Steirische Harmonika

The Steirische Harmonika (Austrian German pronunciation: [ˈʃtaɪrɪʃɛ harˈmoːnika]) is a type of bisonoric diatonic button accordion important to the alpine folk music of Croatia (Hrvatsko zagorje), Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Austria, the German state of Bavaria, and the Italian South Tyrol.

The Steirische Harmonika is distinguished from other diatonic button accordions by its typically richer bass notes, and by the presence of one key per scale row that has the same tone on both compression and expansion of the bellows, called a Gleichton.

This type of harmonica originated in Styria in the city of Windischgraz (or Slovenj Gradec in Slovenian), after the invention of the helikon bass reed by Franz Lubas in 1878.

Often melodies require playing buttons from different rows because they cannot be decomposed into tones from the tonic and dominant seventh of a given key.

It has come to be replaced by a notation called Griffschrift, which was invented by a music teacher from Bärnbach in Styria named Max Rosenzopf.

In 1975 Rosenzopf founded the Verlag Preissler publishing company and printed the first book using the Griffschrift to teach reading notes.