Most challenging about accordion learning and playing?

[Joakim Monsen]

Hi people of this lovely accordion forum!
What aspects of accordion playing and learning are the most challenging?
I'm working on some accordion teaching videos, classes and maybe books. Would really like to help people with anything that is hindering your playing.
Please give me some feedback and comments!

 

[saundersbp]

There is a complete lack of a modern C system freebass accordion teaching materials in the English language. The only good ones I have found are Lars Holm, so not professionally published and not in English either!

 

[Joakim Monsen]

There is a complete lack of a modern C system freebass accordion teaching materials in the English language. The only good ones I have found are Lars Holm, so not professionally published and not in English either!

Thanks for the reply, I know that Claudio Jacomucci has some books on the C-system in English.

Technique 1 von Claudio Jacomucci | im Stretta Noten Shop kaufen

Claudio Jacomucci: Technique 1 - for button accordion (c-Griff) - Lehrbuch (mit Noten). Schnelle und zuverlässige Lieferung weltweit.

www.stretta-music.com

 

[Alan Sharkis]

The most challenging for me was working with an excellent accordion teacher who tried to convert me to his political point of view, no matter how much I tred to divert him back to accordion or made lt clear that I would never agree with hjs politics.

 

[dak]

Letting left and right hand make their own independent coherent and self-consistent articulation and phrasing and expression while sharing the bellows.

 

[Tom]

Learning, internalizing, memorizing and retaining challenging tunes more rapidly to build repertoire.

 

[Joakim Monsen]

Letting left and right hand make their own independent coherent and self-consistent articulation and phrasing and expression while sharing the bellows.

Thank you for the reply! This is a big one.

 

[Joakim Monsen]

Learning, internalizing, memorizing and retaining challenging tunes more rapidly to build repertoire.

Agree!

 

[Javthedog]

As a beginner, having picked up an accordion for the first time in January this year.........coordinating left and right hands......coordinating left hand and bellows........coordinating right hand and - you guessed - bellows.........coordinating left hand, right hand and bellows. The advice about bellows changes being simple - just follow the phrasing doesn't cut through. I've played treble clef and bass clef instruments for years so the music should not be a problem but apart from a time trying to get to grips with a pedal steel guitar, the accordion has to be the hardest instrument I've tried. However, progress is happening, so, onward and upwards!

 

[Javthedog]

One piece of advice that has worked with bellows - bellowing - was: play a phrase on the pull, then STOP. Play the next phrase on the push and STOP. Repeat. That's fine - till the push phrase is longer than the pull........ So re-adjust and repeat!

 

[Ffingers]

There is a complete lack of a modern C system freebass accordion teaching materials in the English language. The only good ones I have found are Lars Holm, so not professionally published and not in English either!

Next try finding anything in English for the B griff even in simple stradella !!

As a late-to-the-scene octogenarian I too find that coordinating the left and right hands somewhat difficult, and the unnatural logic of the layout of the Stradella base very much of a challenge together with the wierd way of writing the bass clef for that system.

 

[dak]

One piece of advice that has worked with bellows - bellowing - was: play a phrase on the pull, then STOP. Play the next phrase on the push and STOP. Repeat. That's fine - till the push phrase is longer than the pull........ So re-adjust and repeat!

What if the phrases in left and right hand overlap? In my recently posted "Oblivion" video, I have to keep going between 0:17 and 0:34 without a good point for reversing the bellows because there are overlapping lines in left and right hand (actually, already in the right hand alone). The change then actually is in mid-phrase but at least at a point without slur. There'd be a somewhat earlier point one could have used, but then the next reversal point becomes awkward. Of course the problem becomes different with different bellows cross section, size, registration etc. Later I even interrupt a pickup slur (at 1:33). It would likely have been better to just end the bass note early and then do the pickup already in reverse direction. Apropos: reversing before a pickup is generally a challenge to do habitually since it is so "natural" to reverse on the beat.

 

[Javthedog]

I have a wee suspicion that you are just a tad more advanced/competent/experienced than me.........that is a bridge I have yet to cross For the moment all my pieces are pretty simple as I have not yet got to the end of PH book 2.

 

[dak]

I have a wee suspicion that you are just a tad more advanced/competent/experienced than me.........that is a bridge I have yet to cross For the moment all my pieces are pretty simple as I have not yet got to the end of PH book 2.

Reversing before a pickup is sort of basic phrasing. That I mess it up just shows that I am sloppy (partly due to a bellows good for a dozen measures) and have been without teacher for too long. That's one of the things that are lot easier to notice if you are not operating the bellows yourself but listening. And yes, it's been a somewhat regular complaint. Good to start beating that habit early.

P.S.: after checking through: there are multiple occurences of this. Good we talked about it before I handed out the link to the video to a circle that would have included my former teacher, or she would have noted the dire necessity for more lessons. I need to repractise this with a focus on pickups.

 

[JerryPH]

The most challenging? The moment when you move a piece of music from playing what is on the sheet to making MUSIC. I was at a recent public gathering of musicians and there were perhaps 40 people in attendance (my niece's music recital). What was kind of nice to note is that all were of a high calibre of experience and ability... yet only ONE person there was making music, while the others were strenuously occupied in reading the sheet music and playing the notes.

Now, that does NOT mean tha you cannot "make music" while reading what is there on the sheet, but this is something that comes with time, maturity and many hours of practice.

Even then, in the case of one person, it is still not what I would call "music". I am now speaking about myself.

During my days at the conservatory, this is what I was made into... a "technical tour de force", able to play literally anything placed on the music stand in front of me, easily... but it never had heart. Sure I followed the dynamics notations, but it took me many years more to learn that, and it took a comment from, of all people, a bartender at a place where I was performing to place that concept in my head. Everyone is different, some are born with it, and if you are, thats amazing and I envy you, but if you are not, it is super hard to find, much less grow. I suppose that was my biggest challenge ever.

The day when it finally kinda hit home for me, I was performing at a German cafè in Ottawa Ontario and played a song that I felt inside my soul, not even sure why... but the result was that the man listening was touched and cried... hard. If you can make someone laugh, or better yet cry, with the poignancy of your music, thats someone that is on the right track and is what I feel is the hardest thing FOR ME to do.

 

[dak]

During my days at the conservatory, this is what I was made into... a "technical tour de force", able to play literally anything placed on the music stand in front of me, easily... but it never had heart. Sure I followed the dynamics notations, but it took me many years more to learn that, and it took a comment from, of all people, a bartender at a place where I was performing to place that concept in my head. Everyone is different, some are born with it, and if you are, thats amazing and I envy you, but if you are not, it is super hard to find, much less grow. I suppose that was my biggest challenge ever.

To me, it's a bit akin to reciting poetry. Getting all the words and letters right is ... something. And if it is a phonetic script or language one is working with, it doesn't even require understanding the language. Or does it?

Sometimes the listener understands it even when recited phonetically, but then they will not be on the same page as you are.

It is something I have to actually drill myself in if I sing songs in French or Italian, languages that I don't speak: I have to remember the meaning of the words and how they make sense and not just reproduce the sounds. Something that can, after too much repetition, even happen with languages you actually know well. Like it can happen with some music piece that your fingers play while your mind is elsewhere.

The day when it finally kinda hit home for me, I was performing at a German cafè in Ottawa Ontario and played a song that I felt inside my soul, not even sure why... but the result was that the man listening was touched and cried... hard. If you can make someone laugh, or better yet cry, with the poignancy of your music, thats someone that is on the right track and is what I feel is the hardest thing FOR ME to do.

It doesn't help that it doesn't really come with routine, but often goes away with it. Though sometimes an old piece surprises you and comes back at you with new meaning.

 

[dak]

Letting left and right hand make their own independent coherent and self-consistent articulation and phrasing and expression while sharing the bellows.

I've seen at least one "very funny" vote on this one. I was actually being serious. The "standard" problem in this category is doing staccato in the left hand with legato in the right hand (this tends to be the essence of dealing with a strong bass side for "Oom Pah" accompaniment style). I find that I have to refocus on this feat when using free bass. But it also means being able to do diminuendo (or a "pluck-like" quality) on bass notes while sustaining notes in the treble. Check out what I am doing with the bass in my last Oblivion upload (the right sidebar has a closeup of the bass hand action). The bass notes typically fade while the treble is sustained. The effect is quite striking, and a mediocre player like myself would be a fool to bypass this kind of low-hanging fruit and rather having to dazzle the audience with actual virtuosity.

 

[Javthedog]

Here's a "killer comment" - I was told - the most difficult thing is to break out of the plateau and keep improving........

 

[Tom]

Here's a "killer comment" - I was told - the most difficult thing is to break out of the plateau and keep improving........

True. It’s tempting to stick with what you know, and hard to do and learn new stuff. I’m working on a version of Vieni sul Mare with, for example, dim chord followed by a chord with counter bass. Not my comfort zone and tempting to simplify, but t gotta keep at it……

 

[davidplaysaccordion]

Picking the thing up. When I got my first box I kept it in the hard case. My keyboard was right there so it was far too easy to just play the keyboard instead of unpacking the accordion. Once I took the accordion out of its hard case and just had it ‘there’ so thst it was easy to pick up, things moved a lot faster. After that, it was just practice, practice and more practice. Seven years later and I’m still practicing every day!