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[JJRobson]

Greetings all!

I'm a reasonably seasoned folk musician interested in English style tunes and am about to take the plunge into the melodeon pond... Next month I'll have saved enough to be buying my first box, a 21 button D/G scarlatti, although for the meantime (mainly to satisfy my curiosity) I've bought one of those £20 toy ones to fiddle around on.

My question is this... How long did people generally play around with scales and exercises when they first began? Or did they just jump straight in and try to play a tune? As its a completely new instrument for me (my others generally have 6 strings...) it would seem a crying shame to pick up a ton of bad habits from the get go! So if anyone has any useful tips/anecdotes from their early days or even certain things to avoid at all costs I'd love to hear them!

Cheers

J

[Steve_freereeder]

Or did they just jump straight in and try to play a tune?

Yes! Start noodling around, finding tunes or fragments of tunes on both rows (on a two row box).

Don't forget to use the LH bass and chords too, right from the start. It will be a bit of a steep learning curve at first, but don't leave them until later or you'll have much more difficulty.

Scales and exercises can come in at the same time if you want, but the melodeon is a bit different from so many other instruments - you'll learn a huge amount just by playing traditional English tunes.

For techniques, bellows control, fingering, holding the instrument, etc., watch the various videos on youtube from contributors from this forum to Tune of the Month; also Lester's fantastic Tune-a-day blog resource, and you'll not go far wrong.
Good luck!

[Marje]

For what it's worth, I went straight to tune playing, by ear. I only occasionally do scales.  Tunes are valuable exercises in their own right, as they contain runs, riffs, rhythmic patterns and chord sequences that will occur in other tunes, so that it becomes easier to learn new tunes as you go along.

There are bad habits, but I don't think tune-playing per se is one of them.

I'll start off the "Don't do what I did" list if you like (not a musical tip, just a practical one):
If your box has a little fastening strap underneath, to hold the bellows shut, pay attention to what happens to it as you settle into your playing position. If you let the strap get crumpled underneath the box, the strap will eventually  crack and it may also scratch the box.

And a musical tip: I'd recommend introducing the basses early on. Otherwise you get used to playing the tune a certain way (there are often choices on a 2-row) and when you come to add basses, you'll find you need a push instead of a pull (or whatever), and have to re-learn the tune. (I see that while I was writing this post someone else has said the same thing.) This matters a lot to some players, but not very much to others; one thing you'll soon find about melodeon playing is that almost everything that one person recommends will be disapproved of by someone else. You will have to try things out and see which work for you.

I think the one suggestion we'd all endorse is to ENJOY playing. Unlike, say, a fiddle, a melodeon can provide great fun and satisfaction from the moment you start to play - it's always in tune, the rhythm comes largely from the action of the bellows, and chords and harmonies are more or less built in ready for you. If you're enjoying it, you're bound to be learning as you go along.

[deltasalmon]

For what it's worth, I went straight to tune playing, by ear. I only occasionally do scales.  Tunes are valuable exercises in their own right, as they contain runs, riffs, rhythmic patterns and chord sequences that will occur in other tunes, so that it becomes easier to learn new tunes as you go along.

I'm not a player of the English style but I agree with this. I went straight to tune playing and very rarely do scales. I'm not saying scales are a bad practice, I just get bored playing them 

Also with learning tunes I notice certain patterns that you find in other tunes so the more you learn the easier it gets.

[EastAnglianTed]

Go for tunes IMO. I only use scales for identifying box tuning 

[ACE]

My kids wanted a go, like all kids do. I said I would teach them a tune if they could find the do reh me  bit on their own my wife then pretended to cheat with them and showed them how. I then wrote out a bit blaydon races with the button number, suck or blow method. After that it was see how far you can get on the scale and we will do another tune. Now they can play all sorts of tunes but I often used to hear them running up and down a scale before they started learning one of their own tunes. So I think a quick run up and down both octaves must be good for feeling your way around the box and getting your ear in before you start messing about with a new tune. Like most musicians I can get a rudimentary tune out of most instruments  but I have to work out how you get the scale first.

[JJRobson]

Thanks Guys! Having the basses early on will be something I shall be working on from now on. I must say I'm glad tunes are the prevailing opinion here! So much more interesting than scales   

I was definitely planning on trying the tune a month as having a target to focus practice on always seems to work best!

 

I think the one suggestion we'd all endorse is to ENJOY playing. Unlike, say, a fiddle, a melodeon can provide great fun and satisfaction from the moment you start to play - it's always in tune, the rhythm comes largely from the action of the bellows, and chords and harmonies are more or less built in ready for you. If you're enjoying it, you're bound to be learning as you go along.

I must admit I can't stop a grin from forming every time I give the toy one a squeeze! Can't wait to get my hands on a proper box

[Sage Herb]

Go for tunes - but be prepared to notice the bits of a tune that don't seem to go well for you, and isolate and practise them. You'll might find (I did) that they are the bits that 'should' be easy, such major arpeggios. Be aware that what can seem like fingering problems can actually be problems with bellows control. And there's an additional reason to that already posted for introducing basses early - IME, boxes tend to behave and feel differently when the left hand is being played from when it's not, presumably due in part to the difference in air consumption, but maybe some other reasons.

Best wishes and good luck
Steve

[boxcall]

I agree with others go ahead play a tune
I wish I put more into the bass end as I still struggle with that. (but I play a one row so limited basses anyway)
You could also play ( doe a deer) from sound of music and you'll be doing both tune and scales plus most people know it well enough to just play with out sheet music or dots.
I find it useful to play tunes in different keys that are available after learning the key the tune is in
just to see how and if it fits. also it helps with the bellows work as its a lot different for each key

[The Blues Viking]

I, too, started out with a seven-button "toy" that I bought for $15 or so at Elderly Instruments. (This was nearly twenty years ago, and everything was cheaper.) I just started learning tunes right off, and had soon learned House of the Rising Sun and City of New Orleans well enough to play them with the band I was then in. Then I started playing scales, and that helped immeasurably in learning the instrument.

For years after "graduating" to bigger 1-row boxes, I would play scales every day; a full two octaves first, up and down, then a series of scales up and down by modes (though I new even less of modes then than I do now; I just started playing a full scale starting on each note of the major scale, up and down, starting and finishing in the key of the instrument). This REALLY seemed to help. I kept this up with my first 2-row boxes, but regrettably I didn't then start practicing cross-row scales like I should have (I had no teacher to tell me I was doing it wrong).

One thing that has already been said merits repeating: Start in with the left hand early. I didn't, and found it hard going when I did finally get to it. I was just getting moderately competent with basses when a stroke made it even more difficult, and I stopped using basses entirely.

If I can offer any constructive advice it's just this: As others have said, don't do as I did.

TBV

EDIT: I should have been more clear...by all means jump right in and start learning tunes, but don't neglect those scales. Make them a regular part of your practice routine.

[911377brian]

I think you'll find it a bit difficult to play bass and treble on a 'straight off the shelf' 7 button toy, problem being that they are little buggers for leaking air. You may have the only airtight one in the known universe though, in which case, pump away!

[Chris Ryall]

Tune 

Scales and things can come later, perhaps after several tunes. They are more about expressing your tunes in the way you really want to, controlling your music, and developing automaticity. Bring 'em in to early and you'll kill your enthusiasm.

[Bob Ellis]

Learning tunes provides greater satisfaction and enjoyment, but practising scales helps you to learn where the notes are. Both have their place.

With regard to avoiding pitfalls, my advice would be to buy a good tutorial booklet, such as those by Mally, George Garside or Ed Rennie. One problem with being a beginner is that you won't know where the pitfalls are. An experienced musician who has written a tutorial booklet has given thought to this and has also devised a progressive learning course from easy tunes and techniques to more challenging ones. You don't need to follow the tutorials slavishly or to the exclusion of all else, but they will provide a tried, tested and, hopefully, enjoyable way of learning the instrument.

[Strigulino]

Have fun.  Get the left hand involved early.  Reach for books for inspiration and info as you think of things you want to learn about.  Have fun.  Play the kind of things you want to play, as you will be more likely to pick up the box and practice.  Have fun.  :)

[george garside]

just to add to the veriety of opinions  I think that it is important/hepful to go for both tunes AND scales right from the start as each helps the other .

poking and proding out a tune or two or even bits of tunes provides the sense of achievement  and satisfaction that prevents the box being shoved on a shelf and forgotten!

But at each 'sitting'  heve a go (slowly) at  playing a scale along one of the rows   and covering two octaves, using4 fingers . This helps the early  implantation  of the  push/pull sequences  into the brain and also  limbers up  the fingers and maybe gets them used to doing something they havn't done before. 

It also gets you going into the higher octave that some refer to as '' the dusty end where nobody ever goes!''  Trouble is that those who think up tunes  don't  know this and  have an annoying habit of thinking up tunes that need both octaves!

I am not suggesting  the serious flogging up and down the scales ad infinitum that is advocated by some 'classical' teachers but am thinking in terms of perhaps  as little as 2 or 3 times up and down the 2 octaves before  playing  whatever tunes  are going to be played. ---and maybe the saame again before putting the box away.   If it makes it sound less  laboriarse just think of it as a warm up
and a cool down  exercise  or a bit  of ''keep fit'' for the fingers.

george

[MandoC]

I started in learning tunes by ear, and I still play entirely by ear.  I am a mandolin player so I have a lot of tunes in my head.  Since I play BC, I have not invested a lot of time learning to play chords. I play in a contradance band and we play a lot of tunes that have more unusual chords than other types of folk music and we have a piano player for that.  Still, I have an ear for harmonies and work at playing harmonies as well as melodies on the box. When I originally started playing, I was using all 4 fingers to play, which is typical for mandolin players (left hand, fretting).  After a problem with cubital tunnel syndrome in my right elbow, and an operation to move the nerve, I realized my little finger had become unreliable for the most part, so I switched to three fingers.  This caused me to relearn a lot of the tunes I had learned to play with 4 fingers.  This process was actually good for me because I learned to move in different ways. I often learn a tune one way, and then later realize that I can't really play it clean that way.  So I then have to relearn the tune so I can play it cleaner. Or I discover I want to throw in a triplet and I can't do that the way I learned it. What I am saying is that the learning does not stop. All the work I did previously is not wasted, it is part of the process. I think there are bad habits, but playing and growing through playing is not one of them.  My two cents.  Charlie

[Lyra]

Somewhere on youtube there's a master class from Sir Jimmy Galway on how to practice scales without shooting yourself (or getting shot by the neighbours). He works them into .... tunes 
Can't beat them for learning the geography and as a finger warmerupper. Protip - my teacher suggested firmly that you shouldn't forget you can do em on the left hand too.
Secret might be not to do too many for too long at a time?

[george garside]

perhaps instead of  cogitating on th merits or otherwise of scales - v- tunes  we should  think in terms of  important skills needed to play a melodeon, or indeed any other instrument, well.

To me the single most important skill required is manual dexterity!  All the ''musical ability'' whatever that is and '' theoretical knowledge''  is a waste of time if we can't operate the machine  with skill and dexterity.  This means that a bit of tricky fingering or bellows ins and outs needs to  be done with the same speed, delicasy,  etc in either octave without any due thought being required as to which finger to use for what and how many fingers to play to use or indeedwhich finger to use on which button.

This is why it is so important  to learn to play the box rather than to learn to play'' tunes''.  To develop the manual dexterity any exercises  such as scales and  relatively easy tunes   all help.   An exercise i strongly recommend is to take a simple tune eg Blaydon Races, Winster Gallop or maybe a waltz  Black velvet band or daisy daisy and play it with one finger  - then play it again untill you have played it with each and every finger - but only using one for each run through the tune.  When that  is mastered  try playing the A part with one finger and the B part with a different one.    The object of the exercise it to get away from the  notion that a particular finger  has to play a particular buttonl and to move towards   the most convenient finger doing the job more or less automatically.

Then playing ''new'' tunes becomes much less of a problem.  Good site readers can just play direct from the dots and by earists direct from the head in a way that is not unlike the way the gob is opperated without concious thought to sing or whistle.  This does not mean that consideraable honing of a tune is required to get it just right but that spending time learning to play the instrument rather than making heavy weather of  ''learning a tune''  makes the playing/learning of new tunes much easier.


george

[Lester]

The object of the exercise it to get away from the  notion that a particular finger  has to play a particular buttonl and to move towards   the most convenient finger doing the job more or less automatically.

+1 The one finger/one button is the thing, IMO, that holds most beginners back, I see videos where players are tying their fingers up to maintain 'home position' or only stabbing at off position buttons to get back to 'home position' thus clipping notes. So wise words indeed from George.

[Chris Ryall]

+2.  Guess at least one perplexed starter-offer will be reading this, and George's observation is pretty fundamental to finding your way around. The mapping of note to button in one's head is much stronger on say piano or flute than on a melodeon. The 2-way nature of the instrument makes that inevitable. 

We all have our own ways, but a lot of fluent play has to do with teaching the hand that - that next note is "same way, next button"/"same way other row"/"rock bellows, same button"*.

It feels a bit daunting at first, but all of these relate very closely to the push/pull of the chords on left and and that helps a lot. Once you've climbed that's early learning curve, melodeon is actually one of the easiest instruments to learn a tune on (even pick up within a session!), provided you keep with its home keys.

Back to finger movement, I think a lot of players perceive these as "relative to previous note" in our heads. The maths of the box is that 4 buttons cover one octave. The anatomy of fingers also adds up to 4, and a strict button~finger approach will restrict to one octave tunes.

Plenty of those about, particularly in bagpiping, but learning to move hand position, and to hit buttons with "what's to hand" is definitely the way forward, after the first couple of tunes.

As I offer above, scales are more about alternative fingerings, eg to allow a pull E minor chord rather than push G; so definitely stage three, perhaps 4-5 tunes into your exploration

*delete as appropriate