The Key Codes

Most older bisonoric instruments made in Germany are labeled with numbers and symbols. They where introduced with the first instruments as an aid for learning to play the instrument and identify the buttons. The first instruments with two or three rows used only numbers but when extensions were made the numberings had to be replaced by symbols or combinations of numbers. A new button e.g. located between 1 and 2 was labeled 1/2. The system does not follow a musical sense and was used for the cipher notation called ``Waschleinensystem'' (clothes line system) which conduced to special music editions for bandoneon, thought mainly for musical illiterates. It consisted of the consecution of the key codings on one single line giving instructions about the timing. There are still some old bandoneonists in Germany using the system.
From the next section you may access to some keyboard graphs in which it will be referenced to this codings particularly to explain how the keyboard systems developed with the time.