{"id":56,"date":"2008-06-30T06:46:56","date_gmt":"2008-06-30T01:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=56"},"modified":"2022-06-29T21:27:14","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T01:27:14","slug":"an-opportunity-missed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"Talking Accordion Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a young boy of around 6 or 7, my grandparents expected me to play the accordion. Of course, they found a teacher who showed me all the important songs: “Return to Sorrento”, “Santa Lucia”, “Malafemmina”, among others. They way it works is that you start with a small instrument — I think mine had 24 buttons — and then move on up to larger and larger accordions.<\/p>\n

After less than a year, I was getting proficient and asked when I could get a new accordion. That’s when I got the bad news that they discovered a congenital hernia that required surgery. My father explained that I wouldn’t be able to lift a heavier instrument for a while, at least until the surgery healed, so my mother suggested I take piano lessons in the meantime. So I learned to play piano on an always out of tune upright, while waiting for my hernia to heal.<\/p>\n

Eventually we moved to a larger house, so naturally we got a larger piano — a sweet baby grand. But, no, there was no larger accordion waiting for me. As time passed, my interests changed and I forgot about the accordion.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\"Accordion<\/a>
Montmartre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is a picture I took of a wandering accordion player in a cafe in Montmartre. A nice gig if you can get it — fresh air, exercise, art, freedom … he looks healthy enough, but I forgot to ask him if he had ever had hernia surgery. I know a few of you may be snickering, but he gets paid in euros and I rely on dollars.<\/p>\n

\n

It’s been said that “A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion … and doesn’t.”<\/p>\n

I’m no gentleman.
\nConnie Francis got her start on the accordion, but blocked all youtube evidence. As she claimed:<\/p>\n

\nI was never encouraged to do it and I played the accordion, which I hated. I wish I had taken piano because I definitely would have written more songs of my own, but I didn\u2019t.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[youtube “https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0_URJbCLqXE”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a young boy of around 6 or 7, my grandparents expected me to play the accordion. Of course, they found a teacher who showed me all the important songs Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16322,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/16322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}