Answer · why

A) Musical chord

Musical chord is the meaning of the German Akkord: the Viennese maker who patented the name in 1829 was proudest that a single key could sound a compl...

Q 02/05

The accordion belongs to which family of instruments?

A) Idiophones

B) Free reed aerophones

C) Double reed aerophones

D) Membranophones

Answer · why

B) Free reed aerophones

Free reed aerophones sound when air sets a thin tongue swinging through a slot, but only from one side, so an accordion carries two reeds for every no...

Q 03/05

Which author, later famous for 'Brokeback Mountain', wrote the 1996 novel Accordion Crimes?

A) Cormac McCarthy

B) Larry McMurtry

C) Annie Proulx

D) Barbara Kingsolver

Answer · why

C) Annie Proulx

Annie Proulx followed The Shipping News with the story of a single accordion: built by a Sicilian maker who sails for America, it passes from one immi...

Q 04/05

Many credit a German teenager's 1822 'Handäoline' as the first accordion; in which city was it reputedly made?

A) Dresden

B) Hamburg

C) Munich

D) Berlin

Answer · why

D) Berlin

Berlin is the usual answer, though not one document of the time backs the claim for young Friedrich Buschmann, which is why others date the accordion ...

Q 05/05

Who patented an instrument called the accordion in Vienna in 1829?

A) Cyrill Demian

B) Adolphe Sax

C) Heinrich Band

D) Friedrich Buschmann

Answer · why

A) Cyrill Demian

Cyrill Demian's first model had only five keys on one side: his patent argued that doubling it up for both hands would simply make the instrument heav...