Embark on Your Musical Journey: A Beginner's Guide to Playing the Accordion

The accordion, with its rich history and distinctive sound, offers a gateway to a world of musical expression. Whether you aspire to play folk songs, waltzes, bluegrass, or polka, this comprehensive guide will equip you with the foundational knowledge and skills to begin your accordion journey.

Getting Started: Essential Information for Beginners

Think that playing the accordion requires extensive knowledge of musical notation? It actually doesn't.Before diving into playing, it's crucial to understand the instrument itself. Here's what you need to know:

Accordion Types: Piano Accordions

There are a variety of different accordions out there, but some are more well-suited for beginners than others. Piano accordions are the most popular kind, with many of the capabilities of a regular piano (playing melodies, chords, and basslines) in a highly portable size. They have between 25 and 45 piano-style treble keys on the right hand. On the left, they are equipped with a button keyboard with some buttons that play bass notes and some where a single button plays a three-note chord.

Key Components of an Accordion

Melody Keys: Located on the right-hand side, these keys or buttons are used to play melodies.
Bass Buttons: Found on the left-hand side, these buttons provide bass notes and chords, creating a harmonic foundation for your music.
Bellows: The accordion's "lungs," the bellows are expanded and contracted to create airflow, which vibrates the reeds and produces sound.
Register Switches: These buttons or tabs alter the tone of the accordion, offering a range of sonic textures. There are usually register switches on the treble side for the piano keyboard and a second set for the bass buttons.
Air Valve: This valve allows air to escape the bellows without producing sound.
Right-Hand Strap: This strap secures the accordion to your chest, allowing for comfortable and controlled playing.

Choosing the Right Accordion

Teens and adults should start with a 48 bass accordion. The 48 bass Piano Accordion is very lightweight, and easy to use and handle.

Mastering the Basics: Posture, Hand Placement, and Bellows Control

The accordion is relatively large and requires a little bit of familiarity when holding it. Being able to maintain proper balance is crucial. The more evenly balanced you manage to keep the accordion's weight, the better you'll be able to play because of the added control.

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Proper Posture and Positioning

Some people prefer to stand while playing and others like to sit with their instrument.

Securing the Accordion: Slip your left arm under the strap of the instrument. You'll want to hold it as if you were putting on a backpack on your chest. An additional strap can be very useful. Note that if the back strap is too far down it alleviates weight from the shoulders, making the straps loose on top. The buckles can be found on the top and bottom of the instrument.
Right-Hand Placement: Don't bend your right wrist while keeping your elbow close to your side.
Left-Hand Placement: Slip your left hand through the strap that lies below the bass button board.You'll be able to curl your fingers up and over the bass buttons.

Bellows Technique

Creating Sound: Press the button down softly, and pull your instrument with your left arm.
Bass Button Functionality: No matter how many bass buttons your accordion has, you'll soon notice that they produce both bass notes and chords. Accordion chord buttons on the left side play three note chords, or "vamps", automatically.
Duration: Keep the bass buttons pressed for only a short time. Imagine they were on fire, and take your finger off quickly.
Developing Muscle Memory: Try not to look at where your bass fingers are going, because you cannot see your bass fingers if you are positioned properly. For this reason, no professional accordionists look at their bass hand. Learn to feel where the buttons are using your ear to tell you if you are on the right button. This button is usually a bit buried or recessed, but can be found on the top rows of buttons 8,12, 16, 24, 36 of all bass instruments. If your accordion is a larger model, then look for the note C in the second row.

Exploring the Bass Buttons

Focus on the Basics: For now, your only concern should be getting comfortable with your instrument's bass buttons. Regardless of how many bass columns your accordion has, you'll only be looking at the first two or three columns. If you have a small beginner accordion, there may be only one column of bass buttons and then columns of chord buttons. In contrast, a big 120 bass accordion has two columns of bass buttons and four chord columns.
Understanding the Layout: If you have a 120 bass instrument, the bass column second from the front is called the "fundamental bass"; it is your main bass column.
Playing Simple Accompaniments: Then, tuck your thumb under your index finger and push on the button right beside the bass note C, the C Major chord. The beat for the Waltz goes 1, 2, 3--1, 2, 3. This sounds like "oom-pah-pah". Play the C note on the first beat, and push the button right beside the C (the C Major chord button) on the second and third beats. The bass button below is F. The bass button above the C is G. With the F, you play the bass note F and the F Major chord button. Usually, each chord is repeated several times before changing. This is how you can generate a simple accompaniment, or vamp. Now try to pull the bellows in as you alternately press the buttons you just learned.
Right Hand Introduction: The note C (or Do) is the white key beside and above the two black notes. This keyboard exercise has a chord, and you can leave your fingers on the keyboard. Rhythmic time-keeping is one of the key roles of the accordion. Play a C bass note alternating with a C Major bass button chord until it is smooth and easy. Then add in a right-hand C Major chord (the white notes C, E and G). Coordination of both hands might seem a little difficult at first, so it's important that you become very familiar with the necessary movements.

Practice and Skill Development

It's a combination of a physical skill and a mental skill. Your fingers need to physically move over the keys, pump the bellows, and switch between chords, while your brain has to understand - or better yet, to know - how to bring out the melody in a musical way, which chords to switch between, and how to transfer what you hear in your head to your fingers.It's a lot to handle!!But like any skill, there is a method to becoming proficient in both the physical aspect and the mental aspect of playing the accordion. Whether you are a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner, the accordion practice method I've outlined below works.In the short term (for beginner accordion players) it teaches you the foundation of the Stradella bass system, how to switch between major and minor chords, and between chords. For your right hand, it teaches you hand positioning, how to use the correct fingering for scales, triads, and arpeggios. It also introduces ear-training exercises, which builds the connection between what you hear and what you are able to play. In the longer term, this practice method allows you to continue building your accordion skills. This same methodology - just 15 minutes several times a week - can be used to train intermediate and advanced accordion skills.

Structuring Your Practice Sessions

As with any foundational lesson, make sure you are going through this practice slowly, with the correct fingering and posture. Aim for consistent tempo (speed) and volume in your scales, triads, arpeggios, and chord jumps.

Split your 15 minute accordion practice into:

Right Hand Techniques (6 minutes)
- Scales
- Triads
- Arpeggios
- Ear training exercises
Left Hand Techniques (4 minutes)
- Incremental chord jumps
- Chord jumps for a specific song you are working on
Song Practice (5 minutes)
- Play through a passage of a song
- Memorize a line or passage of a song

Practice Tips for Beginners

If you are beginner accordion player, do this practice in the key of C major. Use the suggested fingering options before venturing out on your own fingering options. When you feel comfortable, switch to a different key â G Major, for example, or a minor key like A Minor.

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The Power of Chord Voicings

Figuring out songs "by ear" - in other words, being able to play along to songs as soon as you hear them - is really quite simple. The secret is that the melody of the song is almost always revealed in the song's chords. Meaning, if the song is written in the key of C major, the melody will contain the C major scale. But more than that, if the chord after a C major is A minor (like in Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah), then the notes of the melody will be the three notes of the A minor chord. When the song goes to the E major chord, the notes in the melody will likely be the notes making up the E major chord - E, G#, or B. What this means is that being able to play chords with your right hand is fundamental to being able to play music well. And the point of the 15 minutes of practice - those triads & arpeggios - is to get your hand into common chord "shapes", so that when you see that E major chord in the sheet music, your fingers automatically fall into that position, and the melody naturally comes out. Your fingers are already positioned on the notes - you just have to decide which notes to press, and how to make them musical.

The best part is that you don't have to learn all the chords and notes at once. If the song you are playing contains three or four chords (G, C, D, and E minor), then those are the chords you will practice. And what you'll start to see is that as you practice, you'll find the same chord "shapes" appearing over and over again. Your hand begins to assume "the position" of that chord and its voicing.

Resources for Learning

Beginning with the fundamentals, you will learn about the parts of the accordion, buying an accordion, preparing the instrument for use, and getting acquainted with standard musical notation. You will then learn to use your left and right hands in the proper ways, playing different notes, chords, and songs, all while continuing to increase your knowledge of reading and understanding standard musical notation. You will learn to play in an array of musical styles, including folk songs, Waltzes, Bluegrass, Polka, and more. You will also learn how to play with a group of other musicians. Upon completion of the book, you will be able to play the accordion in a variety of musical styles, read and understand music, improvise, and be ready to play in a band. Online media includes video lessons, MP3s, and TNT 2 software for the most effective practice. The book features the following resources for reference during and after your lessons: * Complete button reference chart * Informative section on MIDI accordions * Practice tips * An explanation on basic maintenance and repair The accompanying video provides a helpful reference for play-along and practice. The included TNT 2 software allows you to isolate the audio tracks, transpose, loop, and slow down or speed up the audio for the most effective practice.

Accordion Course Structure

We are learning to play by ear and not a tutorial on how to play like others. You are going to develop your own method of playing by ear through this course that was structured to start from the beginning. If you already know some accordion or music, no problem. I am sure you can find out some useful informations on how to play by ear or improvise. We are going in this can from a super beginner level, to an advanced level!Thereâs more than 100 lectures. What are we going to do through all of those?The short way of explaining it is: We will learn some basic information, use it to play new pop songs and then use all of this to play by ear. After playing by ear we are going to make it sound fancier by adding some beautiful notes then put a beat to the song that we will form. All of that in our accordion:

It's divided into 15 sections:

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Introduction: We'll start by learning the position of holding the accordion, the basic rules while we are playing it, how this instrument works and how to not damage it. Then I will how the course is structured (Sections, lectures and Challenges)
Section 1: Skilling with the right hand: In this section we'll locate the right hand notes(white + black keys), then we will learn some special keys names. We'll look into double sharps and flats to understand more how the right hand keyboard works. And surely end it with the BBTC(Big brain Test Challenge) to test your knowledge so you can move to the next section.
Section 2: Scales in accordion music: First thing, we'll introduce the scale and know there importance in music. We'll study the how to count steps in music, and learn the difference between Major and minor scales. Why? We'll need these informations in the play by ear part. Then we'll learn the piano octave to make our music better + BBTC.
Section 3: Right hand intervals: This section introduce us to a new world: The Intervals. I will teach you what are intervals, how to form them in a way that will help us to develop our musical ear. We'll end the right hand chapter with a lecture full of songs, so you can discover how to play them in order to enjoy the fun of learning accordion. Don't forget the BBTC ;)
Section 4: Bass notes-Root Notes Row: We'll move on to the left hand, understanding the Bass Notes Function, then learning how to play them in a correct way, also how to play scales in the left hand. The best part of this section, is that we'll start mixing our songs with the left hand, so they will sound better with this good accompaniement.
Section 5: Bass notes-Major Chord Row: In this section, we'll learn how to form the major chord, then locating it in the left hand ( 1 button ) to mix it with our songs like Perfect- Ed Sheeran, Easy On Me- Adele. At the end of this section, I will teach you some of my best methods that I've learn through the time : The Pattern 4-3-2-3
Section 6: Bass notes-Minor chords: This section will let us discover a new row in the left hand called the minor row: How to build them, locating them, playing them, mix them with our music and don't forget my method in the minor chords: The Pattern 4-2-3-2. We'll play some popular songs like Bella Ciao…
Section 7: Inversions: We'll learn what are inversions, why we use them, and how to form them. We'll study many types of them and put them into our music. Then after the BBTC, there's a lecture full songs that we'll play them on the accordion!
Section 8: The 7th Chords: I'll introduce to you the different types of 7th Chords: Major, minor, dominant…Then we will learn my special pattern(4-2-3-2)that will help us in many types of songs. We'll also discover the inversions of the 7th Chords + Practicing some popular songs that are related to this type of Chord
Section 9: Bass Notes- The Counter Bass: In This Section, we'll learn about the last row of accordion left hand: The Counter Bass + I will teach you how it will faciliate out work while music with songs, scales…
Section 10: The Chords Progression: Here, things are getting more advanced, we'll start learning how to discover the Chords of a song, by learning first thing the scale degrees of the chords, then discovering the relative Major and minor. We'll also study together some of the rules and methods that we usually use in the chords progression. This section will prepare us to the play by ear part.
Section 11: Play By Ear- Understand The Basic: The part that we have been waiting for from the beginning of our course! We'll discover the specific technic to play by ear (know the song, major or minor, know the key…). This Section will be a bridge that will take us from intermediate to professional, because we'll start learning pro methods in music! Don't worry, if you have stick to every lecture before, it will be easy for you to understand what we will do! But If not, you will find it hard to start from the middle of the road
Section 12: Play by Ear- Master The Chords: My favorite section of this course, we will directly learn the way to know every chord of any song that we hear, that I will teach you how to transpose music to another level(if you're playing with someone, or singing and your voice is not comfortable with the key). We'll also play a lot of songs so we can enjoy the taste of music
Section 13: Making Our Music Better: In this section, I will introduce you some small tricks in music ( Beautiful Notes that will make our music better) such as the passing tones, the trill, the grupetto, appogiatura….We will also learn how to divide the chords into notes that we'll play them in form of a beat to the song that we'll form
Section 14: Understand Sheet Music: Don't worry, it's not the annoying part of music : Reading notes on the staff with bla blaWe can't finish a music course and we don't know basic of the staff, and that's what I'm going to teach you in this section
Section 15: Bonus Section- Adding Power To Our Music: The Funniest section in this course, because you, the professional accordionist, will be mixing beats and adding power to the song that you've formed all over the course. I will teach you many types of beat, and how to add them in a correct way to our music

Button Accordion Instructions

This lesson is for Full Size Accordions. Before starting to play read the button accordion instructions first. symbols are utilized will enhance your ability to play our free accordion music lesson correctly. If you are a button accordion beginner we suggest you start at the scales and work your way to the accordion tunes.

Taking Care of Your Button Accordion

the bellows. Always store your button accordion in a dry place. such as direct sunlight. bellows might be affected. Do all start on the third button. where the lower scales all start on the second button. the third and usually there is no problem. Bass accompaniment is only covered in Uncle Billy's Manual "LEARNIN' THE BUTTON ACCORDION, THE COMPLETE WANNABES MANUAL". (PUSH) making the air flow over the different size reeds inside the instrument. together you will find that the accordion will produce two notes. right side of a single row accordion, 21 on a double row accordion and 31 on a triple row accordion. is number 1. Push your left hand through the accordion strap. button and left fingers over the bass buttons you want to play. through the loop and rest it on the side of the accordion button board. slow down your playing ability. Place your right index finger on the number 3 button. on the number 4, 5 and 6 buttons. scales. Try adding a shoulder strap and placing your thumb on the side of the accordion button board. by having the thumb locked into the strap. Numbers written like this 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Pull the bellows (OUT) (< >) apart. accordion bellows just to the left of your thigh. of the bellows and lessen the control of the instrument.

Exercises

holding the button accordion you can proceed with some exercises. Open the bellows. notes. another will will produce the notes Re, Fa, La and Ti notes. Now let's try a scale exercise. the bellows. Remembering the notations let's play the lower scales, buttons 3 to 6. La Pull 5, Ti Pull 6 Do Push 6Play the Scales from buttons 3 to 6 then continue playing back from 6 to 3. mistake then you are ready to play the nursery rhymes. With a lot of IN notes in this tune you may find that the accordion bellows is running out of air.

Maintaining Your Accordion

Keep it in a cool place and never, never in sunlight or near high heat sources. There is a waxy substance for every key stop internally. Several places online will play a specific note to aid in tuning; match the note played with that on your accordion. In a piano accordion, the bass buttons are organised according to the circle of fifths - so for example, the button above C is G (a fifth higher), and the next one is D (another fifth higher). The button below C is F (a fifth lower). On each horizontal row, you have several different variations of the same chord (except for the first column). For example, on the C row, the second button is a plain C note, the third is a major C chord, the fourth is a minor C chord, the fifth is a dominant 7 C chord, and the sixth is a diminished 7 C chord. It goes this way for all rows. Always keep your accordion stored upright (sitting on the bass buttons) whether it's in a case or not. Keep it in moderate temperatures.

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