Jerzy Wieczorek—AHS Capstone Spring 2006— Final Draft of Deliverable—May 10, 2006

Jerzy Wieczorek—AHS Capstone Spring 2006— Final Draft of Deliverable—May 10, 2006 Managing the Accordionist’s Identity in America: A Labeling/Interactionist Perspective Although the accordion was one of the best-selling musical instruments in the United States between the 1930s and the 1950s, nowadays it is frequently portrayed as “nerdy” and “cheesy.” In American popular music of the last few decades, the instrument is rarely heard and almost never seen unless to draw a laugh. Nonetheless, there are many accordionists who still choose to play the instrument despite its reputation. If this once-popular instrument, its music, and the musicians who play it are so marginalized in popular culture today, how do accordionists deal with their marginalized status? This paper begins to answer this oft-overlooked question through the labeling/interactionist approach pioneered by sociologists Howard S. Becker and Erving Goffman. The result is an analysis of how accordionists present themselves to others in light of their understandings of the cause and nature of the accordion’s unpopularity. Because attitudes towards the instrument are not uniform throughout American society, even accordionists in the same geographic location can choose to respond to their stigmatized status in different ways. Several interviews with accordion players indicate that these musicians may attempt to Avoid the stigma by playing only in settings where the accordion is accepted; they may attempt to Overcome the stigma by challenging the assumptions that they believe the audience holds about the accordion; or they may attempt to Flaunt the stigma by drawing on stereotypes about the accordion, usually for humorous effect. These different identity management strategies sometimes produce contradictory effects and thus appear to play a role in the persistence of the stigma. The assertion that the accordion is “stigmatized,” “marginalized,” or “deviant” in America means that it deviates from today’s mainstream American norms regarding what constitutes an appropriate musical instrument for use in serious or popular music, and that the general population treats it as illegitimate or abnormal. This paper discusses the accordion’s deviance from the standpoint of labeling/interactionist theory as promoted by Becker and Goffman, who argue that stigma is in the eye of the beholder and becomes defined via interaction between the offending group and the offended one. According to Becker, “deviance is not a simple quality, present in some kinds of behavior and absent in others. Rather, it is the product of a process which involves responses of other people to the behavior” (p. 14). Thus, 1 Jerzy Wieczorek—AHS Capstone Spring 2006— Final Draft of Deliverable—May 10, 2006 instead of asking what is wrong with the accordion that makes it inherently deviant, Becker and Goffman would phrase the question differently: how have interactions between accordionists and the rest of society caused the instrument to become labeled as deviant by so many Americans? Of course, such a question is extremely broad. This paper merely focuses on the matter of how accordionists respond to the deviant label and how these responses may be affecting the label in return. Naturally, not all of American society holds such a negative view of the accordion. Ethnic groups whose music is strongly accordion-influenced, such as Cajuns, Mexican- Americans, or Slovenian-Americans, treat the instrument with more respect than it receives in American popular music because it has been incorporated into these minority cultures as an authentic part of their traditional music. Furthermore, at the height of the accordion fad in the 1930s-1950s, many Americans (even those without specific ethnic ties) enjoyed the accordion enough to take lessons in accordion studios and join large accordion clubs, some of which still exist around the country. Finally, many ethnically unaffiliated Americans today are starting to see the instrument as something unusual or exotic rather than deserving of derision. This may be linked to the increasing commercial popularity of “world music,” which has been heavily marketed only since a group of record labels and musicians, meeting to discuss how to sell this kind of music, classified it as its own genre in 1987 (Frith 2000). The accordion is fairly common in world music, leading one beginner accordionist to tell me that any tune “feels international” when she plays it on the accordion (Jentgen). However, whenever most other Americans mention the accordion at all, they tend to deride it. Some humorists use it as a comic prop so obviously ridiculous that it requires no explanation to get a laugh. A typical example: in response to an article about an accordionist being mauled by a tiger, one person commented, “I think the tiger should have received some sort of medal for removing at least one accordian [sic] player from the world” (“Wait Just A Darned Minute”). Humorous cartoons, like the 2002 Garfield example in Figure 1, often imply that accordion-playing is shameful in normal society (Davis). Even a 2004 newspaper article intending to show the instrument in a good light seems to smirk, as if the author expects that readers will not take it seriously: “Case-wielding pilgrims have besieged the mecca [an accordion festival in Boston], a place that's free of jokes about the Stomach Steinway, where a 10 a.m. seminar on ‘The Art of the Bellow Shake’ doesn’t draw snickers, and where ‘I’ve got a 2 Jerzy Wieczorek—AHS Capstone Spring 2006— Final Draft of Deliverable—May 10, 2006 $7,000 Borsini in my trunk’ sounds dangerously close to a come-on” (Smiley). Clearly, much accordion humor relies not on any observations about the instrument’s inherent qualities, but rather on the assumption that the audience already understands that accordions are not to be treated seriously. Figure 1. Garfield cartoon, Apr. 3, 2002, by Jim Davis. Of course, since this stigma is known to the American public at large, accordionists themselves are very aware of it as well. As this paper will demonstrate, their understanding of the source and nature of the stigma often affects how they present themselves to others. First, the next section of this paper will provide some necessary context via a few notes on the history of the accordion. This history will be followed by a discussion of several theories used by various accordionists to explain the cause of the stigma. Finally, this exploration will prepare the way for an investigation of modern accordionists’ behavior in light of labeling/interactionist theory. Through a discussion of written sources and personal interviews with several accordionists, I will explore how an awareness and understanding of the stigma figures in accordionists’ choices about how they present themselves and where, with whom, and for whom they play. A brief history of the accordion Before the historical and sociological analysis of the accordion can begin, the term “accordion” needs to be defined and clarified. The word is sometimes used interchangeably with “squeezebox” to refer to the entire family of bellows-driven free reed instruments. This paper will use this meaning of “accordion” since most non-experts tend to lump all squeezeboxes together under this name and all are treated equally by the general public. However, technically the word “accordion” refers to a particular kind of squeezebox that is distinguished from 3 Jerzy Wieczorek—AHS Capstone Spring 2006— Final Draft of Deliverable—May 10, 2006 concertinas, bandoneons, harmoniums, bayans, and others. A more practical distinction can be drawn between the piano accordion (so called because of the piano-like keyboard played by the right hand) and button boxes (most other squeezeboxes including button accordions). The piano accordion became the centerpiece of the accordion fads in the US in the first half of the 20th century (Flynn et al., Winkler, U.S. Department of Commerce). Button boxes, on the other hand, played a much smaller role in the fads, but in traditional ethnic music they have generally been far more common that piano accordions. The distinction is similar to that between the classical violin and the folk-music fiddle. Considering their separate spheres of influence, it is possible that button boxes would have had a different reputation than piano accordions if the public did not tend to lump all squeezeboxes together. However, since the public does not distinguish between the two sets of instruments, this paper will use the terms “accordion” and “squeezebox” interchangeably in the broadest sense, specifying piano accordion or button box only when necessary. Figure 2. “The Accordion: A Blow to Music” by Honore Daumier, 1865. 4 Jerzy Wieczorek—AHS Capstone Spring 2006— Final Draft of Deliverable—May 10, 2006 Whatever they may have been named, the earliest squeezeboxes were developed in the early 1800s in central Europe (Macerollo). The first instrument officially to be called an accordion was patented by Cyril Demian in Vienna in 1829 (Smith). Initially, there was good reason to poke fun at these clumsy, obnoxiously loud, and technically limited instruments. These technologically awkward beginnings seem to have generated a stigma against the accordion rather quickly. For example, as early as 1865, French cartoonist Honore Daumier drew the picture in Figure 2, which depicts a man interrupted at a game of snooker by an accordionist. The cartoon is entitled “The Accordion: A Blow to Music” (Daumier) and the shocked man is saying, “We do not yet have the right to kill the people who play this instrument, but there is hope that we will soon get it” (translation in Winkler). Similar attitudes persisted through several accordion fad cycles, including at least one in 19th-century Europe (Winkler). However, the instrument became incorporated into European folk music because its portability, size, volume, and versatility made it a veritable one-man band in a box that could be heard over a crowded dance hall.

Load more