The Main Squeeze

But not Dale Wise. When he was 11 years old and living in Ottawa, Ill., Wise's parents signed him up to learn guitar. He studied it for a few weeks until he wandered across the hall from the classroom and met his future mentor: Santucci, an Italian immigrant who was both Ottawa's mayor and an accordion teacher.

Wise was immediately hooked.

"All the musical elements -- including melody, harmony, rhythm and timbre -- are all wrapped up in one beautiful package," Wise says of the instrument's appeal.

Wise started working accordion jobs as a young teenager and went on to teach band and orchestral instruments in public schools in Illinois and Arizona. In 1971, he moved to Northern Virginia and began teaching in Maryland.

In 1980, after 17 years of teaching in public schools, Wise quit to devote himself solely to the accordion and its survival--by performing, teaching and selling and repairing instruments. He named his business Accordion Plus. He moved to Burr Hill, near Culpeper, about three years ago.

ELISE MALOUF TRAVELS 135 MILES ROUND-TRIP from Springfield for lessons with Wise. Her mother, Anne Van Heyste Malouf, says the 10-year-old was drawn to the instrument precisely because no other kids played it and that Elise has never been teased by her classmates -- only by one "inappropriate" scoffing adult. "Kids today didn't grow up with a sense of the accordion being an old-fashioned or unhip instrument," she says.

In Wise's basement, Elise's gleaming black Hohner accordion dwarfs her tiny frame, but when Wise asks her to play "You Are My Sunshine," she delivers a jaunty rendition, playing chords on the right-hand keys and wielding the bellows with ease.

"Not bad, kiddo," Wise says. "But what do I know about music?"

"Nothing," Elise replies. "You're old as dirt."

Elise next plays "Church in the Wildwood," which shows off her prowess on the left-hand bass buttons.

"That's ready to perform, isn't it?" Wise says.

He presses her to play at two public concerts the following month: one organized by the Washington Metropolitan Accordion Society and his own Accordion Plus concert. But Elise, like most kids today, is overscheduled. She rattles off a list of July dates she's unavailable.