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Accordions are probably the second least appreciated instrument of all time (just slightly ahead of the bagpipes and directly behind the infamous Dead Kitten Flute). Despite accordions kicking around for no less than 186 years, science has yet to find a single soul surprised that the Accordion was invented by the Germans. Clowns, and, uh... clowns... and I'm sure many other derelicts often utilize the Accordion because, well, if you're going to hide in plastic barrels from pissed-off rodeo bulls for money, I suppose you'll do just about anything for attention.

You know those old bellows you'd see cartoon characters inflate each other with? That's pretty much what an accordion is, only with more buttons and a higher irritation factor. Consisting of two wooden boxes on either end, the sleeve-like bellows in between and some reeds thrown in for that oh-so-distinctive pitch, the Accordion is just that but so much more. The beauty of an accordion, much like the duck-billed platypus, is it's versatility. With button or keys on either side of an accordion, a skilled accordionist can play both melody and harmony; this ingeniously solves the inevitable problem of becoming friendless due to being a skilled accordionist in the first place.

The Accordion has actually appeared in a fair bit of classical music, including pieces by Tchaikovsky, Shostakovitch, and a string of other composers I won't pretend to have even so much as heard of. So now that I've extended the slightest effort to be even-handed about the Accordion, I can quote The 1954 Edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which cheerfully asserted that the accordion gave "quite the most unpleasant musical sound ever devised by the inventor's and the instrument maker's ingenuity."

And now, an accordion performance capped by tens of people applauding: