How to Put Together an Accordion

Video Transcript

"AMANDA CLAIRE: So, now I'm just putting it back together. I'm putting these screws gently back into the same holes they came out of. Remember that? That's kind of more important with screws than it is with pins, but this is the last one I'm putting in now, okay? And remember, an accordion kind of needs to be somewhat airtight so I'm going to not get them super tight, but I'm just going to make sure that everything is kind of nice and snug and closed. You're going to bring the hand strap back, thread the kind of screw back into the little dial here, and give it a few spins just to kind of grab it. I'm actually doing it the wrong way. There we go. Rather tightly [INDISCERNIBLE], now, that's grabbed, and flip it over, and I've got the treble side over here, and I'm going to--let's see, get it wind up. Yup, it goes like this. And I'm just going to just kind of make sure there's not anything kind of debris or anything that kind of prevent it from closing up right. I'll get the little closure straps out of the way. And then, I'm just going to get it right on where it goes and go around, do a little check, make sure that everything is kind of lined up. And if you've done it right, those pins should now just as easily as they came out, slide right back into those holes. And sometimes, you can even just do it with your finger, press them in. The sides are little bit stiffer. I don't really recommend whacking them with a hammer or a mallet or anything like that. It's usually better to try and press them in. And even if we have some resistance, try and use kind of something hard like, I don't know, the rear of this screwdriver to kind of press it in, straight and gently, really don't whack it in because if there's so much resistance that you need to hit in it, it means that something is not lined up and you're just doing damage by forcing it. So, I mean, these actually go in easy enough where I kind of just push 'em in with thumb. And so, that really makes it easy to work on. I just got two more to do. There, and then, oops, it's alive. You can hear if it's making sound, it means that you've kind of restored the airtight nature of it. So, we've got it back together. And so, now I'm going to talk a little bit about basic accordion playing, just real basics about kind of what's going on with the left hand and how to coordinate that with the squeezing of the bellows and what you're doing with your right hand."