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Author Topic: Tips on Developing Coordination  (Read 7988 times)

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Nic Pennsylvania

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Tips on Developing Coordination
« on: June 06, 2020, 03:01:38 PM »

Hi all,

I've been busy spending the last couple of weeks working with my A/D melodeon, and I'm comfortable with my scales and can play a few songs on a single-row. I'm working on getting the left hand into the game, and I've been using Roger Watson's book. Coordination with both hands has been the most challenging aspect so far. I know that, just continuing to do it will go a long way to developing said coordination, but could anyone recommend some exercises that I could work on that may help?
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Dick Rees

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2020, 03:19:02 PM »

Hi all,

I've been busy spending the last couple of weeks working with my A/D melodeon, and I'm comfortable with my scales and can play a few songs on a single-row. I'm working on getting the left hand into the game, and I've been using Roger Watson's book. Coordination with both hands has been the most challenging aspect so far. I know that, just continuing to do it will go a long way to developing said coordination, but could anyone recommend some exercises that I could work on that may help?

Lay the RH over the LH rather than adding the bass/chord.  Practice the LH alone and sing or hum the melody.

I believe in building the house on the foundation rather than adding the foundation later.
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2020, 04:20:53 PM »

Nic, it's one of those things that we've all been through.
Co-ordinating both hands is a nightmare at first but with steady application one day it works!
It really is a headbanger but you'll find practice is the key. Follow your chosen book and it sounds like you have examples to steer you through this early learning stage. Once you've built the link between both hands you will have made a fundamental step towards playing.
It is the best bit of advice my friend said to me when I started 'get both hands going right from the start'.
good luck
Q
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I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

tirpous

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2020, 04:41:41 PM »

Quote
Lay the RH over the LH rather than adding the bass/chord.  Practice the LH alone and sing or hum the melody.

Along the same lines, I like to oom-pah a simple bass/chord pattern and noodle a melody at the same time.  I focus on the pattern and keeping the rythm steady, and the melody is really just hitting buttons (more or less at random) in sync with the accompaniment.  Waltz time is good for that.           
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Little Eggy

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2020, 05:26:32 PM »

Many wise words here.  Looking at my own learning, and remembering my own learning of music at school and my daughters' learning, I'd just add that 'exercises' - IMHO - are nowhere near as motivating as playing tunes right from the start.

I've been playing melodeon for about 4 years and have never done any exercises.  I started with Mally's brilliant book + his two volumes of Morris tunes. Fantastic. Speed the Plough is a great tune - I still like it - and you can play it with basses and chords quite quickly.  I have about 130 tunes now and I could probably perform 30 or 40 'cold' without any music in front of me.

Learning is such a personal thing.  If you love the tunes then it will come, and it gets easier......
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rees

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2020, 06:36:30 PM »

Quote
Lay the RH over the LH rather than adding the bass/chord.  Practice the LH alone and sing or hum the melody.

Along the same lines, I like to oom-pah a simple bass/chord pattern and noodle a melody at the same time.  I focus on the pattern and keeping the rythm steady, and the melody is really just hitting buttons (more or less at random) in sync with the accompaniment.  Waltz time is good for that.         

This.
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richard.fleming

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2020, 07:40:09 PM »


Lay the RH over the LH rather than adding the bass/chord.  Practice the LH alone and sing or hum the melody.

I believe in building the house on the foundation rather than adding the foundation later.

These kinds of metaphor are very treacherous, I think. Is there really any similarity whatever between building a house and playing a tune? Is the bass the foundation? Or just an addition? An extension? You might just as well say build the house first and do the garage later. Just because it makes sense to build a house that way doesn't mean anything about music, does it?
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Lester

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2020, 08:03:44 PM »

Lay the RH over the LH rather than adding the bass/chord.  Practice the LH alone and sing or hum the melody.

I believe in building the house on the foundation rather than adding the foundation later.

These kinds of metaphor are very treacherous, I think. Is there really any similarity whatever between building a house and playing a tune? Is the bass the foundation? Or just an addition? An extension? You might just as well say build the house first and do the garage later. Just because it makes sense to build a house that way doesn't mean anything about music, does it?
Richard, you seem to be keen on downplaying peoples advice, which you are more than entitled to do, but would it not be better if you offered some alternative advice from your viewpoint?

Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2020, 08:12:31 PM »


Lay the RH over the LH rather than adding the bass/chord.  Practice the LH alone and sing or hum the melody.

I believe in building the house on the foundation rather than adding the foundation later.

Good metaphor, Dick. Applies to skills in general.
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Dick Rees

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2020, 08:16:00 PM »


Lay the RH over the LH rather than adding the bass/chord.  Practice the LH alone and sing or hum the melody.

I believe in building the house on the foundation rather than adding the foundation later.

Good metaphor, Dick. Applies to skills in general.

Never metaphor I didn't like...
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Microbot

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #10 on: June 06, 2020, 09:40:56 PM »


"I believe in building the house on the foundation rather than adding the foundation later"

These kinds of metaphor are very treacherous, I think. Is there really any similarity whatever between building a house and playing a tune? Is the bass the foundation? Or just an addition? An extension? You might just as well say build the house first and do the garage later. Just because it makes sense to build a house that way doesn't mean anything about music, does it?



[/quote]

I'm with Richard on this...there are many ways to develop your playing. It is just as easy to argue for a melody-led approach, and glide the basses/chords in after/alongside. It could also be argued that to focus on the bass/chord sequence first can (I stress 'can'... Not 'does') lead to a style where the melodic flow of the melody is dominated by the left hand end.

I don't think Richard was being contrary...just pointing out that metaphors can be misleading.

Whilst I'm not a fan of practising the bass end as a prelude to coordinating a tune, I DO think that analysing the bass and chord options, and deciding whether to use press or draw passages is really valuable. But that's not a matter of coordination...it's analysis of the choices and options you have on a melodeon/button acc.

It can be worth practising a bass/chord passage...but equally, it can be worth mastering a treble melody fluently ...as Eggy says, learning is a personal thing.

Often, it depends on the tune!

Cheers

Mike
« Last Edit: June 06, 2020, 09:45:13 PM by Microbot »
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folkloristmark

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2020, 10:47:37 PM »

All you need is love love is all you need
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Mark Taylor
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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2020, 11:03:31 PM »

I've found there are quite a few stages of being able to coordinate right/left hands, and with examination, you'll be able to kinda figure out which sequences of actions throw you off as you go along.

The best exercises are likely to be things you want to succeed at, so challenging yourself with them has a direct benefit & you have good context for it. For me, this was just taking the parts of tunes that I wasn't able to play properly, thinking about the specific sequence of actions I needed to do and slowly just drilling that a little bit, speeding up a bit, sleeping on it and making sure to come back the next day. After having Winster Gallop sorted, I think I still spent like a week just on Cock of the North.
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boxcall

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2020, 11:11:43 PM »

All you need is love love is all you need
Or a big jack and some steel - build the house and slide the foundation under it ;)
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playandteach

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #14 on: June 06, 2020, 11:48:22 PM »

Firstly let me start the circle by saying that all the advice is correct for somebody. And finish it by saying that the trick is to find the advice that works for any individual.
I am now a teacher, though it still hurts to say that, because I was first and foremost a player. I was good at that (not on melodeon), whereas I am - after 15 years only in a classroom - still improving as a teacher.
Dick is a superior melodeon player to me, and gives much good advice.
I think the only real solution is to work with the OP in an ongoing way. Which is why we link up teachers with players. We want to have the opportunity to tweak  our comments to the partial development and progress evidence of the student. Only when we have seen what they don't grasp can we promote a second wave of advice.
So any forum single comment is outdated before the ink has dried.
I'm spending most of my time at the moment in creating videos to replace classroom teaching. An hour's lesson can take me 8 hours to prepare as a video because I haven't got the luxury of seeing individual responses to any comment and have to second guess reactions.
I know Eggy (time to drop the Little, as you are a fully fledged player now) has an affinity to playing tunes not exercises. I know that Steve Davis - snooker player - would happily send the white ball up and down the table for hours, watching for changes in trajectory depending on which direction the ball was running against the nap.
Most of us are somewhere in the middle.
Any skill though is only improved if we are serious about focusing on it.
So... coordination has several steps to transition through. Playing each part separately of course. Then I might advise playing each part whilst holding a conversation. To make sure that it is truly automatic. Then I could suggest getting across the threshold with a tiny passage, can you get across the barline with the upbeat in the right hand, finding the downbeat with both hands...
and after much practice, can you vary the length of the bass notes and liaison between note lengths. The subtleties of note length (in the left hand) and whether they overlap is the final skill.
All this has been done brilliantly in the Milleret Pignol books, by the way.
I bet you all wish I'd stayed away.
And finally bravo to Eggy for such a great improvement over the last year.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2020, 10:52:38 AM by playandteach »
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MácA

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #15 on: June 07, 2020, 12:43:13 AM »

A very famous and virtuouso accordion player by the name of Peter Browne used to have a absolutely top tier book for the button accordion once upon a time, it may be worth the time looking into it. And  Learning approaches is predicated on the type of music you’re going to be playing and even the tuning of your accordion can dictate how it will pan out. Personally speaking, ITM is my grounding, having been playing B/C & C#/D for nearly 16 years here’s some crucial coordination tips you may want to look into.

Bellow movement - mastering the bellows goes before mastering the bass or treble sides, you need to learn the flow of the tunes to maintain optimal bellow positions. Too much extension and you’ll over extended yourself and lose some power, too little air and you run dry during the tune. After you’ve become proficient with the bellow air management you can go a step further and use the bellow movement to add emphasis for specific tune types, accentuating them and enhancing them.

Treble side - investigate the common keys you’ll be playing. Learn their relative minor and various modes off by heart. Finger position is also crucial, you have four fingers on your hand, make thorough use of all them, don’t not neglect the pinky! A crucial tip I learned from many All-Ireland accordion champions is a single finger should not move than two buttons if at all possible if the tunes melody allows. This helps prevent choppiness of slow finger movement, makes the tune more enjoyable for listeners, and helps set good habits for more advanced tunes in the future.

Bass side - tailor your bass playing to your music, figure out your chords, basses and whether they’re on the push/pull. IMHO if you have a solid grounding and become proficient with the treble side, the bass side should naturally work it’s way it. I’ve seen many a time people trying to use the left side too quickly and overworking themselves, negatively impacting their right side movements.
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Stiamh

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #16 on: June 07, 2020, 01:01:03 AM »

A very famous and virtuouso accordion player by the name of Peter Browne used to have a absolutely top tier book for the button accordion once upon a time, it may be worth the time looking into it. And  Learning approaches is predicated on the type of music you’re going to be playing and even the tuning of your accordion can dictate how it will pan out.

MácA - are you thinking of Peter Browne's DVD? I have it somewhere but have not watched it for a decade at least. If that is what you are referring to, I don't think it will be of much interest to the majority of members of this forum, who are not playing semitone boxes, or wanting to do the kind of stuff Peter Browne does.

As you say, the type of music you are wanting to play and the tuning of the box makes a big difference. If I recall correctly, Peter Browne does not discuss playing the basses in his DVD, which I gather is what the OP here is interested in learning. And btw (again if I recall correctly), PB demonstrates very complex ornamentation and syncopation techniques, which he executes at lightning speed, without ever using his little finger.   :|glug

I concur with all the other points you make - For people wanting to play Irish music on a semitone box. And while I would tell my students to concentrate on the treble side first and add basses later,  I don't think may fourth-apart players and teachers on here would support that approach. (Slight understatement!)

Dennis Steckley

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #17 on: June 07, 2020, 03:53:39 AM »

So tell us more about this Peter Browne and his book.  Other than your post and one response to it, the name does not show up on Melodeon.net at all.

Dennis S.
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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2020, 08:17:03 AM »

Reading through the recent posts, Stiamh said what I was thinking- semi tone boxes require a different approach to forth apart boxes and the OP has a fourth apart AD.
Q
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Thrupenny Bit

I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

richard.fleming

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Re: Tips on Developing Coordination
« Reply #19 on: June 07, 2020, 09:15:47 AM »

Lay the RH over the LH rather than adding the bass/chord.  Practice the LH alone and sing or hum the melody.

I believe in building the house on the foundation rather than adding the foundation later.

These kinds of metaphor are very treacherous, I think. Is there really any similarity whatever between building a house and playing a tune? Is the bass the foundation? Or just an addition? An extension? You might just as well say build the house first and do the garage later. Just because it makes sense to build a house that way doesn't mean anything about music, does it?
Richard, you seem to be keen on downplaying peoples advice, which you are more than entitled to do, but would it not be better if you offered some alternative advice from your viewpoint?
My point was a bit more abstract than that - I was merely saying that finding a metaphor proves nothing.There's no useful comparison to be made between housebuilding and playing the melodeon.
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