Hello all, I've just bought myself a piano Barcarole accordian. 48 Bass buttons 16 piano keys, Do I need to know how to play piano /keyboard first or can I get straight into learning the accordian, I paid £160.00 for the accordian it looks tidy but I'm not a professional, could any body give me any advice and any advice is welcome and does any body know of any tutours in or around sheffield south Yorkshire, look forward to hear from you Charlie.
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Welcome Charlie! Hope learning the accordion goes real well for you. In answer to your question, no, you do not need to learn to play piano or keyboard before approaching the accordion. A (good) tutor is very helpful, but before you find one, there are some very good resources for learning on YouTube. Two that come to mind are Liberty Bellows and Dale Mathis channels. There are many other too.
Take it slow. Practice one hand at a time to get going. Place your ring finger of your left hand on the “C” bass button, the one in the middle with the marking, and your middle finger on the C chord next to it. Just play around with these notes until you get the feel for rhythm. Then add a few notes with your right hand. Once your comfortable with that, try a real easy song that you like. Easy is the key here, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The main thing is “Have fun!” Good luck and don’t hesitate to ask questions here.
Take it slow. Practice one hand at a time to get going. Place your ring finger of your left hand on the “C” bass button, the one in the middle with the marking, and your middle finger on the C chord next to it. Just play around with these notes until you get the feel for rhythm. Then add a few notes with your right hand. Once your comfortable with that, try a real easy song that you like. Easy is the key here, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The main thing is “Have fun!” Good luck and don’t hesitate to ask questions here.
Valski
Well-known member
Welcome Charlie, you're absolutely correct about finding a tutor to start you off on your learning to play the accordion. Tom is absolutely correct in recommending that you play around with creating sounds and that rhythm is the basis of music because if you occasionally play the wrong note you still have a song, while if there’s no rhythm there’s no song. Have fun ,enjoy yourself and the rest will come.
petch
Active member
I know of some tutors in West Yorkshire if you're willing to travel!
JKJ
Member
Hi Charlie! I’m also a rank newbee at the accordion. I’ve played the piano (and other instruments) for decades but besides having learned a bit of music theory and music notation there is nothing in my experience that makes the accordion left hand easy. I consider learning the Stradella bass like learning a foreign language!
Already knowing some key and chord structure helps but you can prob skip the piano and learn what you need on the accordion alone. The piano experience has has helped me with the right hand keyboard, with rhythm, and reading written music. But you can learn all that on the accordion with a little help and a lot of practice.
For now I’m playing around a little with the keyboard but really concentrating on that foreign left hand. What helps me is a book recommendation from Mike at Liberty Bellows: “The Mighty Accordion“ by David DiGiuseppe. This book is perfect, teaching left hand bass and chords only! It guides a beginner slowly through progressive exercises that really help. What started out as bewildering (made worse since you can’t even see the buttons or the fingers!) is slowly starting to make sense and gets a little easier every day. After a couple of weeks I can actually hit most of the buttons in the current exercises correctly! (I’m up to page 31 in the 112 page book)
And if you need it the book publisher provides online audio for all the exercises.
As someone mentioned, practice very slowly. If you stumble, slow down some more! If you get frustrated, take a break and hit it again later.
BTW, at first I propped a mirror on the music stand which helped me see the finger position and “tightness” needed to play the bass and major chords with the 4th and 3rd fingers and get the feel of moving them to the adjacent buttons in the beginning exercises. (I didn’t need the mirror after the first day.)
I practice the LH exercises over and over then sometimes think of a simple song to play on the piano side (or pick one from a beginner’s songbook), accompanied by what I’ve learned so far from the exercises. Then go back and repeat the exercises.
I see there is also a 2nd volume of the book with advanced techniques.
Also, a hint: unless already very familiar with it print out a diagram of the Circle of Fifths which relates directly to the LH button layout and the chord structure of many songs. These diagrams are easily found on the internet.
In addition, I printed out this diagram for the 120 button bass (a subset of which works for the smaller accordions as well). If I get confused this straightens me out with a glance:
This also helped me as I started practicing scales in the bass. (I think there’s a bit of this in the Mighty Accordion book 1 but it’s something I want to start practicing now)
And finally, the instructor recommendation is so important. With just a couple of sessions my accordion “mentor” has already helped tremendously with basics like posture, strap adjustment, hand position, bellows control and more. When I recover enough from a RH wrist injury I‘ll start with some real lessons.
Oh, one more universal bit of advice for learning ANY instrument - if at all possible practice every single day, even if it’s just for a short while. Getting into the habit of skipping 1 or 2 or 3 days is a proven way to progress very slowly, if at all. This advice comes from more than a half a century of my own experience with various instruments and from every good teacher I’ve known.
JKJ
Thank you so much for the info much appreciated CharlieHi Charlie! I’m also a rank newbee at the accordion. I’ve played the piano (and other instruments) for decades but besides having learned a bit of music theory and music notation there is nothing in my experience that makes the accordion left hand easy. I consider learning the Stradella bass like learning a foreign language!
Already knowing some key and chord structure helps but you can prob skip the piano and learn what you need on the accordion alone. The piano experience has has helped me with the right hand keyboard, with rhythm, and reading written music. But you can learn all that on the accordion with a little help and a lot of practice.
For now I’m playing around a little with the keyboard but really concentrating on that foreign left hand. What helps me is a book recommendation from Mike at Liberty Bellows: “The Mighty Accordion“ by David DiGiuseppe. This book is perfect, teaching left hand bass and chords only! It guides a beginner slowly through progressive exercises that really help. What started out as bewildering (made worse since you can’t even see the buttons or the fingers!) is slowly starting to make sense and gets a little easier every day. After a couple of weeks I can actually hit most of the buttons in the current exercises correctly! (I’m up to page 31 in the 112 page book)
And if you need it the book publisher provides online audio for all the exercises.
As someone mentioned, practice very slowly. If you stumble, slow down some more! If you get frustrated, take a break and hit it again later.
BTW, at first I propped a mirror on the music stand which helped me see the finger position and “tightness” needed to play the bass and major chords with the 4th and 3rd fingers and get the feel of moving them to the adjacent buttons in the beginning exercises. (I didn’t need the mirror after the first day.)
I practice the LH exercises over and over then sometimes think of a simple song to play on the piano side (or pick one from a beginner’s songbook), accompanied by what I’ve learned so far from the exercises. Then go back and repeat the exercises.
I see there is also a 2nd volume of the book with advanced techniques.
Also, a hint: unless already very familiar with it print out a diagram of the Circle of Fifths which relates directly to the LH button layout and the chord structure of many songs. These diagrams are easily found on the internet.
In addition, I printed out this diagram for the 120 button bass (a subset of which works for the smaller accordions as well). If I get confused this straightens me out with a glance:
This also helped me as I started practicing scales in the bass. (I think there’s a bit of this in the Mighty Accordion book 1 but it’s something I want to start practicing now)
And finally, the instructor recommendation is so important. With just a couple of sessions my accordion “mentor” has already helped tremendously with basics like posture, strap adjustment, hand position, bellows control and more. When I recover enough from a RH wrist injury I‘ll start with some real lessons.
Oh, one more universal bit of advice for learning ANY instrument - if at all possible practice every single day, even if it’s just for a short while. Getting into the habit of skipping 1 or 2 or 3 days is a proven way to progress very slowly, if at all. This advice comes from more than a half a century of my own experience with various instruments and from every good teacher I’ve known.
JKJ
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colinm
Well-known member
You are lucky Charle because there is an accordion club in Sheffield, meet at the hsbc club, limb lane,Dore, contact Ray, 01142466912.
Honestly that's fantastic thanks alot Charlie.
colinm
Well-known member
And there are two teachers in Sale helenrich.co.uk and www.craigbradley.co.uk
Hello thanks for the message, I got in touch but sadly ray as passed away do you know of any other members thanks Charlie.
colinm
Well-known member
No, I got the details from “accordion world”, helen rich or craig bradley may know, club could have folded
petch
Active member
Ray was actually the teacher taught my teacher when he was young! And a band mate now has Ray's Hohner. The accordion world is a small one...
Again if you can travel to Leeds area there are some teachers here as well as an accordion band in Halifax. Happy to share details via PM
That would be great Colinm. Although it's a bit far for me to travel on a wet Tuesday night. I met this accordian player in Scarborough John womack he's been playing for 70 years I'm going up there soon to show him my accordian.
petch
Active member
By pure chance I saw this listing for an accordion teacher in Sheffield. It probably wasn't chance with how much data Google collect and was in fact very targeted...
regardless, he seems to be well qualified and is giving the first lesson for free. I can't vouch for him but it might be worth a shot?
www.gumtree.com
regardless, he seems to be well qualified and is giving the first lesson for free. I can't vouch for him but it might be worth a shot?
Accordion Lessons | FREE Trial Lesson | in Sheffield, South Yorkshire | Gumtree
Are you looking for someone to teach you how to play the accordion or to improve your accordion skills? It doesn't matter what your age or music experience is. Even if you have a very busy schedule, I will help you achieve your musical goals with creativity, passion, and
