[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Juni 2013, Boxtel. I was playing a diatonic accordeon (box) made by Frans van der Aa in his studio, as good as I could, it was in a -to me- foreign key. Such smooth mechanics!
A few months already have I been searching for a new box, one with three rows and eighteen basses. I tried several models in the shop of Henk Kuik, a Castagnari which sounded great but was extremely heavy, a Saltarelle which was even heavier. And since I have a habit of running and jumping around on stage, the weight of it was very important. I remembered that somebody told me an accordeon by Frans van der Aa might be something for me…
The instruments Frans makes are very light, just a bit heavier than my current Castagnari Studio. Perfect! To be honest, I already made up my mind when I left Frans’ studio that day, but decided I should think about it a bit, and ask others about their experiences with their Frans van der Aa box.
Lucky I have quite some musician friends: David Munnelly and Hartwin Dhoore both play a van der Aa and on Facebook and YouTube I found a dozen or so other musicians from Ireland, Spain, Germany. I simply wrote to each of them asking what their experiences were, if they were happy with their box and if they would recommend it to me. The anser was, quite convincingly, yes!
End of August I called Frans to say I made my decision. He knew that already, even had my box planned in his building-agenda 🙂 The waiting time would be 11 months, piece of cake considering I had been thinking about a new box for two years already!
Now, a month earlier than expected, the moment is there. Frans is finishing my accordeon as I write this. He sends me pictures of the progress regularly which intensifies the experience for me… I can hardly wait until I can hear the first sounds. As soon as I have it in my hands I can start with my new musical project…
I will add the pictures below as soon as I get them.
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