INSTRUMENTS

I tried it but failed to master the chord section. Its frustrating and not worth it unless you're planning to use accordion on a lot of tunes.

Yeah, I read music, play the piano passably well, play every tonal rock instrument proficiently, still work as a recording engineer and tech and have more classical training than a lot of people and I couldn't achieve the mental and physical memorization for accordion. Plus the pumping action is physically tiring and I had a nice 50s bohmer back in the day. Maybe if I gave it hours every day it would've gone better but I have other things to do. I don't think you pick accordion up causally for a few folk sessions. That's not to say you can't do it, just be prepared for a grueling process that eats up all your free time.

Accordion was the first time I encountered a non wind instrument I couldn't make music with right away. It was a really humbling experience.

Similar experience here! Well I'm classically trained on piano, self-taught on guitar, bass, ukelele, and more recently oud (though still a beginner on that, I barely get time to practice, but it's close enough to guitar to learn quickly). I've tried an accordion only once, and I'd say that was the one of the most difficult instruments I've tried, drawn with violin (which I've tried a few times, took ages just to play a few notes properly). I know one guy who does play accordion well, but he's been doing it for years, and as you mentioned, it's something you'd need to be investing a lot of time towards!

I picked up a little battered old piano accordion in a garage sale but it never really clicked for me. I was once given a tatty old east German "Anglo" concertina which I can eke out a tune from - it has the same push-pull pattern as the blow-suck pattern of a harmonica so my brain was already wired to get a quick grasp on the mechanics.

While superficially most concertinas look the same there are several different styles with differing finger patterns and valve systems. Anglos play a different note depending whether you squeeze or pull on the bellows; English Concertinas play the same note each way and playing a scale "zig - zags" from hand to hand. Hayden concertinas follow the common accordion left hand bass button pattern, and the style I'm interested in "Duet" concertinas put the treble buttons under the right hand and bass under the left.

You asked about accordions but I've come back with concertinas 'cos they're way cooler and much more portable. Don't get me started on Melodeons. They're cool too. I don't have enough lives to master all the instruments I wish I could play.