Schwyzerörgeli
The Schwyzerörgeli is a type of diatonic button accordion used in Swiss folk music. The name derives from the town/canton of Schwyz where it was developed. Örgeli is the diminutive form of the word Orgel (organ). Outside of Switzerland the instrument is not well known and is hard to find. History The accordion was brought to Switzerland in the 1830s, soon after its invention in Vienna. The earliest accordions were the typically one- or two-row diatonic button accordions, which carried on in Switzerland as the Langnauerli, named for Langnau in canton Bern. The Langnauerli usually has one treble row of buttons and two bass/chord buttons on the left hand end, much like the accordion used in Cajun music (minus the stops), but is sometimes seen with 2 or 3 rows on a stepped keyboard. The Schwyzerörgeli was a further development from the 1880s, with changes in the treble fingering and a flat keyboard (not stepped), and unisonoric basses. The early makers including Eichhorn (Schwyz) and Nussbaumer (Bachenbülach) experimented with different arrangements and numbers of buttons. The typical Schwyzerörgeli today has 18 bass buttons arranged in two rows (one for bass notes and one for major chords), and 31 treble buttons