A Point Loma resident is leading an accordion club and her countywide group is seeking new members.
Donna Kaspar is president of the San Diego Accordion Club, also known as Accordion Lover’s Society International.
A Navy veteran and a Texas transplant from a third-generation Czech family, Kaspar grew up with Czech and accordion music from the old country. “My uncles and grandpa played,” she said adding the accordion is unique among instruments. “It breathes with you,” she said. “It takes your body and soul. You breathe life into the accordion.”
Kaspar took up the instrument after retiring. “I got out of the Navy and had time,” she said adding she started “fiddling around” with a beginner’s instrument. “I knew a famous accordion store in Seattle and they gave me some directions on who I could go to for teachers here (in San Diego),” she said. “I wanted to start right. I’ve been going the whole hog ever since.”
Kaspar is one of four accordion club members in the Peninsula “who are very active,” living within three miles of each other between Point Loma and Ocean Beach. She said they all enjoy performing together. “And It’s not just oompah, not just polka,” she said of their music adding, “Just think of Italian and sweet music sounds.”
Concerning playing the accordion, Kaspar said you have a keyboard on the right-hand side of the instrument and buttons, the chord in the mechanism, on the left-hand side. “And in between you have a bellows which creates the air that runs across the reeds and makes the sound,” she said. “It’s a woodwind, not a percussion, instrument.”
Kaspar’s passion for playing according is shared by other SDAC members, like John Mark Graham of Ocean Beach. “The accordion was the first instrument I learned to play when I was a child, and with it, I learned how to read music,” said Graham. “I get a kick out of listening to myself play, especially when it’s a song I can play well and it’s just one of my favorites. I enjoy practicing new music that is challenging now that I have more time to practice during retirement.”
Added Graham: “I play in a local accordion band with other accordion friends. I enjoy playing in this group as we all enjoy practicing and performing for anyone wanting to listen. One of these days you may find me playing my accordion at OB Veterans Plaza, or Saratoga neighborhood park while enjoying the ocean breeze.”
Kaspar spoke of two other SDAC colleagues, couple Beverly Fess and Ron Griffin. She noted Fess has taught accordion for 60 years, has local students, and also instructs online. And Griffin has been playing for years. “He loves the accordion because it’s an all-in-one-instrument and you have to hug it, feel it, breathe with it, really experience the instrument,” noted Kaspar.
“I’m still learning, we’re all still learning, we have all (skill) levels in our club,” concluded Kaspar of SDAC adding, “As part of our club we play for each other open mic on the stage. We have duets. We have trios. We’ve had a cello and a banjo join us.”
Membership dues to belong to SDAC are only $25 per year and there is a $1 donation at each club meeting for members. The club is also on Facebook. For more information, visit sandiegoaccordionclub.org.
SAN DIEGO ACCORDION CLUB
Meetups are on the second Sunday of the month at 325 Kempton St. in Spring Valley (Bailey Hall) with open hours from 1-4 p.m.
Email: SDALSI@yahoo.com.
Website: sandiegoaccordionclub.org.
The accordion and its history – Believed to have been invented in Berlin in 1822, accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type. Other instruments in this family include the concertina, harmonica, and bandoneon. The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys.
The accordion is widely spread across the world because of the waves of migration from Europe to the Americas and other regions.
The accordion has traditionally been used in Europe and North America to perform folk or ethnic music, popular music in cajun, zydeco, jazz, and klezmer styles, as well as in both solo and orchestral performances of classical music. Modern accordions may incorporate electronics so that they can be plugged into a PA system or keyboard amplifier for live shows. During the post-World War II era from the 1940s to the 1960s, accordions were widely used in the United States for performances of traditional Western classical music.