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A wealth of sheet music and tutorials on youtube

RowanSumner

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I have found a little treasure trove on youtube, a Bulgarian accordionist named Petar has hundreds of songs uploaded each with a link to an arrangement available to download on dropbox in the description. The arrangement features fingering for bass and treble PA and ornamentation.

If you check out the playlists he has the songs sorted by genre - there are hundreds of non balkan tunes for all you tarantella and mussette elitists. There are a few detailed tutorial videos also - try Hora Bucuresti if you're feeling nimble fingered.

 
Great resource Rowan, thank you!!!! 🙏🙏

Tarantella elitists? I think you must be referring to those playing the Kreutzer sonata on a cassotto a mano converted cba, (20% faster than the world record), as opposed to the Godfather wedding song on a 2 bass organetto. Anyway, I love it and now have a great name for my next band playing “Italian music and more, by Tom and the Tarantella Elitists.” 😉🪗🗿🧍
 
(20% faster than the world record)
Funny you should mention that!
 
(20% faster than the world record)

Funny you should mention that!

Yup! That’s where I saw it! Very impressive at 20 notes per second, something I, however do not aspire to.
 
I was watching a video about a violin player that was looking at the same thing someone did there with this song, theirs was much faster, and when they were analyzed, the same criticisms there could be easily levied here. Playing a song fast at record speeds should NOT be a record if:
- the notes that you are playing are not 100% the same notes in the music and…
- the notes you are playing are so muddled that they lost intonation of the chosen piece.

Fast is pretty, but not of much value if it’s inaccurate or of poor quality.
 
If I had played Flight of the Bumblebee during my lesson years like that my teacher would have stopped me 5 seconds in and told me to slow down because it was nothing but slurred notes. He was a stickler for very distinct notes and clear playing. This was a muddled mess of slurring notes with zero clarity. This is why Clarinet Polka bothered me so much during those years! Much easier to play if you slur all the notes together.

This is why I appreciate the playing so much of the incredible accordionists like Pestauro and forgive me, I cannot recall his name, but that marvelous accordionist that demonstrated the Fisa at the large accordion competition. He played Tico Tico with about a thousand additional notes and all were crystal clear and distinct. That takes a massive amount on talent.

This, not so much.
 
From the description of the video:

NOTE: This video is not meant for a good listening experience. The goal was to explore the human speed limit of playing the treble keys and to challenge anyone who thinks he (or she) could ever play anything faster.

I shouldn't have posted that here as he has a lot of great songs which are worth listening too also! Im currently having a go at this

 
I shouldn't have posted that here as he has a lot of great songs which are worth listening too also! Im currently having a go at this
There is nothing wrong with you having posted. There are plenty of experienced accordionists that are ready and willing to applaud good works or to help you blow away the smoke for you.

For the performance above, we again have a few things to learn... not to criticize, but even as a novice he should have corrected these couple of things earlier, ESPECIALLY if you want to eventually play fast:

- that right elbow has to be higher or even with the keyboard. A bent wrist means tendons are bent and constricted, big reason for a slow down. When I play with a bent wrist, I play about 50% slower at maximum speeds and I get tired much faster... that's huge.

- In this video, those shoulder straps are WAY too loose. It promotes looking down and you have a lot less control of the accordion. To know when you have it close to right, you should be able to have zero weight on the shoulders with a slight bend forward and a slight bend back, the full weight is on the shoulders. That means that I can play relaxed and when I need to do a bellows shake or aggressive bellows motion, a slight lean back and I have full control

Speed is like being able to lift a heavy weight. You should be practicing exercises daily, starting with lower speeds and adding small bits of speed until you cannot play cleanly, at which point you lower the speed a LITTLE, focus there until it becomes easy then again add. If you want to really grow fast, you do 15-30 minutes a day of nothing but Hanon with a metronome, when you hit the current limit of how fast you can CLEANLY play a complete exercise, then do that speed for 10 repetitions or until of you want to grow faster, keep going until fatigue failure.

When I was a younger man, I pushed to complete finger failure daily on both hands and today now in my mid 60s there is a difference than if I hadn't done that. Speaking of age... yeah, it's a thing. The older you are, the slower you get (but you WILL still play faster than if you don't push yourself!). I cannot play anywhere near as fast as I could when I was younger. Crappy feeling, but thats life. :)
 
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