Help on smooth bellow movement

[henryyoung]

I am a beginner to accordion (about 1 month into learning). I see in Youtube videos that players move their bellows almost continuously. But when I move the bellows, people said my bellow moves more as I press bass buttons and so looking like a series of short movements of longer distance. My understanding is that when we press bass buttons, this combined with pressing the treble keys make the bellow move a longer distance, and so contribute to what looks like a series of short bellow movements. Is there any way to achieve the "continuous" bellow movement or what practice do I need to do to avoid my accordion bellow movement looking like a series of short movements.

 

[debra]

It is normal for the bellow to move more as you press bass buttons. The trick is to keep the tension on the bellow constant so that a long note or chord you play with the right hand keeps sounding continuously at the same volume while you are pressing and releasing bass buttons. The change in movement (speed) of the bellow is more obvious on smaller accordions than on large ones. Professionals you see on YouTube often use large accordions with large bellows.

 

[Eddy Yates]

Nice, Paul. Since I’ve become a two-handed PA player, this is one of the things I listen for in my playing, and so any descriptive teaching on the forum is very helpful. Seems like it’s almost like keeping the bag filled on a bagpipe. Easier said than done, and watching videos of great players is helpful to me. Someday I’ll have time for a Skype teacher who can watch and listen and tell me “Yer doin’ it all wrong!”

 

[Tom]

Good luck to you Henry!

I will actually plan out the bellows changes sometimes, and note them right on the sheet music. In many tunes the phrasing is obvious and you can plan out alternating in and out bellows, with the goal of ending a verse or chorus with the bellows closed. Other tunes are not so regular, and you might have to break up a phrase with a bellows change. Then you have to look for the most appropriate spot. But planning it out helps in subsequent playing of the tune, and works into your muscle memory. Good luck!

 

[Eddy Yates]

Somewhere in the forum there was a very helpful description of how to think of keeping the bellows at the right fullness, but I didn’t bookmark it. Seems like Geronimo might have posted it? His verbal description was the one that helped me the most but here’s a YouTube video of what he described:

I would add that maybe “bellows pressure” can be a slightly misleading term since what we’re really talking about is air pressure within the bellows.

 

[wout]

I had the problem that I ran out of air in the middle of notes sometimes. So what I did is play easy song and just really focus on my bellows. To really make sure that the switch to pull or push always happes when I switch to another note or phrase. This way you get to know the bellows and as you keep awareness on it, it starts happening automatically. That being said with my new accordion this is way easier since there are no leaks whatsoever. So the more airleaking you have the more you have to change bellows direction.

 

[george garside]

it helps , particulary for beginners to keep the bellows 'tight' i.e don't open them very far before reversing direction. Son't worry too much about phrasing although it is good practice to change bellows direction between phrases where possible. This can come later! just play from closed about 6 to 9 inches out then reverse the pro;cess etc etc. Keep the pulliong and pushing to the same pressure or whatever that is when pulling and keep the pressure even and quite gentle.

It van also help to keep the bellows in a sort of 'fan' shape i.e. with the bottom more or less closed so that gravity assists opening . The bellows are the very heart of an accordion and are solely responsible for dynamics ( volume changes). The buttons or keys are merely on off switches and unlike on a piano do not effect the volume.

george

 

[jozz]

Somewhere in the forum there was a very helpful description of how to think of keeping the bellows at the right fullness, but I didn’t bookmark it. Seems like Geronimo might have posted it? His verbal description was the one that helped me the most but here’s a YouTube video of what he described:

I would add that maybe “bellows pressure” can be a slightly misleading term since what we’re really talking about is air pressure within the bellows.

do you mean this?

btw I dont know if anybody noticed but that guy was all over the forum all day long and now he has vanished

I find 1 and 5 most reasonable, with the caveat that the bass/treble balance on 1 is completely off. However, I dont know how this would correspond with the actual acoustic balance of the instrument, and you can likely fix this. Its hard to guess whether the remoteness of the treble sound is only due to the balance problem.

Most other renditions suffer from serious bounciness: Id recommend using a back strap and practising pliable arm pressure so that the freshness of the bass accompaniment (which eats a lot of air when its buttons are pressed) does not get to change the bellows pressure as much (of course, the bellows will move in a stop-and-go fashion).

Apart from being the most bouncy version of all, version 3 also has some charm due to its sound quality just at edge. Unfortunately, that makes it particularly susceptible to the pressure changes of the accompaniment.

Im somewhat late into the discussion, but I wanted to play at reasonable volume on reasonable speakers. This may not be representative for laptop speakers or other compromise material requiring unsubtle input.

 

[Eddy Yates]

I think that was a one of the descriptions, Jazz. Yeah. Haven’t seen him around for a bit.
The description I recall but can’t find talked about hugging the accordion and was very poetic and slightly embarrassing but very helpful!

 

[george garside]

if a bellows change of direction can't be avoided mid phrase ( This should either not happen or be very rare!) a quick 'dab' on the air button at the point of change will make it virtually undetectable. Another cause of possible problems on change of bellows between two of the same note is that it involves a change of reeds which may not be tuned precisely the same for push and pull'

george