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[BJG]

So I picked up this Sandpiper D/G a while back and I loved it, still do. Though I made the mistake of just practising the right hand, thinking, yeah, I'll pick up the left hand later. Became pretty fluent on a couple of tracks, which gave me false confidence...

Now I'm working on the left hand and...damn, this thing's difficult. It gets easier doesn't it...? 

My advice to newbies - get the left hand in at the beginning, or you'll live to regret it.

(I'm a dabbler, that's my problem...been spending too much time on the Technopipe lately. Brilliant for whiling away train journeys, especially this time of year, when they end up 3hrs late. If I tried practising the melodeon on the London line, someone would probably chuck it out the window.)

[AirTime]

Yes! It definitely gets easier! I started with the left hand & didn't find it that difficult to integrate left & right hand, but I guess the advantage with starting that way at the beginning is you don't have high any expectations & just gradually ease into it.

[Happyhank]

BJG,

I am an utterly rank beginner (in the full sense of "rank") and am also finding the left hand challenging. My previous experience with instruments (saxophone, bassoon, banjo, guitar) involved using both hands together to do one thing, rather than employing each hand to do separate but coordinated things.

 I've gotten a number of tutorials (most authored by members of this parish, as they say). I started out with John Spiers' DVD, which I reckon is not necessarily aimed at rank beginners. But I found two ideas in it quite helpful on this particular point.

The first was the idea of playing the whole instrument, which he discusses before separatey addressing the right and left hands. The example was using cross-row fingering on the right hand to achieve the desired chords on the left -- i.e., thinking about how to play a tune with both hands in mind from the outset. That's a simple idea, I suppose, but it helped me avoid the pitfall of thinking of the box as a button-operated harmonica with an odd set of buttons on the other end, which is where my experience with the harmonica would have led me.

The other point that I have found useful from the Spiers DVD was his comment that the standard oom-pah, bass-chord approach to the left hand is not the easiest -- nor always the most useful -- approach. Since I find the greatest challenge to be playing a different rhythm with each hand (never could figure out my brother's trap drum set) that comment freed me up to first experiment with drones on the slow tunes I have inevitably begun with. And that is helping me find which of those left hand buttons does what without being flummoxed by the whole two-rhythm problem. I can already feel my two hands learning to work independently, and believe, with enough practice, I will figure out that whole oom-pah thing.

Don't know if that's of use to you, but, in any case, I share your struggle.

Greg

[Jackaspandy]

Hi BJG
When I started I began with the Handbook for melodeon by Roger Watson - the first tune was the Winster Gallop - which seems to alllow the left and right hand to really complement one another. Might be worth a go 

[malcolmbebb]

Been there - started with concertina where I was mostly playing the melody on my left hand. Found it very hard to start using the bases.

So:
Keep at it.
Do it slowly. Very slowly.
If you read music, print or photocopy the score and mark where you're going to play each bass.
Decide that you will learn nothing else, learn no new tunes, until you have the bass under way.
Take a break from time to time to just play stuff you like playing, then come back.
It's not linear - improvements get easier as you build on previous ones.
Don't stick with just one pair of bass buttons because you'll create a different rut.

[Frank Lee]

I NEVER allow myself to make any progress with the right hand until I'm satisfied with the left.  This means crossing rows all over the place, and if you've gone down the 'one row road' you'll have some re-learning to do, but the graph of progress is a parabolic one (the faster you progress, the faster you'll progress!) so keep at it.  I made the same mistake, with no-one to tell me otherwise, and it was ages before I discovered that the melodeon was a musical instrument!  Perhaps I should say I hated it, it was my wife's, but she hated it even more and I was under pressure to learn it or her dance team would fold.  I have to admit that now, if anyone asks me to play a tune with right hand only, I come unstuck, as both hands now work together as a knife and fork, but this is a tiny price to pay.  Treat the two rows as 'the keyboard', and not as 'the 'D' row' and the 'G' row. If you like the sound of 'donkey basses' - get a one-row box where the basso profundo grunts don't clash with the melody so much, but your post suggests otherwise.  As an 'unknown' I put some examples of a few of my better-known tunes (morris etc.) on you-tube prior to running a workshop, as the organiser wanted bums on seats; also a few were responses to 'Tune of the Month' but I haven't added anything in a while as I didn't like the sound quality of my setup. They're still there under 'Swordsmith100' if you're interested, very little dexterity involved in most of these (I'm knocking on seventy), but a LOT of working out beforehand.   

[Thrupenny Bit]

I started by using Mally's book and the examples in it.
Early on it has a simple tune with basses to accompany and I stuck at it until I saw the light, resisting the urge to just use the right hand for a melody only.
I too had heard the advice to learn both sides together and heeded the advice. It slowed me up initially, cos like us all, we want to play something when starting off, but has payed dividends in the long run.
I started 'omm-pah' ing to get the idea of two hands working differently but then quickly followed the advice of a good player friend, and strayed away from just doing this,  choosing bass/chord together, chord only, bass note run, nothing - whatever I feel I want to do. But the 'omm- pah' got the habit started.

Interesting quote from Frank, I too can't get the melody of a new tune right until the left hand is reasonably good. Then I start to learn and improve a tune as it goes along being learnt.

Best advice has been said already - keep at it, it will come!
Q

[The Blues Viking]

I never got a proper handle on the basses. I have always (at least, for as long as I've played the melodeon) had health problems that limited my use of the left hand, so for a long time I did not bother. Now that I am trying to use them more, I find that I actually dislike the traditional "om-pa" bass style, and have instead adopted a more droning accompaniment style. I find that doing a less rhythmic accompaniment on just the bass notes works for me.

But for those of you who want/need to learn such a style, keep at it and it will come.

(Hey, wasn't there a tutorial of sorts posted a while back about playing scales together with basses? I can't seem to find it.)

TBV

[The Blues Viking]

An odd coincidence...while I was typing the reply above, Thrupenny bit posted his reply and said exactly the same thing:

"Keep at it and it will come."

So I guess we agree.

TBV

[Ebor_fiddler]

I have the same problem - I see I'm in good company, so I'll "keep at it" too! 

[malcolmbebb]

I got some some help from Mel Biggs to break the block, and it is starting to become automatic to start a tune with left hand going as well, even if it often doesn't get beyond three bars!
But I tended to focus too much on D/G um-cha and probably stayed too long in there. Now starting to broaden my horizons.  That was difficult and it's taken a few weeks to get away from stopping completely at a chord change.

Also some re-learning, not simply to get chosen chords but to avoid inconvenient or abrupt bellows direction changes.

Hindsight is wonderful! But it's happening.

[AirTime]

One other thing I would add, is that when learning a new tune by ear, it's a good idea to start with the left hand chord structure first & then gradually add the right hand melody, rather than the other way around.

[Thrupenny Bit]

Following on from Airtime:
I lot of tunes I learn are in the 'melody only' form of music dots, with no bass/chords added.
I tend to play around first, with a pencil in my hand and make notes to remind me if I'm pulling -say- a D chord, or pushing it, cos it'll go either way. I try and see what's best for me, and scribble in pencil on the music sheet, I use pencil cos it might change later when more into the tune.
I look for series of notes that allow me to put a chord under the melody, but as we come to realise, you can sometimes play a series of notes by either pushing them or pulling them. I try the note runs both ways, seeing which feels best to the fingers, or maybe change bellows direction to get more air in or let some out etc.
It's a slight drift from the OP but, shows the importance of adding a left hand. You might find that just by learing the right hand, when it comes to adding basses you might play it in a different way and have to unlearn it, which is often really difficult.
That's why I start off, as it sounds like Frank does, by getting a good idea of which direction my bellows are going, which chord or bass I'm adding at the very start of learning a tune.

Keep plodding on, it will really help in the long run!
good luck
Q

[BJG]

Hey, thanks for all the advice. Will persevere, and resist the temptation to lapse into right-handed soloing in future...

[Frank Lee]

To me, learning to play melodeon right hand first is like building a house, and trying to put the foundations in later.  No problem on a piano accordion I suppose!  Everything you learn is 'money in the bank' for the next musical project, and the skills accumulate at compound interest, so you're probably not so far from where you want to be as you think.