German folk music. French street musicians. Russian and finish folk. It is pointless fighting over which country's music scene can claim the accordion. Because of what needs to be remembered and understood.
And what needs to be understood is that the accordion was the world's first portable piano.
If you're not a musician, i could explain it like this: most music instruments cannot play all that many things, most of them are very limited with what you can squeeze out of them. Piano, on the other hand, despite being somewhat harder to play on (all those keys look the same, dammit!), you can play almost anything on. There is a reason so many world famous classical pieces are for the piano. Piano can have up to 10 notes ringing at any given moment, giving you more options of what to play. NOW, of course more does not mean better, and one could play great things on a simpler instruments despite the limitations............ but on the piano it is easy (after years of practice) to play any composition, except maybe orchestral (and even that could be fudged).
So, what does this mean?
It means with the accordion, you have a portable piano that does not need power. Take it with you when you go to the country, when you go mushroom picking. Take it with you on the beach. Grab it when you move to a new town, a new country. And you could play whatever you want, wherever you want!
See now why accordions were an instant hit? See now why the instrument spread all over Europe (after someone somewhere PROBABLY around Germany invented it) and later the world.
Accordion has been a part of european folk music several hundred years now, with no country really "owning" it. Don't fight over the portable piano, european nations, do not fight over "who the accordion belongs to"; share this common musical tradition instead!
