ITC, Folklife Festival INTERVIEWER
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THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES 1987 FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL INTERVIEW WITH : Joe Kasper PLACE: ITC, Folklife Festival INTERVIEWER: Al Lowman DATE: August 9, 1987 L: What have you been doing here at the Festival this year? K: I play the accordion. I'm an old accordion man. I play the original button type accordion. I have a very modern accordion that I had made in Italy. I entertain peopl e that like that kind of music. They're mostly, you might say, the Slavics . But you ' d be surprised but everybody likes that type of music. L: The accordion, of course, is an instrument that cuts over several ethnic groups. You spoke of a button accordion as opposed to keyboard accordion. Is that right? K: Yes. L: What, essentially, is the difference between the two other than one 's got buttons and the other's got keys? I s there any other difference? K: There is a great difference. The keyboard accordion is a highl y improved instrument . I've got an accordion with three rows of buttons . And I can only play in the key of F , B, and E , or I must arrange it for G/ C, or F, whate ver. If I would p lay with an orchestra that plays i n all keys , I Kasper 2 K: must have three~ccordions at least. And I don't have all the basses tliat t hey have because I don't have the sharps and flats they do. It is an old fasioned type of an instrument. There's just as much difference between my accordion and the keyboard accordion that Mr. Kadlecek played a while ago as there is between the original pump organ and these modern organs that we have now. L: O.K . K: That is basically t h e difference . L: You spoke of having had this made for you in Italy? K: Yes. L: How many people do you know that can p l ay the button accordion? K: Right now I know of least ten of 'em. Not all of them are very good , but they play good, happy music . The accor- dion accompanies the singers, usually. I know some very good accordion players . The price of these accordions is out of reach for a lot of people. The real good accordions, anyway. L: Now you mean the keyboard or button accordion? K: The button accordions. So are the keyboard. But most of the artists with the keyboard are playing profe~ional l y, and they get a return on their instrument. L: Do any button accordionists play professionally? K: Yes. There are orchestras around Dallas , Texas. I know of two of ' em . And they are occupied perhaps twice a week. They make pretty good money, you might say. L : Is there any tonal difference between a button accordion and a keybord accordion? Kasper 3 K: Tone d i fference? L: Yeah, tonal difference . K: I would say t hat if there is it ' s because it i s tuned in that respect . The accordion could be tuned a litt le different from the rest. Would be probably the only one . I mean on ly way. L: Let ' s say we ' ve got a quality keyboard accordi on. Let me ask you this que s t ion. Why would anybody choose, then , to play a button accordion if they could play , let ' s say, a top quality keyboard accordi on? What is it that appeals to you about a button accordion over a keyboard accordion ? K: Well, let me say to start with , why I chose it. I never had the opportunity to learn music. I can ' t read a note of music . When I was a little boy, my daddy would give me a little money for spending, and I would buy me a harmonica. And it is the same principle the r e ... you have a push a nd a pull as opposed to the keyboard. No matter whether you push or pull the tone is the same. I learned to play the harmonica when I was a little boy, and a s soon as I had a f ew dol lars ... you have to remember I ' m a depression- raised boy .. well , I think we bought our f irst accordion for less than f ive dollars . And that ' s what I learned to play- - a one- row Hohner accordion made in Germany . L : What kind? K: It had only one row of keys. L: Oh , one row of keys. K: Made by the Hohner Compa ny . They make fine instruments. 4 Kasper K: As I grew older, I progressed to a larger type of an instrument. At that time the piano keyboard accordion was not very common. And they were quite expensive . And by the time I was, let's say, 21 years old and getting to where I was pretty darn good, the war took me away, and I stayed away from the accordion for the next 30, maybe 35 years. I didn't really restart playing an accordion until I was in my, well up until I was about 55 years old. And the only reason I got into it then was because I had a bad case of arthritis , and they say the movement of your h ands and fingers will keep 'em limbered up . Therefore , my wife bought me an accordion, and I got into it and of course, everybody urged me on, and the next thing you know I owned a $2,000 instrument. Some friends introduce d me to some Italians that manufactured it for me. My accordion and my foreign accordion ' s quality of the sound and the tone is the same because he and I would get together at the Wurstfest sometimes . So, therefore, I am limited to the key that I can play. Here's one to A flat , and I'm lost ,I can't find it. I can only play in the keys the accordion was made in. L: You said a while ago you could play in three different keys. How do you select the key? Is there some kind of an adjustment on the instrument? K: No . The first row i s an F; the middle row is a B; and the third is an E. L: O.K. K: And I can make my chords out--play all three at the same time Kasper 5 K: to make my chords. But, it is a different f i ngering when you 're playing three different ... like any other accor dions . The piano accordion. Then you have the chromatic ... there are five basic types of accordions. The chromatic accordion; the keyboard accordion; t he button accordion , that I play; and there is a club accordion that I haven ' t seen very much of around here ... but they play them in Germany and the Swiss country. And then there is still another accor dion type of accordion. They ' re put together different. L: Tell me about the chromatic . .. the chromatic, the club, and what was the other one? K: Button and keyboard. L: But chromatic, club, what was the fifth one? K: I forget what it was, but there is still one more . L : O. K. Tell me a little bit a bout how they diff er . What's different? K: Well, when you learn to play the chromatic accordion . .. L : I know what a chromatic scale is . K: Usually it's i n three , or perhaps five rows of buttons . It resembles mine. In fact, people think that I am playing a chromatic accordion. You have t o know music . And you can play anything that there is, that can be p layed on a piano keyboard , or anything that can be played on a violin can be played on a chromatic because it' s all there . It's just a matte r of learning . Now the club accordion comes in, let's say, three keys like G, C, and F. There ' s an extra button in there to everytime you want to hit a certain chord or Kasper 6 K: change, you apply a pressure to that one button there in the center. You're selecting your different chords with it, see? L: You mean different chords in a different key? K: Yes. That is an accordion I don't know how to play, neither. There's that much difference in it. I was shown how it could be played, and they tried to sell me one. I did not want to change because it's just one more instrument that you have to l earn . L: Next question. Where did you grow up? K: I grew up in Taylor, Texas, Williamson County. L: You started playing the accordion at what age? K: I started playing the accordion , with the accordion you might say, when I was perhaps nine or ten years old. L: What kind of household did you grow up in? Were there other people in the family that were playing musical instru ments? K: My oldest brother played a violin; he's not living any more. My next brother played a guitar. There were six of us brot hers. The next four of us all played the accordion at that time, when we were growing up. My sisters didn't play any instrume nts. My daddy played the accordion a little bit. And my grandfather , Joseph Kasper , he was a very highly accomplished musician in Cze choslovakia. He had his own band even after the y settled here in the United States back about 1884 or something like that.