Arranged in order of left-hand simplicity, there is plenty of guidance to help the beginner with fingering. The titles in this book will be well known in the cultures fromwhence they came, for good reason these tunes have stood the test of time and tradition and are treasured by musicians worldwide. Immerse yourself in a wonderful collection of accordion melodies from many lands, Poland to Peru. Griffin) Easy Accordion Solos (Lorin) European Flavor (Fazio) European Flavor II (Fazio) Favorite Accordion . Danse ce Soir: Fiddle & Accordion Music of Quebec (Hart/Sandell) Deluxe Accordion Method (Zucco) Easiest Accordion Book (N. Whichever method you use, good luck with it. Although the ability to learn by ear is a must eventually - so many good CDs and new tunes at sessions… The answer may be that you’ll start picking up tunes all three ways (tabs / notes / ear) after some time, once things become more familiar. One thing I have found is that you tend to change the way you play tunes after a while - the more experience I have the more I find particular ways of playing make things easier once speeds increase (see greg.box’s comments above). I’m not sure they’re so essential for ITM, though. Years ago I learned the piano by starting with scales and arpeggios - they are very useful for classical music. And I can make use of the best alternative keying to improve bellows control and phrasing.Īs a result I cross row a lot - probably more than’s good for me (since I haven’t started using chords yet). It also allows me to mark which finger I’ve assigned for each note so I can learn the slides and jumps I’ve decided suit the tune best & replay them exactly the same way each time. I can now pick up tunes by ear (about a year and a half down the track) or from the notes, but it’s still a lengthy process - the good thing about the tablature is it’s quick to convert through the eye to the fingers.
I’m now coming to understand the layout of keys (and where those elusive alternative keys are) simply by playing enough tunes to recognise the patterns. I tried it briefly and got fed up with it very quickly. It’s fine for instruments with a linear key organisation and a single way of playing each note, but I think it’s just confusing for a beginner. I think learning which key produces which note from the outset has got to be the path to madness. It makes picking up new tunes much faster than learning by ear. Meowguy - I actually wrote myself a computer program to produce keyboard tablature from ABC files. This may not be an efficient way to learn your first few tunes, but if you want to understand your instrument, you’ll need to master those things eventually anyway. Once you know your way around the buttons and the bellows, when you hear a tune or see standard music notation (assuming you read it already), you’ll have some idea of where the notes are going to fall under your fingers and which way to move the bellows. Find other common intervals in the keys of D and G (thirds, fourths, fifths and sixths) and practice playing them (but most importantly get used to how they sound).
Find out where the octaves are (when pushing, two buttons on the same row with two buttons in between make an octave, when pulling you’ll need three buttons in between). Learn to play scales in D Major (try starting it on E, A and B instead of D to get used to the sound of the other modes) and G Major (try starting it on A, D and E instead of G). If you want to learn the instrument, I’d say you have to learn which button and which bellows direction makes which note. Seems to me that notations like meowguy described would be good for teaching a tune to someone who wants to learn a tune without learning the instrument.