A Note on "Bandoneon"

Perhaps you don’t know what it is? I didn’t. Invented in Germany, it “immigrated” to South America and eventually became the distinctive melancholic voice of Argentinian tango.

[Wikimedia Commons, “File: Bandoneon-curved.jpg”]

As you can see, it has both a bellows and keyboard. It was invented as a portable instrument for religious music, a substitute for the organ. Its use evolved as it blended with Argentinian music and dance.

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It was perhaps brought to its zenith by Astor Piazzolla, who revolutionized traditional tango by mixing it with aspects of jazz and classical music.

The bandoneon provides just another great example of cultural fusion and the link between creativity and cultural mixing. Immigration and immigrants are, once again, part of the necessary brew that catalyzes innovation.  

What’s good at large is also good for the individual, as Gail’s poem tells us: Learning another language is a way of “blazing new neural pathways” in your brain.  

~ Comment by Anne Shifrer. Drawn from AI (better called, “collective knowledge,” drawn from the collective brainwork of humanity and lifted by Big Tech)~