It all depends on what you want to achieve with your accordion.
If you want to start playing Stradella bass accordion only as a hobby, the 2/3 bass fingering technique may be sufficient to play easy tunes.
But for young starters with the ambition to become professional accordionists, shouldnt we follow the advice given by professional accordion teachers?
This is a pdf of a German CBA tutor (C-system) with numbers for fingering the Stradella Bass.
It follows the 4/3 method (4th finger or ring finger on the root bass note):
http://www.terrasoft.hu/kultura/kaboca/dalok/harmonika/iskola/c_griff_rudolf_wurtner11471.pdf
In Europe and Russia, the 4th finger is always the starting position for the root note bass button.
This technique has been developed over a time frame of more than 100 years of Stradella Bass accordion playing.
In the USA the Palmer-Hughes method was and still is very dominant, and basically the only widely available accordion method in use.
The influence of the accordion industry lead to a monopoly of this accordion method being advocated.
My question: are there alternatives in the USA for the Palmer-Hughes method? Are there other books available in the shops in the USA? Is there a free choice for accordion teachers to use another accordion bass method book?
Bill Hughes and Willard Palmer came from the world of piano music and teaching. I would like to ask to the members: What accordion method was used by the young teenaged Willard Palmer when he studied accordion?
He was a very good pianist, but what was his accordion curriculum in his early years?
In Europe and Russia, there have been literally thousands of published accordion methods/tutorials in the 19th and 20th century.
There is a tradition of comparing a large number of method books at conferences in meetings of professional accordion teachers.
In Belgium, every teacher has to follow pedagogical days or as we call it study days to discuss about didactics, pedagogy, technical teaching matters, etc.
I have never seen a serious German, French, Belgian, Italian or Russian accordion method book who uses the 2/3 Stradella bass fingering.
They all use the 4/3 technique (4th finger on the root bass note, middle finger for the major chords, index finger for the minor chords and 7th chords).
If the USA only uses the 2/3 bass fingering technique, well.. then I think the USA accordion organisations should urgently organise an international accordion conference with their European, Russian or Chinese accordion collegues, and have a conference on this topic.
Because Friedrich Lips once told an audience in a Dutch masterclass, and in his book The Art of Bayan playing, the fingering technique plays a very important part from the start of accordion study.
And he is right.
I wanted to react to this, not because it is so importat for retired people when they start with accordion. Their ambition is only to have some fun with easy tunes.
But also a lot of young people are reading posts on this accordion forum (from all over the world), and then it is important they get the information from professional accordion teachers.
Thats why I would repeat my plea for attracting more professional accordion teachers (from every country in the world) to this forum.
We amateurs are simply not competent enough to monopolize these didactics of accordion teaching.
(Some people or fresh accordion starters are really looking here on this forum for advice on accordion fingering, if they dont find serious answers, they will not become members of this forum, and look elsewhere for professional information).
We need to read and hear the opinions of the professionals.
In my personal opinion, there is an urgent need for an English translated/written accordion stradella bass method book, under the supervision of conservatory accordion teachers.
This is not a job for amateur pianists or even professional pianists.
Do you know any music conservatories that use piano method books, written by an accordionist??
Accordion method books should be written by conservatory trained accordionists.