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[waltzman]

What does the term 'crossing fingers' mean when playing the melodeon?  Is it alternating fingers on a single button or actually crossing one over the other to an adjacent button?

[george garside]

What does the term 'crossing fingers' mean when playing the melodeon?  Is it alternating fingers on a single button or actually crossing one over the other to an adjacent button?

might mean different things to different people!  I take it as being more applicable to semitone boxesas in moving  eg 1st fingr over 2nd fingr to reach ahigher note on  a different row eg playing high F# on B row with little finger & 'crossing'3rd finger over it to play high G on C row. Same applies to moving down(towards chin!)  eg playing G with 2 finger crossing UNDER with 3 finger for F# on B row then E (C row) with2 finger & mabe D with 1 finger.  I personally don't do it on Dg boxes as I tend to play mostly 'on the row ' as it save me getting confused & having nasty accidents when switchhing between 4th apart & semitone boxes - thats my excuse anyway!

george

[waltzman]

What does the term 'crossing fingers' mean when playing the melodeon?  Is it alternating fingers on a single button or actually crossing one over the other to an adjacent button?

might mean different things to different people!  I take it as being more applicable to semitone boxesas in moving  eg 1st fingr over 2nd fingr to reach ahigher note on  a different row eg playing high F# on B row with little finger & 'crossing'3rd finger over it to play high G on C row. Same applies to moving down(towards chin!)  eg playing G with 2 finger crossing UNDER with 3 finger for F# on B row then E (C row) with2 finger & mabe D with 1 finger.  I personally don't do it on Dg boxes as I tend to play mostly 'on the row ' as it save me getting confused & having nasty accidents when switchhing between 4th apart & semitone boxes - thats my excuse anyway!

george

I was thinking in terms of playing along the row.  I've been teaching myself on a D/G box and I would place my fingers on the buttons to cover the range of notes needed for a particluar section of melody and would shift my hand when the melody 'moved' out of that range.  Each finger was basically 'assinged' a button. This meant that if I needed to hit the same button two or more times in succession I would use the same finger.  Then I read the advice that one shouldn't hit the same button more than once with the same finger.  So I've tried to change my fingering so that I alternate fingers if striking the same button more than once.  Is alternating fingers like this called 'crossing fingers'? 

I play english concertina where there is a similar dictum that, whenever possible, you should not play the same button twice with the same finger for reasons of speed and clarity so the technique makes sense to me but it has been a mortal setback for what I have learned so far on the melodeon.  The perils of not having a teacher......

Michael

[george garside]

others may differ but on a DG box I  work on the basis that as many tunes can be played on 4 buttons & many mnay more on 5 or6 it best to keep the fingers resting on the four you are using & just move the whole hand up or down by 1 button as necesarry, This doesnt work all the time eg if juming from one octve to another in which case i move eg 1st finger fom g to g whilst playing the hich g with little fingr.   the 2 fingrs on one button is , for me  to be used for playing single note triplets, although I prefer using 3 fingers on 1 button for this as it gives faster crisper triplets.

I also think its helpful to try to get away from the idea that a particular finger 'belongs' to a paarticular button so if a tune fits all or mostly on say buttons 5678 rest the four fingers on thoe buttons for all or most of the tune.  It helps to play tunes with one finger - ok up to march speed - starting with 1st finger & repeating with others including the little finger.  Once this is developed it means you can play the tune note with any finger , leaving 3 spares to play right hand accompanyment.

george

[Owen Woods]

I agree with george completely. The difficulty comes when you are playing in A and your "four buttons" are some horrible thing across the rows

[Bob Ellis]

To me, crossing fingers means crossing one finger over another on the same row in a tune that has a large range between the top and bottom note in order to move one's hand up or down the keyboard. An example of this is in the first bar of the B music of the Bluebell Polka, which I play on the D row crossing the second finger over the third one for the last note. Others probably play it differently, but that is how I do it and that is what I understand by crossing fingers.

[graememackay]

It's quite difficult to describe crossing fingers by text.  I think because we only have 4 fingers to play an awful lot of buttons (thinking b/c/c#) the whole asigning which finger to use for which note can go out of the window.  We basically have to find an economic way of playing each tune, getting the most out the instrument and our techniques.  I don't see why using the same finger twice on the same button is wrong.  you can run into difficulties and can run out of fingers if you are too keen on using different fingers on each note.  You can get away with repeating fingers although I have an alternate way of repeating notesas explained below, as long as the same finger isn't used twice on two different buttons you should be ok.

When I am playing a note more than once and it has a double, I try to use the double with a different finger and this gives me a change of bellow direction (usually) too, adding more a more dynamic sound than just pressing the same button twice.  This was a technique that Jimmy Shand taught my grandfather centuries ago while playing the white cockade I think in G.  Using the double B.

It's something I will cover in my workshop as I think it's easier to show than explain.

[george garside]

I agree with george completely. The difficulty comes when you are playing in A and your "four buttons" are some horrible thing across the rows

I normally play in  A entirely on the D row &  mostly  tunes without a G#. if  a box without accidentals the G# has to be faked & if its there by your chin I use the thumb to hit it so the rest of the fingers stay roughly where you want them to be.  playing in A on a DG box is virtually the same as playing in G on a BC exept that on the BC the G# falls readily to hand.
george

[Owen Woods]

I agree with george completely. The difficulty comes when you are playing in A and your "four buttons" are some horrible thing across the rows

I normally play in  A entirely on the D row &  mostly  tunes without a G#. if  a box without accidentals the G# has to be faked & if its there by your chin I use the thumb to hit it so the rest of the fingers stay roughly where you want them to be.  playing in A on a DG box is virtually the same as playing in G on a BC exept that on the BC the G# falls readily to hand.
george

I also use the thumb, with mixed success. But I do cross rows to play in A, else using the basses is substantially more difficult. Of course, if you use the basses and cross rows, everything tends to be on the pull, which can be quite tiring, even if it does improve your air button technique.