Daily exercises for CBA

[george garside]

As far as I can see the main difference is buttons arranged in 'strange' pattern instead of keys all in a row!

. Scales are scales whatever the instrument ( and on a 5 row continental one scale will do for 12 keys but better learning 3 scales as you would on a 3 or 4 row continental. ) Learning 'fingering' is much the same as learning scales and whilst various tutor books give various scale fingering for the continental there are no hard and fast rules.

different fingering may be best for different parts of different tunes . On piano box there is effectively only one of each note whereas on a continental 4 or 5 row there can be a choice I..e. the same scale can be played with different buttons and therefore fingering. This is an advantage rather than a disadvantage so a bit of experimentation is the simplest way of getting the hang of it

george


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[fphlpsnrg]

The only result from playing scales, Hanon, and other exercises learning scales, Hanon, and other exercises.
Take a look at https://magicmusicianfingers.com/

 

[maugein96]

You might want to try the following Astier/Baselli fingering for C over 4 rows on your 5 row instrument:-

C=1,D=2,E=3,F=4,G=1,A=2X,B=3,C=1 . The X is their notation for row 4, and it is a lot easier doing it that way. You only play the A on row 4, and stay on the outer 3 rows for the remainder.

I found this pattern very interesting... And continued into the second octave on rows three and four...i found it so much easier to build chord melodies this way as feels more natural to open my hand laterally as opposed to curling back on myself
Ie Dm DF on row 3 and AC on row 4 rather than on row one...really helped tidy the movements of Fly Me To The Moon in Am by starting
Am EG on 2nd row, AC on 4th
Dm DF on 2nd row, AC on 4th
G7 on rows 2 and 3 leading to C on rows 1 and 2, played rest as normal..
Feels so much tidier descending this way as less wrist rotation required..
Hooe that makes some kind of sense..thanks for the idea...

Hi Terry,

Ended up banning myself for a few days when I changed e-mail address and had to re-register on the forum. Michel Lorins method also uses that thumb passing under the fourth finger on four rows. His method was classed as very modern when his book came out in the 70s, although he still tended to make pretty conservative use of the thumb, as did Astier and Baselli. He thought it was a great idea to use the 4th row straight from the off, and the only thing I found difficult about it in the early days was remembering where you were when you ended up starting or finishing in the 4th row.

Raymond Boisserie, a famous recording artiste in his day, said that no professional player should be worried about what they had learned in the method books. He ended up developing a style of fingering that suited him, and he mentioned that Gus Viseur was possessed of a technique that was decidedly different. Jo Privats technique was a mixture of diatonic and CBA, and he consulted with various other players and teachers in an effort to work out how best to use all five right hand fingers. Even so, his thumb was a helper rather than a major player.

A lot of people watch French players and remark that they never use their thumbs at all. Whilst that is sometimes the case, in some situations they just havent seen the thumb come on and off the first or second row of the treble keyboard. Chords and arpeggios often call for use of the thumb, but the standard French musette playing style didnt really require use of all 5 fingers as a matter of course. As I said if you look at an old French CBA box from the 20s theres no way you could even think about using all 5 fingers of the right hand, as the buttons were tiny on flat treble keyboards.

This box is Italian, but was of a type similar to what was being made for the French market about the time they switched over to CBA from mixte instruments, which were diatonic on the treble side. The box is 3 voice musette with no treble registers at all, and it seems they hadnt got around to inventing the French 3/3 bass system at that time, as the marked C bass button is on row two, and not row three.