🧭 Quick orientation — which accordion?
- Piano accordion — piano-style keys on the right. Most versatile, easiest to find a general teacher.
- Chromatic button accordion — classical, European, jazz.
- Diatonic button box / melodeon — Irish, Cajun, French, Tex-Mex folk traditions.
🪗 Piano accordion — schools to ask
Broad / eclectic schools most likely to have or place a piano-accordion teacher. Call to confirm.
Widest eclectic instrument range · best first call
Eclectic · lets students pick unusual instruments
⭐ European-tradition school · accordion central
Large multi-instrument faculty
Large full-line store + school · likely to teach accordion
🪗 Button accordion — by tradition
Button accordion is taught through cultural / folk organizations, not general music schools.
⭐ Best for Irish-style button box / melodeon
⭐ Region's folk & roots hub · most likely connector
Klezmer ensemble · accordion (both types) central
💡 The actually-best sources for an accordion teacher
Even searching by tradition, dedicated teachers barely surface on Google Maps — what surfaces are the organizations that host them. Real paths:
- Passim School of Music (above) — single best lead for either type · accordion teachers in the Boston folk scene almost all pass through Passim's orbit.
- Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann · Boston-area branches — Irish button accordion / melodeon · teaches + runs sessions.
- New England accordion clubs / NEMC — player networks keep teacher lists for both types.
- American Accordionists' Association (AAA) & Accordionists & Teachers Guild (ATG) — national teacher directories, searchable by region, covering both piano and button.
- Klezmer Conservatory Band · Brandeis circles (Waltham) — klezmer-style accordion, both systems.
- New England Cajun / zydeco dance community — diatonic button box for Cajun / zydeco style. Search "Boston Cajun zydeco."
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