This is a five row chromatic C-system. There are other systems as well but this is the system that is used here in Sweden. About 90% of the Swedish accordion players are using this system and the remaining 10% are using piano accordions. (Excluding other types of squeezeboxes such as diatonics)

Advantages of this system compared to the piano key system (PA players - consider this!):

(I've also made a more thorough comparison of piano, chromatic and uniform accordions.)

• Easy fingering.
• Look at the layout above where one octave C-C is marked. Only three adjacent rows are really needed to play any scale since row 1 and 2 (starting from the bottom row) are repeated in row 4 and 5. In practice, most players are only using the bottom three rows. If you stick to three adjacent rows there are three alternate fingerings - if you use more rows there are even more possible fingerings. The various fingering possibilities really helps when you're playing a difficult tune.
• The keys are really close - only about half of the C-C distance compared to the piano keyboard. This makes it very easy to play those nice BIG right hand chords.
• The keys are all equally shaped and feels the same. If you play by the ear (or if you're colour blind..) there is really no reason for having different colours at all (well, it helps to select the proper starting position). In fact some players prefer to have only white keys on their instruments.
• The following fingerings (expand the link) for the outside three rows of the chromatic accordion are taken from an accordion tutor by Jularbo/Gylling/Walter (famous Swedish players):
• I've included the fingering for C-Major/A-minor, G-Major/E-minor, D-Major/B-minor.
• The fingering for the other keys are the same as one of the three above. (C# as G, F as D etc).
• The scales goes up and then down and the fingering may be different in the two directions.
• The thumb is number 1 etc.
• Easy transposing.
• If you stick to three adjacent rows when learning a tune, playing in another key is very easy. Just select a new starting position and use the same fingering!.The only 'difficult' about this is to select the correct starting position - you have to move your starting position right_or_left and/or up_or_down. Of course you have to select another starting position on your left hand as well. If you're using a stradella bass system this is also very easy since the relative position of the bass/chord buttons isn't changed.
• If you're able to sight-read notation and the tune is in the 'wrong key' - no problems, just 'pretend' that you're playing in the notated key but select another starting position on both your right and left hand. This is really 'real time transposing'! The really lazy five row chromatic player could in fact have all tunes notated in the easily read key of C and then do 'real time' transposing into any key!

Some (minor) disadvantages:

• If you're used to playing on piano keys, you have to learn a new playing technique. This doesn't take very long though and it's really worth the effort (see above).
• The keys are not strictly 'in the right order'. On a piano keyboard a higher note is always to the right of lower note. This is not always the case on a chromatic keyboard.

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Hans Palm 1997, hans.palm@mailbox.swipnet.se , snail address