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Author Topic: help!  (Read 4378 times)

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alan_p

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help!
« on: June 24, 2014, 11:25:33 AM »

Hi, Been playing for a few weeks now and am managing right hand tunes pretty well including air button. Starting to add left hand and all going to pieces (especially air button). Don`t want to get into any bad habits and wondered if there was anyone out there in my area who would be willing to meet and pass on any tips/ give lessons.
I live in Epping, Essex, and thought an area bounded by say Leyton, Harlow, possibly Chelmsford, would be within my travel range.
Please help  -- Alan
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Chris Ryall

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Re: help!
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2014, 11:48:04 AM »

I live nowhere near you, sorry, but one of the little secrets of the box is that it's easier to fit tune round chords than chord to a predefined right hand fingering. Think off all those tunes that use the same chords??

Suggest you start afresh, sing or hum your tune and find a left end riff that works for it. Then fit melody to that. Bear in mind that D and C are both ways, and sometimes an Em pull works as substitute for G push (assuming its in G)

D tunes are a bit more flexible left end, different feel on the right, well worth exploring..
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Sage Herb

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Re: help!
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2014, 02:10:09 PM »

I realise that this is further than you might wish to travel, but wouldn't be impossible if you have access to a car. Why not think about just a couple of visits to Gav Atkin's free traditional music classes in Kent? See

http://www.singdanceandplay.net/free-traditional-music-classes-at-the-gun-and-spitroast-horsmonden/

Good luck
Steve
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Re: help!
« Reply #3 on: June 24, 2014, 03:44:55 PM »

I almost totally disagree with Mr Ryall's chord centric approach for the rank beginner such as the OP. When starting out it is the mechanics that you need to teach your brain not the musicality. Yes there will be some relearning but it will be minimal when stacked against the initial coordination difficulties.
As to a teacher you could try PMing DaddyLongLes of this parish he is near Southend.

Anahata

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Re: help!
« Reply #4 on: June 24, 2014, 04:24:23 PM »

Try Loughton Folk Club which has a resident session band and I seem to remember there's a good melodeon player there, though I can't remember any names. No idea if they give lessons either, but it might be a good place to ask and it seems to be almost on your doorstep. Also they've booked a lot of melodeon playing guests at the club (including several melnetters), which is an encouraging sign.
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John MacKenzie (Cugiok)

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Re: help!
« Reply #5 on: June 24, 2014, 04:40:57 PM »

It also shows what good taste they have. ;)


John
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Chris Brimley

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Re: help!
« Reply #6 on: June 24, 2014, 05:12:55 PM »

On the 'chord-centric' approach to initial learning, I actually think that the answer lies between Lester and Chris's comments - it's probably best to start off by picking tunes where the LH is easy anyway, until such time as you've picked up the two-hand co-ordination basics.  However that won't take you very far before the issue comes up that you need to swap rows and LH chords, and as Chris implies, if you don't do that you do risk implanting techniques that will make it difficult in future first to play with other musicians, second to play tunes accurately, and third to sound as if you know about chord basics.  At that stage, it might be worth trying out some 'quick wins', rather than needing to know the whole theory, however - for example, if you are playing in G and you need to play a D note on the right hand against a D chord, swap your LH to the push D chord, don't just blast the G chord against it.

Chris is however IMO right in saying that you need to think first about the LH chording you want, before you commit to learning the RH, and the more difficult the tune becomes, the more important that lesson becomes.  I have to say that there are a few tunes I know that I learned wrongly 35 years ago, because I didn't consider chords first, and I still have a silly fingering for them implanted in my brain!
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george garside

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Re: help!
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2014, 05:57:40 PM »

I almost totally disagree with Mr Ryall's chord centric approach for the rank beginner such as the OP. When starting out it is the mechanics that you need to teach your brain not the musicality. Yes there will be some relearning but it will be minimal when stacked against the initial coordination difficulties.
As to a teacher you could try PMing DaddyLongLes of this parish he is near Southend.

Totally agree - unless the necessary manual dexterity is acquired, including doing different things on both ends at the same time,  now't is going to work well!

george
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Chris Ryall

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Re: help!
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2014, 06:43:51 PM »

It worked for me and nearly all folk songs are "laid out" in chords, often just 2 or three?  If you've set up some clever "manual dexterity" on the right, well, that happen to lie on an inappropriate row, finding a chord to fit may then be impossible?

Given that folk chords are straightforward and tend to last for a bar or more, and the left hand moves are often "broad sweep" there aren't to many brain cells involved in that? Further, almost universally, the chord tends to guide right hand to the right notes (though not necessarily to the right row). That's why it's called an accordion ;)

I grant that both methods can work, but friends above may have missed that Alan is struggling a bit with the prestidigitation on the right approach. so I stick by my advice.

Alan, forgive this spat. Like Defoe's egg, such important matters generate strong opinions. As alluded to above, in the end you will need both, and that does come; we've all mounted this little hill. There is green grass on the other side, I promise. My first tune was 'speed the plough' see tune of the month, which main play itself on G row but does require you to time the chords.

It would actually be useful to hear later which approach suited you. We get a "help" of this kind every few months. But I suspect every new player's solution might vary too ;) Good luck, Chris

If no local tutor turns up … do you have skype?
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Graham Spencer

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Re: help!
« Reply #9 on: June 24, 2014, 07:07:06 PM »

My feeling about the chord-driven versus the melody-driven approach is that the former is an intellectual approach, while the latter is intuitive.  I don't see either as being superior, but one will suit an individual player's temperament better than the other. Same kind of thing as the arts/sciences dichotomy in education, really.

Graham
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John MacKenzie (Cugiok)

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Re: help!
« Reply #10 on: June 24, 2014, 07:25:58 PM »

More Curate's Egg, than Defoe's.
I'm only just getting the hang of the air button, after 18 months. Then again, I am alone in the wilds up here, with no other melodeon players around. Plenty of PA's though.

John
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Chris Ryall

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Re: help!
« Reply #11 on: June 24, 2014, 07:45:44 PM »

Air button is hard, my tip was from Tufty Swift, at a dutch folk camp. You should be using it all the time, slipping a bit of air, not taking great gulps as the bellows close completely. Again, glad that Alan is doing OK in this regard :|glug
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Graham Spencer

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Re: help!
« Reply #12 on: June 24, 2014, 07:58:59 PM »

Like Defoe's egg, such important matters generate strong opinions.

So which end of the box is the Big End........?
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John MacKenzie (Cugiok)

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Re: help!
« Reply #13 on: June 24, 2014, 08:12:20 PM »

Opposite end to the crankshaft, of course.

John
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Chris Ryall

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Re: help!
« Reply #14 on: June 24, 2014, 08:25:43 PM »

My feeling about the chord-driven versus the melody-driven approach is that the former is an intellectual approach, while the latter is intuitive.

I think you are right
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Bob Ellis

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Re: help!
« Reply #15 on: June 24, 2014, 08:27:48 PM »

Alan has already taken a few steps down a certain path, so perhaps we should be looking to guide him from where he is at the moment rather than suggesting this or that approach as though he was starting from scratch. He says that he is "already managing right hand tunes well, including air button". Firstly, Alan, let me reassure you that it is normal in this situation for the right hand to go to pieces as soon as you introduce the left hand. You will soon overcome this frustrating problem.

My advice would be to start with one of the tunes you feel confident about playing with the right hand only. Work out a simple rhythm for it. The easiest to start with is a 4/4 tune that does not have too many notes. You want a simple oom-pah rhythm for this, alternating the bass note and the bass chord. If the tune is in G, just play the G bass buttons on the push and the same buttons on the pull, which will give you D basses. If the tune is in D, use the D-push/A-pull basses. It doesn't matter at this stage whether or not these are the 'correct' basses. What matters is establishing a steady oom-pah rhythm and being able to coordinate this with playing the tune with the other hand. When you can do this fairly comfortably (it won't take long!), you can then begin to think about changing the basses where it doesn't sound as though the G or D basses harmonise well with that part of the tune.

When you feel you are making progress with this, try the same thing with a couple of 6/8 tunes, playing the oom-pahs on beats 1, 3, 4 and 6. Then try 3/4 tunes with oom-pah-pah basses.

What others have said about planning your fingering around the basses you intend to play can come in when you feel comfortable co-coordinating the left and right hands.
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Re: help!
« Reply #16 on: June 24, 2014, 08:43:30 PM »

[
 
What others have said about planning your fingering around the basses you intend to play can come in when you feel comfortable co-coordinating the left and right hands.[/color]

seconded!

george
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t-tone

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Re: help!
« Reply #17 on: June 24, 2014, 08:50:17 PM »

Hi Alan,
Being at the same stage I can only sympathise. I can do any 2 of LH/RH/air but not all 3 at the same time. Currently targetting one particular note in Egan's polka where I hope to eventually achieve all 3 without a horrible squawk.
Best of Luck,
Tony
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John MacKenzie (Cugiok)

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Re: help!
« Reply #18 on: June 24, 2014, 09:12:54 PM »

Just wondering if you're finding yourself doing what I did. As the bellows got right out, almost to the end, I found I couldn't breathe. I was breathing in as the bellows went out, until I could inhale no more. Very odd.

John  :Ph
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Chris Ryall

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Re: help!
« Reply #19 on: June 24, 2014, 09:14:40 PM »

a lot of us drive? Steer with the right hand, right on the gear stick, left foot down, right up synchronised, while looking in the mirror and signalling with little finger?

Makes melodeon seem a doddle? it's doable,  yes, a complex movement, with added timing elements but you'll get there, and it's worth it :D

Jeez, singing was hard. I forgot you had to play the melodeon and not "breath in time with it" … :|glug
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