Just when you thought things couldn鈥檛 get worse, some truly terrifying news: Accordion sales are going through the roof.
鈥淚t鈥檚 crazy,鈥� exclaims Martin Hergt, who owns Tempo Trend Music on Burnside Road. His phone won鈥檛 stop ringing. Emails are flying in from all over the world.
Yes, his little shop was already sa国际传媒鈥檚 go-to source for squeezeboxes, but that usually means selling two accordions a month, not the 40 that he just shipped out in 24 days.
鈥淚 just packed one up to go to Wales,鈥� Hergt says. Most go to the U.S., but he has also sent instruments to Iceland, Finland, Mexico.
鈥淭his is unprecedented. In 46聽years in the family business, I鈥檝e never seen anything like this.鈥�
Why? The roots go back to last summer, when he linked up with a YouTube accordion guru named Moshe Zuchter to make a video on how to buy a used instrument. 鈥淚t鈥檚 that video that has spawned a lot of what鈥檚 going on now,鈥� Hergt says.
But the real driver came when we were struck by the twin plagues of A) COVID-19 and B) lockdown fever, the latter being the malady that led directly to the spread of what a neighbour of mine dubbed C) the accordivirus, an affliction linked not to unwashed hands, but idle ones.
That is, Hergt鈥檚 new customers are people with too many empty days and not enough stimulation. 鈥淭hey have the time and they鈥檙e bored with binge-watching Netflix,鈥� is the way he puts it.
Now, I should hasten to add that I am not anti-accordion. I聽have not missed its pop-culture migration from 1980s parody fodder (check out John Candy and Eugene Levy as the Schmenge Brothers) to symbol of uberhipness, a flag waved by every flannel-clad band from Arcade Fire to Mumford and Sons. It is, as Hergt says, a wonderfully flexible instrument that crosses cultural borders and musical genres.
No, my quarrel is not with those who play the accordion, but rather with those who have chosen the shutdown as a good time to LEARN TO DO SO.
This can be applied to any instrument: electric guitar, recorder, bagpipes. Good lord, can you imagine being trapped in the same house as that? I say this as someone who once had two family members take beginners鈥� violin at the same time. (Old joke: What does a violin lesson have in common with an episode of Law and Order? Everyone is happier when the case is finally closed.)
The sound of musical growing pains isn鈥檛 even the worst thing about this trend, either. No, what really grates is having to share the pandemic with those who have seized upon their unexpected bonus down time as an opportunity for self-improvement.
For here鈥檚 the real problem: There is a distressingly large segment of the population who, instead of drinking themselves wobbly by 10 a.m. like normal people, have decided this is a good time to learn something new. And聽they鈥檙e making the rest of us, the ones whose ambitions got no further than the discovery of Gomer Pyle reruns on MeTV, look bad by comparison.
鈥淚 just signed up for online Spanish classes,鈥� these bright-eyed zealots boast. 鈥淵esterday, I聽learned how to tie flies on YouTube. Tomorrow, I鈥檓 replacing my lawn with kale. Also, fingers crossed, I think I found a vaccine.鈥�
These are the same chipper bastards who taunt you with photos of homemade bread on Twitter. Meanwhile, you鈥檙e eating Cheezies for breakfast.
So now, in addition to all the other stress, you鈥檙e feeling pressure to fill your free time* productively, as though it were a not-to-be-squandered gift from God, as opposed to the unwanted consequence of a pandemic. (*The聽concept of 鈥渇ree time鈥� might be confusing to parents of housebound children.)
Oh, it鈥檚 a strange and changing world these days. Hergt notes that back at the beginning of the beginning of the looniness, during the days of the Great Toilet Paper Panic, someone in Britain posted a picture of shelves full of accordions with a sign reading 鈥淟imit two per family.鈥� That was a joke then, but look at the surge in popularity now.
FYI, a brand new, full-sized, Italian- or German-made accordion will go for $5,000 to $8,000. Almost all the ones Hergt sells are used, though, with beginner-level models costing $300 to $1,000. If that sounds good, give it a shot.
But if you don鈥檛 feel compelled聽to learn something new, that鈥檚 OK, too.
