The art of fingering (PA)

[saundersbp]

Music written by accordionists that is meant to be played by accordion players

This is a genre I tend to give a wide berth to with the odd and notable exceptions: virtuosity on a particular instrument doesn't automatically correlate with great composition.

 

[saundersbp]

Do composers and arrangers write pieces so that there is a reasonable fingering for them ?
If they do why don,t they publish the fingering ?
If they don,t why don,t they say they have not considered the fingering ?
I always have to spend weeks playing through the piece, then weeks on sorting out the fingering, then have to re-learn the piece to suit the final fingering.

I love these questions because they are super intelligent and asking what most would be afraid to ask for fear of sounding daft. They are not daft at all!

It's a particular problem with older music (pre C19) where there are very different fingering systems underlying keyboard music which you won't know about unless you have been well taught or are really curious.

I have learnt most about fingering on the accordion from the kindness of a real pro ( the sort of person that can play something horribly hard live on radio 3) and studying exactly what they are doing with their hand to make it bomb proof under the most unforgiving of pressures. Equally learning some simple folk tunes and getting them up to crazy Irish speeds teaches you a thing or two.

Jazz piano is a great teacher as well. It's the exact opposite of 'do where the music takes you and hang loose', and the greats all have libraries of fingering patterns and solutions ingrained. Fingering for classical music seems totally spontaneous by comparison!

 

[JerryPH]

I love these questions because they are super intelligent and asking what most would be afraid to ask for fear of sounding daft. They are not daft at all!

Totally... err... totally NOT daft that is... lol.

 

[henry d]

Above a superficial level piano and PA keyboards have different demands on the fingers. Playing "Whiskey You're the Devil" for the dog (as I frequently do) works the same on the upright or the old but still serviceable Excelsior.

A couple of obvious examples of where the ways part; the piano requires a lot more care in finger attack on the keys- and frequently a lot more finger strength. The difference in key spacing is also significant. 19 3/4 inches on the my PA is 22 on the piano. The pinky not only reaches farther but has to have moxie when it gets there. You can get by most of the time on a PA with 1, 1 ,1 ,1 ,1 for a repeated note. On a piano at anything past andante 1,2,3,1,2 is pretty much de rigeur if you plan on sounding clean.

Synching key touches with bellows is something piano players have no experience with- and involves more that a little learning curve for decent piano players who assume they are already on top of things when they switch.

This is not intended to in any way "dis" the difficulty in playing a PA with finesse- one is not harder than the other- just different.

Excellence on anything is demanding- but there is surely room for the "Who ya gonna make happy with that thing? Me!" in the wide world of musicians.

Apologies for any typos- I have issues with seeing the monitor clearly these days.

 

[Tom]

Yup, excellence is overated, imho. Unless you mean excellence in creating an emotional reaction, be it your dog, your audience, or yourself. But as I have learned on this forum, some people have a profound emotional reaction to excellence (virtuosity). I don't get this, but I now believe it.

 

[JerryPH]

I think this is where my thought process seems to differ from many. I'll never be a world champion at my age, but that's never stopped me from looking for, or trying to find my own level of personal excellence. I'll never stop striving in anything I do, until they lay me down in the earth.

 

[Tom]

I think this is where my thought process seems to differ from many. I'll never be a world champion at my age, but that's never stopped me from looking for, or trying to find my own level of personal excellence. I'll never stop striving in anything I do, until they lay me down in the earth.

Well Jerry, you're one of the few who have both musicality and virtuosity (along with several others on here). I will never stop my own striving for improved musicality.

 

[JerryPH]

Well Jerry, you're one of the few who have both musicality and virtuosity (along with several others on here). I will never stop my own striving for improved musicality.

I used to be the stereotype of all technique and little musicality. I really think that musicality, to some people like me, comes harder than a 10 minute fast run, but a bit of maturing and life has helped me a bit in that area. It's always an uphill battle, though!

 

[henry d]

I used to be the stereotype of all technique and little musicality. I really think that musicality, to some people like me, comes harder than a 10 minute fast run, but a bit of maturing and life has helped me a bit in that area. It's always an uphill battle, though!

Probably most technically competent on the trumpet (65 years) - which I gave up as my embouchure gave out with encroaching physical decrepitude- followed by sax/flute/clarinet (45 years and then piano (63 years), I've over the past decade worked more and more on the accordion to the exclusion of the others.

At no point do I advocate for being satisfied with "good enough" in technique.* With two professional musicians in the immediate family back in NYC (trombone/ piano) and occasionally meeting their friends and acquaintences who are also professional musicians (primarily classical) I can say that, at least based upon that sample, no matter how proficient thay might get, they are all striving for that infinitessimal bit more- and I believe, always will be.

In my case there is no difficulty at all in seeing where there's huge room for improvement on any instrument I make noises on. Even the dog sometimes grouses...

I enjoy the challenge and the sometimes glacial progress. Taking up both C and B griff CBA recently to supplement the PA is proving to be a bit much- but having to concentrate is much of the reason I do it.

Per ardua ad cacaphony...

*But others may truly do just fine with the joy of music without obsessive attention to thissa and thatta and more power to them.

PS apologies for inevitable typos.

 

[hummingbird]

I'm very late to this conversation, but anything written by David Digiuseppe is extremely helpful. He has a great book on learning the bass side of the accordion. I was so impressed with his books that I found his email address and asked if he gave lessons, which he does via Zoom. A great teacher and very reasonably priced.

This may be a silly idea, but I though it might be fun and even of some use to collect some of the wisdom that the forum members have developed on the topic from the title. I'm looking not for concrete advice ("play this like that"), but for general principles. Much of this experienced players undoubtedly do almost subconsciously, but maybe with some reflection it can be brought to the form of explicit bits of advice anyway.
Fingering is obviously very important, and I don't think it can be learned from books, or at least that book hasn't been written yet. It is an art because various desirable goals often contradict each other, and everything depends on context.
I'll start myself perhaps, not because I think the following are indispensable pearls of wisdom, but just to illustrate what kind of thing I had in mind. To keep it simple, I'll just try to hit the right key at the right time (no considerations about legato playing for example).

(1) Get the job done in the most direct and simple way possible. Example: CDEFG could be played 12121, but 12345 seems preferable most of the time. For a slightly less silly example, 222222 rather than 123123 for CCCCCC works fine in slow to moderate tempo and saves mental energy. (The principle sounds trivial in this form, but I think for example Palmer-Hughes are guilty of a large number of transgressions.)

(2) Thumb on black keys is usually awkward.

(3) Avoid unnecessary risk. Larger intervals are safer when the thumb plays one of the notes. Example: CDEE' would be best played using the thumb on the E.

(4) The thumb is not the only finger that can be passed in chromatic scale like passages. Example: CDEFF#G can be played 123434.

(5) Related: Passing the thumb past 4 or 5 is awkward.

The question is actually perhaps more interesting for the CBA. I have three different methods books, and even on such a basic topic as scales, the three suggested fingerings have almost nothing in common.

 

[JerryPH]

*But others may truly do just fine with the joy of music without obsessive attention to thissa and thatta and more power to them.

An example that I can think of was when I was visiting in Europe a few years back, I saw people that played well... yet one of then played using only 3 out of 5 fingers. It sounded great, but obviously his efficiency was poor, not as smooth as he could have been and he limited himself to 3 finger chords at best. Evidently when fingering with 3 fingers one cannot do most music as well as with 5.