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[Barlow]

Hi folks, first post!

I have been learning over a year (B/C). It's a long steep slow curve but I'm definitely on it, and for the duration. I play other instruments a bit and know music. But there is nothing - nothing - quite like a melodeon. There is a local Irish based session but I haven't started playing with them yet (....not quite ready to dip my toe in there yet, although they are amenable).

I have so many questions and thoughts, but could I just ask, what bad habits would you advise a beginner to try and avoid, and is there anything you had wished you had done differently when starting out?

I hope you can share your thoughts,

Thanks

Barlow

[Tone Dumb Greg]

Hi folks, first post!

... could I just ask, what bad habits would you advise a beginner to try and avoid, and is there anything you had wished you had done differently when starting out?

I hope you can share your thoughts,

Thanks

Barlow

Being too shy to join in with an amiable session

[Barlow]

oooh, that reply has hit me...right there.

 

(thanks though!)

[Stiamh]

Assuming that you should try to use your right-hand little finger as much as the others - or in fact at all.

I'm saying this because you are a B/C player interested in Irish music. You can safely ignore the objections that are bound to come from D/G players. :)

[george garside]

Don't try to play too fast before you can. i.e develop tune accuracy at slow speeds  and then gradually practice them with small increments in speed. 

And   practice scales  CGDA  but only one at a time!
george

[Julian S]

Trying to learn too many tunes at the same time. Great to have two or three  to alternate when practicing, and to introduce new ones gradually - I wish I could concentrate on perfecting a few -I get easily distracted whenever I hear a new cd !

J

[george garside]

definitely !
george

[jorden]

Good habits:

First learn to sing/lilt a tune before practicing it (too much or at all) on the melodeon.
Explore all kinds of variations and listen to different recordings.
Experiment with different fingerings, settle on one and stick with it.

[Gary P Chapin]

Don't pick your nose?

Oh, wait ... you meant about the melodeon ... Don't pick your nose while playing melodeon!   

Seriously, folks (I'm here all week) ...

Bad habit: playing through the hard bits of a tune without stopping to concentrate on them. I drive my kids crazy when I come to a tricky bit and then repeat that bit about twenty times to get it under my fingers.

[Tone Dumb Greg]

Don't pick your nose?

Oh, wait ... you meant about the melodeon ... Don't pick your nose while playing melodeon!   

Seriously, folks (I'm here all week) ...

Bad habit: playing through the hard bits of a tune without stopping to concentrate on them. I drive my kids crazy when I come to a tricky bit and then repeat that bit about twenty times to get it under my fingers.

I would have said: Bad habit. Stopping to practice an awkward bit when you're playing through a tune. Don't get into the habit of stopping in the middle of a run through to practice a bit you are falling over on. It's very difficult to break.

Practice the difficult bit as a separate exercise then try and run through again without stopping.

[Barlow]

Fantastic replies. Thank you all.

The one's which resonate with me just now are:
Stiamh: Regarding RH little finger
Your reply is a bit ambigious? Should I use it as much as possible or little as possible? This is a main one for me, as I see players on youtube and in real life who use just three fingers, some just two, and others all four, and they are all top notch players. Now I am at a stage of crossing the rows (playing in D and G, bit of A) I can see the attraction to using the little finger and yet also dumping it - a bit more hard work at first but in the long run easier...?
This is a big stumbling block. I know an excellent player but they 'just play' (brilliantly) and aren't even sure if they ever use their little finger!

george garside: don't try to play too fast before you can.
Yes indeed. I have developed a techniquie whereby the nice twiddly bits I can play fast and the not nice twiddley bits I just slow down. Maybe later I can ask the dancers and other players to slow down a bit when those bars crop up :). I will certainly take your message on board.
Scales. I have put these to one side up to now. Well, the tunes are the important thing aren't they. Except of course I appreciate the importance of scales.Thank you for this one.

Julian S: Too many tunes.
Hah hah! I have built up a repertoire of 20 or more tunes, with as many more waiting in my ABC directory. Not sure if I can play more than a couple right through though. I shall concentrate on a few. But a point here is, when you are new to all this, as I am, it is really exciting coming across all these new tunes, that become nice little earworms. I am going to concentrate on just a few for now. I'm sure I won't stop discovering those little gems though - I hope not. It's got to a stage where I hear a lovely tune and insist I find out what it is straight away in case I lose it. Then go crazy on Youtube and The Session etc.

jorden: try to learn to sing a tune.
I am a dyed in the wool dot reader. But this can be a big handicap. I am trying to learn tunes from heart/by ear, and yes, I think being able to sing/hum them will help massively.
Experiment with different fingerings. A good one. This worries me in that the learning-unlearning process is a difficult one. It has to be done though. I am assuming that this bit gets easier with experience. This ties in with getting to properly use the little finger (er, or not)
Yes, I must practice those difficult bits. I have developed a techniquie whereby I think I can just didddly dee quickly over them, well nobody will notice, will they. But they will. Of course.

Gary Chapin <> Tone Dumb Greg: Regarding practising awkward bits. I can see both points. I think then, practice the awkward bits then play the tune. One or the other. Don't drive the neighbours and family mad with the stop-start.

On a general note. I have found learning the melodeon to be not a curve, but a series of various sized steps. I'll detail what a mean sometime, but it is definitely not a continual smooth curve.

Cheers everyone

[Jesse Smith]

I have only been playing melodeon for about two weeks, so I am mainly trying to avoid bad habits myself. However I've played guitar and piano for over 20 years (albeit with frequent lapses) and some things are universal for learning and instrument. A few things I've identified or learned:

Make sure the keyboard is fairly immobile and doesn't wobble around when you're pushing and pulling the other end of the bellows.

Take the time to learn at least your favorite tunes by heart and be able to play them without relying on the dots. I read music, too, so this is a temptation for me as well, but I think it's important to get at least some of your tunes to that level. Sure, feel free to sight-read the practice tunes that you're just playing as exercise but learn your favorites by heart.

Two types of practice: concentrated work on tricky bars and practicing playing straight through without losing the beat or stopping for mistakes. Both are important.

I think it's best to use the pinky. You have four fingers which cover an octave, why not use them? It's weaker and less dextrous at first but will strengthen with practice.

A tune is not "finished" when you can play the right notes in the right rhythm. Now you can start working on dynamics, rhythmic interest, etc. Compare the robotic tinkling of the ABC player to the same tune played by a top player!

[Stiamh]

Stiamh: Regarding RH little finger  Your reply is a bit ambiguous?

Sorry, the ambiguity was unintentional. Being told to stop using my little finger was by far the most valuable piece of advice I received as a novice - a total game-changer in my case. I suggest you make a determined effort not to use the r-h little finger at all  for the next two years. After that you can relax.

BTW this has been argued about at great length on here and you can find my arguments in favour of amputation by searching the forum, if you can be bothered to. 

[Steve_freereeder]

Stiamh: Regarding RH little finger  Your reply is a bit ambiguous?

Sorry, the ambiguity was unintentional. Being told to stop using my little finger was by far the most valuable piece of advice I received as a novice - a total game-changer in my case. I suggest you make a determined effort not to use the r-h little finger at all  for the next two years. After that you can relax.

BTW this has been argued about at great length on here and you can find my arguments in favour of amputation by searching the forum, if you can be bothered to.

OK (sigh) - for the benefit of the newcomer Barlow (welcome BTW ) I will attempt to summarise the main outcomes of the threads to which Stiamh refers.

If your main genre of playing is going to be Irish traditional music, with a single fluid melodic line and played on a semitone-tuned box, e.g. B/C, some players will advocate not using the RH little finger. The rationale for this seems to be that the little finger is often the weakest and therefore is less easy for it to play its part in said fluid melody, especially when Irish-style ornaments, e.g. rolls, cuts, etc) are employed.

Conversely, for just about all other genres and styles of playing, especially on 4th-apart tuned boxes (D/G, C/F. G/C etc.) and on one-row instruments, the little finger often is very useful, especially when playing RH chords, harmonies and counter-melodies. Anyone who has been to my one-row workshops at Witney, Whitby, Mendlesham, etc. will know what I mean. Well-known players such as Tony Hall and Jeannie Harris are absolute masters of this sort of thing. I hope no-one suggests to them that they have their little finger amputated.

These ideas are recommendations based on the playing and best practice techniques of many excellent melodeonists. But ultimately it is up to the individual to work out for themselves what suits them best for their own physiology, instrument types, playing styles and genres.

Rule One: There are no rules.

[Mike Carney]

Well summarized Steve. Has anyone thought it would be an idea to have the distillation of debates such as these somewhere on a separate thread..? Newbies could  then be steered there. Maybe call it "regular debates" or something more creative.
M

[malcolmbebb]

Frequently Aired Quibbles?

[boxcall]

Fingers and straps.........sounds a bit like a Donner party dish.


Edit to add: I'm Irish and play Irish music using my pinky, I wasn't told not to.
It was not strong at first but is getting better and I can use it for ornamentation here and there.
D/C# so melodeon style push pull

[Gromit]

This worries me in that the learning-unlearning process is a difficult one. It has to be done though. I am assuming that this bit gets easier with experience. This ties in with getting to properly use the little finger (er, or not)

I found that the fingering was an evolving process without much if any unlearning - I stumbled around with it until I found what worked in certain situations and what was better in others. I use the little finger if it makes things easier, Luke Daniels suggested using it in one of his workshops that I attended and as I've used it on other instruments it seemed a good idea.

[mselic]

I once asked up-and-coming box player Emma Corbett, who is a student of Bobby Gardiner's, her opinion on playing with three vs. four fingers.  She told me that Bobby's advice was that "not using the pinky and overusing it are equally bad".  She claims that it is mostly three fingers, but that the little finger gets used in almost every tune, and that not using it results in a little less flow to the music.  I switched from always using four fingers to mostly three fingers and it made a big difference in my playing.  However, I still use the pinky as needed, and feel no shame in doing so  

[Stiamh]

It is always a good idea to listen to other people's opinions - but they are only useful as a point to begin exploring from. They are just theory, until you try them in practice. My recommendation is based on my own experience and on practice - hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice and experimentation. Take it or leave it, dismiss it as illogical, or try it and reject it, it's no bother to me. 

I will say however that everything depends on what you want to achieve. From the outset my goal was to be able to play Irish music with the same proficiency I already had on the fiddle and whistle, or something approaching that. Which means being able to play dance music in a proper style and lead a dance band playing Irish reels and jigs etc. at 116-120 bpm or faster. I assumed that making lots of use of my r-h little finger would be logical for that kind of caper. I am thankful I was given contrary advice at an early stage, and gave it a try despite my misgivings.