Pierre Monichon (24 October 1925 – 1 September 2006) was a French

accordionist Accordions (from 19th-century German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame). The es ...

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

and inventor of the

harmoneon The Harmoneon or concert accordion (French language, French: ''Harmonéon, accordeon de concert'') is a French free reed aerophone, invented by Pierre Monichon in 1948, although he only patented the instrument four years later in 1952. It has bee ...

(also concert accordion). He published several books on the history of the Accordion, and was a professor at both the ''CRR93'', where he taught a course on the concert accordion and the ''Conservatoire National de la Région Aubervillers,'' where he was a professor of the

history of music Although definitions of music vary wildly throughout the world, every known culture partakes in it, and it is thus considered a cultural universal. The origins of music remain highly contentious; commentators often relate it to the origin of la ...

.' Monichon was a member of the

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...

for his contributions to music, achieving the rank of "Chevallier" in 1982.

Biography

Pierre Monichon was born in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

, France on 24 October 1925. He trained at the ''École César-Franck under Yves Margat,'' studying the piano,

counterpoint In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin ...

and the history of music. From 1945, Monichon tried to promote the accordion among classical musicians, inventing the

in 1948 to solve some of the problems he saw in traditional accordions – namely the

stradella bass system The Stradella Bass System (sometimes called ''standard bass'') is a buttonboard layout equipped on the bass side of many accordions, which uses columns of buttons arranged in a circle of fifths; this places the principal major chords of a key (I ...

, fixing this by creating his own keyboard layout. He then formed several societies for its promotion, as well as teaching it with his student, Charles Taupin at the Paris Conservatory, in a course that exists to this day.

Research

Monichon was a pioneering researcher on the history of

free reed A free reed aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound as air flows past a vibrating reed in a frame. Air pressure is typically generated by breath or with a bellows. In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, it is number 412.13 (a member of ...

instruments – his thesis at ''École César-Franck'' was the first in France on the subject of the accordion. Pierre wrote several books on the history of accordions: * L'accordeon – first published in 1971, 12 editions published in total. * Petite histoire de l'accordéon – published in 1958 with ''Guy de Lioncourt'' * Méthode d'harmonéon : accordéon de concert français – published in 1997. * ''L'Accordéon'', Van de Velde, Paris und Payot, Lausanne, 1985 * ''L'Accordéon'', Pierre Monichon/Alexandre, Juan éditions Cyrill Demian, 2012

Teaching

Monichon was the teacher of several renowned accordionists, such as Alain Abott.

References

French accordionists 1925 births 2006 deaths 20th-century French musicologists {{Musicologist-stub