WHILE many teens pick out tunes on the guitar, Sam Rauza has a different musical bent.

The Age - 3rd Nov 2009 - By CAROLYN WEBB

WHILE many teens pick out tunes on the guitar, Sam Rauza has a different musical bent.

At 13, the Altona Meadows boy is a veteran of the piano accordion, having fallen in love with the instrument at age six.

He'd loved listening to it played at Slovak Social Club events, so his father bought him his first accordion for $50 at an op shop.

Last year he won the under 18 national championships  at age 12. Last Wednesday he played a solo Gypsy number at a Williamstown Secondary College junior campus concert.

Now he's helping teach the instrument to his eight-year-old brother, Paul.

This weekend Sam and Paul will play in the Victorian branch of the Australian Accordion Association's first youth concert.

Branch secretary Margaret Berens said numbers who play the piano accordion seem to be neither increasing nor decreasing, although members are "more on the older side".

The concert, at East Malvern Uniting church at 2pm on Sunday "will hopefully get young people interested in playing the accordion".

Ms Berens said young people most often got on to the accordion through a parent who played.

Sam's mother, Verica, said her husband, also Sam, plays guitar, but the accordion is a staple of Slovakian music and Sam junior grew up listening to it. "He loves it," she said "We don't even have to push him. He rehearses at least an hour every night, sometimes more. It's given him confidence and I think he's more mature than he would otherwise be."

It's not cheap  three years ago they bought an $8000 model for Sam. Then there are weekly lessons. But Sam junior earns "$50 here, $50 there" from playing at parties and retirement villages.

Sam and Paul play Christian music at the Lutheran church in Seabrook, and Sam has started a youth band playing popular tunes such as Mustang Sally, Let's Twist Again and Celebration.

Sam's Italian accordion has 120 basses  the black buttons on the left side  it has 3 octaves on the right, or piano side, and there are 12 registers  buttons that allow a change of the sound of the instrument.

Is it a difficult instrument? "When I first started for a couple of years it was hard, but now lately it's much easier," Sam said. "I can read the notes more. I can do all sorts of music genres, for example jazz, European stuff, classical." He loves "the sounds, the feeling, the songs you can play. The stuff you can do with it.

"And it's a very happy instrument. You don't have to think about anything else except the notes. It just relaxes your head a bit from everything else."