learning to play the accordion by dots

[smdc66]

i wonder if there are some tips that can be shared to help make this less daunting and give confidence

my preferred playing by ear skills are not strong enough to play lots of tunes well

 

[Happy girl]

Would ‘Learning to play the accordion by dots’ mean gaining tips on how learn to READ accordion notation fluently, or would the emphasis be more on recognising & implementing proper technique from the dots once reading skills have been achieved?

 

[goldtopia]

if you are very young with your neural marbles still developing you will learn very quickly, but if you are a bit older (under 35) it would take a bit longer. Over about 60 you start losing your marbles which makes it a real challenge and If you are an old codger like me at 72, it would take so long that its not worthwhile. Whatever age if you want to learn the dots is to go to a qualified accordion teacher. Learning on your own saves you money but you get into bad habits and learn incorrectly. It is a big advantage if you are moving over from piano to accordion as I did, (in any age) and can read music, The accordion is a strange beast like no other, you have to strap it on like a bra, the keyboard is verticle and you can't see the buttons. If you try using a mirror all the buttons are back to front. It takes a bit of getting used to but the glorious sound you get from it makes you want to carry on. Correct technique is what you learn from a qualified teacher, you dont get it learning on your own. Even if you only go once a month it will help enormously.

 

[Soulsaver]

So Bill's 'Get A good Teacher'
And Practice - no substitute - if you accept that, then the question becomes '...tips for getting the best from your practice time.'

Here's my tips - play every day - try for an hour a day - do at least 20 mins - DO say 'I'll just do 20 mins'... 'cos once you get started you'll likely do the hour. Don't try once a week for 5 hours, then don't feel like it when the time comes. I KNOW this is true, at least for me: If I left it a week, the first hour would be spent failing to get back to the level I could play at last week... and so building negative thoughts & frustration.

Aim to do the focus of your practice in the first half hour - science is you retain the best proportion of your learning in the initial 30 mins, after that you soak up less per minute.

 

[Glenn]

Good tips from Soulsaver.
Also do actually practice not just play.
By that I mean aim to work on the sections that cause problems, slowing them down, thinking about (and noting) best fingering.
After the practice you can always continue and play.
Even 15 mins on the tough bits has a huge long-term impact for the better.

 

[Pippa]

Perhaps it's worth having a separate thread for "learning the accordion" in general, and one for specifically talking about learning tunes from sheet music?

 

[BobM]

i wonder if there are some tips that can be shared to help make this less daunting and give confidence

my preferred playing by ear skills are not strong enough to play lots of tunes well

Time to dig out that Karen Tweed book?

BobM.

 

[fjsys]

Here are some of my random ramblings.

I guess it depends on what your aim is.
Are you learning dots to:
1. play a song you like?
or
2. play a lot of different songs and be able to play a new song that is put in front of you?

If you are just looking at the dots as a way to learn a song you like, then a combination of by ear and by dots probably the best method.
One thing that I have never understood is why all teachers have to have you translate from the dot to a letter to a key. For me it has been a little easier to just know that that particular dot is this particular key on the keyboard. (and it doesn't matter which octave it is in...) This may be just me however...

When looking at dots I generally try to see the patterns in the song, there tends to be repeated segments and I try to make sure that they get the same attention as the non repeated segments. Otherwise you get really good at some parts and stay bad at others.

Don't always start at the beginning and always take the segments that you are having the most trouble with and find a way to repeat them over and over until they become easy.

When reading lead sheets, on a first attempt try just using bass/chord/bass/chord. Most songs will work reasonably well with this method. Remember the chord is the important part, so if there is something written like Eb/Cmin always make sure to hit the Cmin and on first attempt just hit the C/Cmin until you get the sound.

Expressions in the song sometimes help and are what the composer wanted, but not a "law" that must be followed. Use them as a guide and your own style.

If you are trying to "play anything put in front of you", it really doesn't matter what you play, get a big fake book and play one or two of the tunes every day through the book, then move on to another book. Eventually it will start sounding better. Go back through the book at a later time again (6 months to a year) and see how much you have improved.

HTH
Ben

 

[smdc66]

Would ‘Learning to play the accordion by dots’ mean gaining tips on how learn to READ accordion notation fluently, or would the emphasis be more on recognising & implementing proper technique from the dots once reading skills have been achieved?

both i suppose - sounds like a staged thread - step 1 the former and step 2 the latter

maybe step 3 a bit of both - all dependant what level one is at

because of my skill it would be step 1

ill be in bills bit older category - so slow learner - and no piano skills before pa i didnt like the piano and liked piano lessons less but quite liked dabbling with electronic keyboards for fun and mouth organ

some good tips here already

 

[donn]

One thing that I have never understood is why all teachers have to have you translate from the dot to a letter to a key. For me it has been a little easier to just know that that particular dot is this particular key on the keyboard. (and it doesnt matter which octave it is in...) This may be just me however.

And me, too. Most of my early reading was for singing, where there isnt really anything even to connect the particular dot to, unless you have one of those freak pitch talents. Or it might be more due to the wind instruments pitched in various keys, some transposing and some not. One quirk that may be a feature or a defect, not sure, is when playing sax, its easier for me to read the conventional sax notation, which is transposed for the instrument -- but only dots, I cant use transposed chord names, they have to be in concert pitch.

Im not a great reader, but Ive been told that its good to try to read ahead -- keep your eyes moving ahead of the notes you play. Just like, if you go out for a walk, notice where your eyes are most of the time: way out ahead. We dont look down at our feet, to keep from tripping over stuff, somehow we work out the obstacles etc. ahead of time, so we can use our more conscious attention for route selection and looking out for bears and stuff. Anyway, for me that seems to help with reading.

 

[Soulsaver]

One thing that I have never understood is why all teachers have to have you translate from the dot to a letter to a key. For me it has been a little easier to just know that that particular dot is this particular key on the keyboard. (and it doesnt matter which octave it is in...) This may be just me however.

And me, too. Most of my early reading was for singing, where there isnt really anything even to connect the particular dot to, unless you have one of those freak pitch talents. Or it might be more due to the wind instruments pitched in various keys, some transposing and some not. [/quote]

Ive also got some comments on this, but I think it would make a separate interesting thread/discussion which may get more diverse input. Ill kick one off with citing your post Ben & the element of Donns reply if youre (both) not unhappy with that?

 

[donn]

You aren't going to start a ruckus, are you?

 

[fjsys]

it is fine with me.

 

[Soulsaver]

You arent going to start a ruckus, are you?

I know, unusual for me... no.

 

[Flatters]

I know this is an old thread but I am new on the forum and I thought I would share what I have been taught.

My music teacher for saxophone has given me great tips on reading music:-
- Try and recognise patterns in the music like scales or arpeggios. If you know your scales and arpeggios your brain will play them quicker when you come to them rather than trying to read each note.
- It is important to know your key signatures. When a piece starts throwing in accidentals it normally means a temporary key change. So rather than trying to play the accidentals as special notes, you switch to thinking in the new key.
- Always try and read ahead
- Looking forward look which way the sticks point they will help guide is you are going up or down.
- Always hit the note on Beat 1 of the bar and so always know where beat 1 is.
- In 4/4 Aim to hit Beat 3 as well as Beat 1. The stuff in between is less important.
- Remember you are playing music

 

[Soulsaver]

Old? 3 days...?

 

[Soulsaver]

Perhaps its worth having a separate thread for learning the accordion in general, and one for specifically talking about learning tunes from sheet music?

I dont follow.

Lively & interesting stuff here lately in my opinion.

 

[Flatters]

Old? 3 days...?

Oops I looked a join date and not the thread date

 

[Johnathan]

I think it was soulsaver in an earlier thread who mentioned that you tend to remember the first 30 minutes of your practice time. Learning research suggests that you also tend to remember the things that start and end a learning session. You can make use of this by breaking up your practice time. Take a short break after 15 to 20 minutes and then do something new. This way you get more start and ends in one learning session.

The point about recognising patterns such as arpeggios is also useful as we process information in chunks. As an example try to remember the following

A G K V N M W F G S H G

Now try to remember

Cat Apple Accordion Kitchen Pencil Frog Pomegranite Monsoon Lemming

Now try to remember

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog for the second time

You probably failed to remember all the letters. You also probably failed to remember all the words, but I bet the words you did remember contained more letters than those in the first list. You probably rememberd all of "The quick brown..."

Its all about chunk size. The first example offers information in chunks of one letter. In the second letters are grouped into words so whilst you may remember about the same number of chunks each chunk contains more information. In the third example you remembered one chunk which was the length of the whole sentence.

Becoming able to recognise arpeggios, scale runs, chords, provides you with larger chunks that have meaning for you. This aids both speed of processing when sight reading, and recall. I believe that when we remember a tune such that we can hum or sing it, our remembering is more akin to recalling a sentence than a series of individual notes. So developing an ability to play by ear is a valuable aid even when learning a new tune by reading the notes, as it facilitates remembering.

One approach that has worked for me is to use MuseScore - a free open source music editing program. When I start to learn a new piece of music i enter it into MuseScore using the keyboard (not mouse input). This way I enter every note by entering its name C, D, E etc. So the simple act of entering the tune into MuseScore becomes an exercise in note name recognition. The bonus comes after I have completed entering the tune. MuseScore allows me to play the music back at what ever speed I want in perfect time. So I can start playing the tune at a slow pace which gives me enough time to recognise each note name and associate that to the correct key. As my reading and fingering improve I can increase the speed until I reach the target performance speed. With the new MuseScore beta you can now set start and end points in your score so that you can practice part of a score.

I hope this is of help

 

[spacetrakker]

Interesting Thread.
Somewhat like Jonathan, I have also been entering some new pieces of music that I want to learn into MuseScore. I feel it provides several benefits.

Firstly, I find that entering the notes via the computer keyboard or the MuseScore "Piano" keyboard starts the familiarisation process with the music. (I haven't tried to connect my MIDI keyboard to MuseScore as yet, but it may make the data input even easier). During the entering process I look closely at the piece and find it often alerts me to potential playing/reading difficulties.

The second benefit is that you can listen to the piece or any part of it played correctly at any chosen tempo during learning or practise sessions. A very handy aid for those of us trying to learn an unfamiliar piece with only limited music theory and reading skills.

Finally, having spent a little time to enter the piece and reap the above benefits, you now have the ability to instantly transpose it to any desired key and print it with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Brilliant! :b
John