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Not totally new to accordion...considering CBA

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I've been working on the first 5 Sixt lessons on YouTube.
I don't understand any French at all, and turning on YouTube's auto-translate function is hilarious.

What I take from the lessons are fingering (which is what I was seeking) and the fact that he wants us to practice legato and not "tap" the keys.

The knuckle-buster for me is the 4-note chord where you need to configure the hand before pressing the keys. So moving from a triangle shape to an upside-down triangle shape (my brain's way of thinking about it) is really challenging.

I only have a few days left until Sweetwater's 48-month 0% expires. Gotta plead my case with the wife or find a bag of money somewhere.

Acon: Thanks for the charts. I had a brief stint with guitar and I understand how the pentatonic has 5 different shapes depending on where you are on the fretboard.
Your charts help me to better visualize scales that don't start on the first row.

I need to find a book that starts with simple major scales and slowly introduces chromaticism, because as a newbie that keyboard is strange and intimidating.
 
Mitch,

I also play guitar. Think of complicated jazz chords and how long it takes you to work out how to change from one to another at times? Biggest problem for me with CBA (as it would have been with PA) was learning to hit the keys and stop the notes with one hand simultaneously. Guitar gives you a fraction of a second to get the left hand sorted out before you sound the chord with your right, but accordion demands the fingers are correctly placed before you make a sound. Once you get the chord shapes nailed I reckon you should find it easier than PA. I've heard people complain about CBA not giving you enough room to form chords after being used to the stretches involved with PA, but that's a world I've never been in.

Playing keyboard like you do, it must be especially difficult to transpose what you already know onto an alien system, but hopefully you'll work out alien speak before too long.

Quite a few people on the forum have successfully made the changeover, and no doubt there are many players out there who are competent on both types of keyboard. If you are really keen to swap over completely you can get CBA format electronic keyboards, although they aren't cheap or particularly common, other than in France and Belgium.

Four note chords? Wait until you get to 5 note chords on CBA spread over two octaves (played with the thumb covering the first two notes).
 
There is also an easy answer to that, just retune your 6-string guitar in regular perfect 4th intervals.
The symmetry in the 6-string guitar has been broken , because 1 string is tuned differently.

Eg if you retune your guitar in perfect fourth intervals, you can transpose everything over the entire fretboard and having identical grips/fingerings.

But, you have to be a good barré player on the guitar...

(The early mandolin, having irregular intervals between the strings, was retuned in perfect 5ths by violin players in the 18th century, by violin players changed from violin to mandolin playing)
 
That symmetrical piano hurts my head.
 
When going through Sixt's lessons be careful not to miss No 10...it' the best one for me and I nearly missed a youtube offered me 10bis in it place...
 
Hi Terry,

Well spotted. Don't know how the kid ended up in that clip, which looks as though it is a lesson, but obviously isn't. I nearly missed it as well.
 
Just some additional remarks to my charts and fingerings:

I started my very first learning of CBA in a local accordion classroom in Taiwan from two teachers there. Both of them are good players and PA/CBA switchable, and they both have professional piano background. It was a very basic course which lasted only 3 months, and I moved to Australia afterward so couldnt learn too much from them. But one valuable thing I learned is this right-hand fingering of C Major scale as I showed on my chart. I just clipped and pasted it here:
>cEmDjx0.jpg

I found it very comfortable and suitable for me right after I learned it. I dont know if my teachers figured it out by themselves. Maybe they did it out of their piano/PA background. The best part of this fingering is you always keep your wrist in a natural flat angle (no pointing upward/downward) by using your thumb as a pivot and touch reference to move your whole hand. If you take a selfie video you will find you had a hard time finding your thumb. Thats because you always move your thumb under your palm to reach the pivot note first (e.g. E and A in C Major). Quite similar to what we do in the fingering on piano.

Keeping right wrist angle unchanged when doing the scale is a wonderful experience. It can also prevent you from hurting the wrist in the long term.

After learning C Major scale in the classroom, I used same logic to create all other right-hand fingerings in different scales by myself (Major and minor). And you know what? After I got the classic accordion textbook Complete Method Theoretical-practical Progressive for Accordion written by L. O. Anzaghi (https://goo.gl/gLzilX ), I found my fingerings are almost 100% identical to those in his book!!

If you got this book please check somewhere between p.80 ~ p.90 and compare them to my right-hand chart. Youll see how similar they are.

Although this book is over 60 yrs old but I was still very happy to find how similar my theory is to that of a great accordion master and teacher.

But thats just for the right-hand. This book didnt cover the left-hand free bass, and my fingerings for free bass is not like any other teaching material I could find. Some of them tell you to use the 1 (thumb) or 5 (pinky) but that just didnt work for me very well, so I basically use only 2,3,4 for scale fingerings.
 
Hi Acon,

Anzaghi's book is the one used by most Italian CBA players, and you'll know that the method was originally written for PA and adapted to cater for the CBA, where any difference in fingering for the CBA is shown either above or below the PA fingering (I cannot now remember which).

I used that book to begin with, but was obsessed with French musette (and still am) so when I found a French method book I changed over.

With the passage of time it became apparent (to me) that Anzaghi's method wasn't really compatible with the French musette playing style (too much thumb), so I actually gave the book away. I also took exception to Anzaghi's comments in the book about musette tuned accordions being inferior, and the fact that he actively discouraged players from buying such instruments and playing them.

Then years later, I discovered players like Carlo Venturi, and a lot of other Italians who played great CBA in both musette an Liscio styles, and it was obvious that they had learned from the Anzaghi method, or something similar to it.

I relented on his teaching method but not his adverse comments about musette accordion being common and low grade. Therefore, despite the fact he is long buried, to this day I wouldn't recommend it, aside from the fact that it is rather expensive. Not everybody who plays accordion is motivated to play classical music, as Anzaghi reckons they should be. I do appreciate classical music, but as a late starter on accordion I decided to go for the less challenging music styles. Mind you I'm currently working through the Brazilian choro tune, "Noites Cariocas", which is quite challenging in parts (for me). Daft thing is these days I rarely play musette tuned accordions, and prefer them a bit drier.

Guys on this forum probably don't know much about the accordion scene in Taiwan at all. There are lot of excellent Asian accordionists whom we will probably never know, although I have found a few Japanese guys who have their own French musette bands, complete with French CBAs. They're all actually quite good, and do a credible job of imitating the old French musette players.

I'm sure your dedication will get you there in Australia, and good luck with your new ventures there.
 
So...this can be achieved on either PA or CBA?

 
Hi maugein96,

I didn't know Anzaghi's opinion on French musette music and instruments. Why did he think like that? I don't even know his method is classical-oriented. Actually I haven't finished this book to any degree. I stopped studying this book because of its lack of free bass knowledge.

But I'd checked some music pieces in this book. Their names didn't look classical at all to me, and without any instruction of the free bass system I wouldn't have any thought that this was a classical-oriented book.

So all put together, I thought this book is designed for French musette style playing, though I did knew Anzaghi is Italian (so I guess that's because my lack of common sense in different musical/national cultures :oops: ).

Anyway it's a bit strange if his method is designed for classical and against musette, my teachers in Taiwan should have known that (they recommended this book for me and taught me the C scale fingering in this book), but in fact they don't play classical music but lots of musette and jazz. Funny right? So maybe it doesn't matter which fingering style you've learned. You can play any music genre once you've mastered it.

To mitchnc, I am just a beginner so I can't guarantee anything, but I think both PA/CBA players can handle this song very well when they get to a mediate level.
 
Acon,

Anzaghi's book teaches popular Italian tunes as you have discovered, but he openly states in the method book that he does not like musette tuned accordions. He says he prefers straight tuning, which has a nicer sound. With experience I have formed exactly the same opinion. However, at the time I bought his book I played a musette tuned accordion, as that was my preference. I later went on to read more about him, and that was where I believe I discovered the bit about classical music. His method is fine for all types of music, but I just didn't find the fingering patterns were the best option for the French musette music that I was learning. I also took exception to his comment about musette tuned accordions (again at that time). Maybe I was stupid to think that way, but that's the way it was. In another forum post I said I didn't recommend his method book, but that was based on the fact that it hadn't been specifically compiled for CBA. (Why not get a book that is dedicated to the instrument of your choice, as there are quite a few available?) Thousands of accordionists who have used his method to learn CBA will probably take issue with my thinking, and that is fair enough.

Mitch,

Tune is so famous I cannot remember it's name, but it is being played on CBA, despite the caption of the guy with PA. Some PA players can get pretty near sounding like CBA, but you're right, there is actually no real substitute. Mind you, only accordionists are usually able to discern what type of instrument is being played. Most audiences these days wouldn't know if the music was being played on a street barrel organ, and probably couldn't care less.

The only thing I would say is that the two keyboards are pretty much interchangeable until you start approaching the level of the CBA player in the clip. That's where the difference becomes noticeable, and is possibly the reason why some PA players opt to change to CBA. Believe it or not at one stage I considered learning PA due to the scarcity of suitable CBAs in the UK. Various forum members persuaded me against it and I'm glad they did.
 
losthobos said:
When going through Sixts lessons be careful not to miss No 10...it the best one for me and I nearly missed a youtube offered me 10bis in it place...
Click to expand...

Attention to the feathers at the top of his division.
again before the not runs from Friday as a lookalike

Why did I never see the auto-translate option before? Its fun.
 
I like the fact that he is not prescriptive, saying 'This is what I do but you may find other more comfortable solutions.'
And how nice that he found the time/had the inclination to share his knowledge!
 
Regarding CBA simulators, I have developed a series of iOS apps for CBA that do both C and B system:

Hohner Chromatic SqueezeBox:
http://www.tradlessons.com/HohnerChromaticSqueezeBox.html

for those looking for a MIDI controller:

Hohner MIDI Chromatic Accordion
http://www.tradlessons.com/HohnerMIDIChromaticAccordion.html

also a couple of simple treble side only apps for the iPhone:

C-System Tutor:
http://www.tradlessons.com/CSystemTutor.html

B-System Tutor:
http://www.tradlessons.com/BSystemTutor.html

Cheers,

Michael
 
Seisiuneer said:
Regarding CBA simulators, I have developed a series of iOS apps for CBA that do both C and B system:
Click to expand...


Any plans to make these for Android?
 
I have the green light to order the Roland FR-1xb tomorrow!
So now I just need some more resources for learning. It looks like the Galliano book is going to cost me $50+ USD.

I'm hoping that by the time I get the instrument I'll have enough resources to get started right away.
 
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