left hand accuracy

[accordian]

ok doke so I have been practicing
for a while and noticed that I make
some common mistakes the biggest
being my left hand accuracy when bass jumping
and I know practice makes perfect but my question
is say I go from dm to bb and back sometimes I
miss by one button and when I look at it I think the
cause of this is to do with my hand's movement sometimes
I rotate on the spot and sometimes it moves a little in an
arch.

how would I go about correcting this when it's such a small difference?

 

[jozz]

I don't know

iif you neglected playing posture or bellows direction changes are done randomly instead of always at the same spots, that can be a cause of problems as your left hand is not always in the same position before each jump.

makes practice less effective

so always create the exact same position before each jump, then practice more

with experience you'll end up making any jump from any position

 

[JeffJetton]

If you're having trouble consistently going from Dm to Bb, then I'd stop playing songs that required you to go from Dm to Bb. Or any song where you leap over (that is, skip) three rows.

Instead, work on songs where you only go from Gm to Bb, or Dm to F, or any similar leaps that skip two rows. Can you nail those jumps most of the time?

If not, then quit working on those songs and start working on one-row leaps. You get the idea.

Now if you are pretty solid on jumping over two rows, then the problems with your three-row jumps just comes down to practice.

It is good to think about--as you're doing--the physical movement, and to try to "debug" that thoughtfully rather than just plowing ahead with the motion mindlessly hoping it will work. So nice job there.

 

[accordian]

If youre having trouble consistently going from Dm to Bb, then Id stop playing songs that required you to go from Dm to Bb. Or any song where you leap over (that is, skip) three rows.

Instead, work on songs where you only go from Gm to Bb, or Dm to F, or any similar leaps that skip two rows. Can you nail those jumps most of the time?

If not, then quit working on those songs and start working on one-row leaps. You get the idea.

Now if you are pretty solid on jumping over two rows, then the problems with your three-row jumps just comes down to practice.

It is good to think about--as youre doing--the physical movement, and to try to debug that thoughtfully rather than just plowing ahead with the motion mindlessly hoping it will work. So nice job there.

to be 100% honest I dont know any songs that do 2 row jumps
can you please suggest some to me as I litterally know 1 song
and thats it the rest not so much.

thanks

 

[accordian]

I dont know

iif you neglected playing posture or bellows direction changes are done randomly instead of always at the same spots, that can be a cause of problems as your left hand is not always in the same position before each jump.

makes practice less effective

so always create the exact same position before each jump, then practice more

with experience youll end up making any jump from any position

well when I change directions I find that I will change direction based on what
im doing as it can feel weird to jump up when closing so I change direction.
any idea of how to make it easier or feel more natural. when doing this I sorta stop
closing the bellows for a second do the jump then go this is if I try to do it this way
usually I will just change direction as to whatever feels more natural at the time.

 

[jozz]

well every song or piece of music has it's own 'natural' moments where the changes should come, and they should never come during a jump...changes should come in between the notes or phrases; this is also dependant on how much air your accordion uses, so if it uses a lot of air, it's more difficult as you have less opportunities to change direction

that's the first thing to note and make sure you plan ahead, it might turn out you can plan those up-jumps always on the pull

then the matter of jumping up while closing is really a technique thing, so that takes practice

 

[JeffJetton]

to be 100% honest I dont know any songs that do 2 row jumps
can you please suggest some to me

From Palmer-Hughes Book 2:

• Merry Widow Waltz (F to Dm)
• Arabian Enchantment (F to Dm; Gm to Bb; Also has a sweet four-row jump from Bb to A7!)

From Palmer-Hughes Book 3:

• Song of the Volga Boatmen (Am to C7; F to Dm)
• Zacatecas (F to D7; Gm to Bb)
• Emperor Waltz (Dm to F)
• Fascination (Dm to Fdim)
• Santa Lucia (C to A7)

Plus any song with a 1-6-2-5 progression (in any combination of majors/minors/7th), since the 1 to 6 part always jumps over two rows. There are, like, a bajillion of these, such as:

• Alices Restaurant
• Duke of Earl
• Hello, Ma Baby!
• Blue Moon
• Every Breath You Take
• Dont Dream its Over
• Stand by Me
• Heck, theres a whole Wiki page of em!

 

[JeffJetton]

(By the way, this is why I recommend that you start learning from method books such as Palmer-Hughes. Notice how the two-row jumps don't even start until book two, and even then just on a couple of songs? Then, by book three, they give you more of them? You don't go diving right in with the hard stuff... you establish solid basic techniques, then gradually build on them with new concepts/challenges.)

 

[george garside]

just a thought. are you getting your hand/arm sufficiently through the bass strap to allow for the articulation of the wrist.
A good starting position is to have the bass strap about where a watch strap would be if you were wearing a watch. The best position will vary a bit from this according to the size of the hand but most of the articulation is done with the wrist rather than moving the arm . The tightness or otherwise of the bass strap can also matter!

otherwise as others have said its down to practice


george

 

[debra]

...
to be 100% honest I dont know any songs that do 2 row jumps
can you please suggest some to me as I litterally know 1 song
and thats it the rest not so much.
...

In ALL normal harmony songs there are many occurrences of the standard 1-4-5 sequence,
meaning for instance that in the key of C you will have C major followed by F major followed by G major (or seventh) followed by C major again. This appears in almost every song.
The next very common sequence is 1-4-5-6-4-5-1, or C F G Am F G C. The jump from Am to F is one row more.
When you play any piece of music that follows normal standard chord sequences you will encounter these.

 

[StargazerTony]

I play an unpublished piece by Tony Lovello that has several Abm to Gm jumps. Those were rather nasty. Took me almost a year to do them consistently

 

[jozz]

yes you are not alone

I have one piece with E7 - F - E7

I often omit some of the chord basses in between because I just can't be bothered

the more common 3-jumps I hit 95%, the thing is once I do a period of stuff that doesn't have jumps my technique gets stale

 

[accordian]

just a thought. are you getting your hand/arm sufficiently through the bass strap to allow for the articulation of the wrist.
A good starting position is to have the bass strap about where a watch strap would be if you were wearing a watch. The best position will vary a bit from this according to the size of the hand but most of the articulation is done with the wrist rather than moving the arm . The tightness or otherwise of the bass strap can also matter!

otherwise as others have said its down to practice


george

dont have my accordion at the moment so
cant say for certain but I think I have it on the back of my
wrist sort of an area (I will check later).

if its where a watch would be wouldnt it make it harder
to hit some of the chords further back?

thanks for the tip

 

[wirralaccordion]

For practicing big jumps use songs where the jump is to a dimpled key, i.e. A flat major, E major or C major.

 

[george garside]

and use slow tunes for so doing!

george

 

[accordian]

to be 100% honest I dont know any songs that do 2 row jumps
can you please suggest some to me

From Palmer-Hughes Book 2:

• Merry Widow Waltz (F to Dm)
• Arabian Enchantment (F to Dm; Gm to Bb; Also has a sweet four-row jump from Bb to A7!)

From Palmer-Hughes Book 3:

• Song of the Volga Boatmen (Am to C7; F to Dm)
• Zacatecas (F to D7; Gm to Bb)
• Emperor Waltz (Dm to F)
• Fascination (Dm to Fdim)
• Santa Lucia (C to A7)

Plus any song with a 1-6-2-5 progression (in any combination of majors/minors/7th), since the 1 to 6 part always jumps over two rows. There are, like, a bajillion of these, such as:

• Alices Restaurant
• Duke of Earl
• Hello, Ma Baby!
• Blue Moon
• Every Breath You Take
• Dont Dream its Over
• Stand by Me
• Heck, theres a whole Wiki page of em!

hello Ive been looking at
the ones stated in the book
and to be honest havent practiced
it due to how it sounds so Ive looked
at other songs that youve stated such
as blue moon, ever breath etc.

and they are a great. as for getting
a 2 row jump im not finding it to
difficult at the moment (too be honest
just started maybe about half an hour ago)
but the I suppose being able to do it for half
an hour is one thing compared to actually putting
it in muscle memory rather than starting from scratch
everytime.

anyway the reason I came back; I heard about making up short tunes
for practising such jumps dont suppose you know the terminology
of this?

thanks

 

[debra]

...
dont have my accordion at the moment so
cant say for certain but I think I have it on the back of my
wrist sort of an area (I will check later).

if its where a watch would be wouldnt it make it harder
to hit some of the chords further back?

thanks for the tip

The exact placement of your hand/wrist is a matter of finding what feels most comfortable/natural to you.
The bass strap should be loose enough to give you enough freedom of movement and tight enough so your hand/wrist cannot be flapping between back plate and strap when changing bellows direction. Depending on the construction of the bass strap, back plate and feet it can be easy or hard to reach the buttons at the top of the bottom (in playing orientation). Some accordions have what I call a bridge between the feet to increase the distance between strap and plate near the ends so you can more easily reach the buttons there.

The suggestion of where a watch would be is rather ambiguous because different people wear there watch closer to the wrist or a bit further up the arm as they see fit, and also, accordion players wear their watch on their right arm (if wearing one at all).

 

[accordian]

...
dont have my accordion at the moment so
cant say for certain but I think I have it on the back of my
wrist sort of an area (I will check later).

if its where a watch would be wouldnt it make it harder
to hit some of the chords further back?

thanks for the tip

The exact placement of your hand/wrist is a matter of finding what feels most comfortable/natural to you.
The bass strap should be loose enough to give you enough freedom of movement and tight enough so your hand/wrist cannot be flapping between back plate and strap when changing bellows direction. Depending on the construction of the bass strap, back plate and feet it can be easy or hard to reach the buttons at the top of the bottom (in playing orientation). Some accordions have what I call a bridge between the feet to increase the distance between strap and plate near the ends so you can more easily reach the buttons there.

The suggestion of where a watch would be is rather ambiguous because different people wear there watch closer to the wrist or a bit further up the arm as they see fit, and also, accordion players wear their watch on their right arm (if wearing one at all).

would you describe most of the left hand as
reaching?

as for checking turns out its in the right place

 

[debra]

would you describe most of the left hand as
reaching?

as for checking turns out its in the right place

Not sure what you mean with reaching...
If you mean whether the left hand can reach all the buttons then the answer is definitely yes. If you cannot reach some buttons at the top or bottom then something is wrong about the bass strap.

 

[accordian]

would you describe most of the left hand as
reaching?

as for checking turns out its in the right place

Not sure what you mean with reaching...
If you mean whether the left hand can reach all the buttons then the answer is definitely yes. If you cannot reach some buttons at the top or bottom then something is wrong about the bass strap.

well my technhique with left hand used to be like
an arrow pointing to a number scale; straight
and just sliding my arm up and down.

now im trying to stay in one position and reach
for the different notes , chords etc.

(just looking for some small tips to left hand)