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B System Help

mhseeger73

mhseeger73

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What are some good method books for 3 row B system accordions? Right now, as I type, I have NO accordion knowledge! I know of "The Complete Accordion Method" book, but I have read that it is for C system and Piano accordions. If you can help me, I would appreciate it!
 
I wish I was more help: there are several books for C-system and for piano, but most of the books for B-system are in Russian, and most of the books for 3-row B system are very old (70s and before).

The good news, such as it is, is there isn't much text in the books - learning the chord and note names and a handful of words (like "scale" and "thumb") is enough to make a Russian book usable, even if you speak no Russian.

Sometimes you can find Youtubes of people playing the songs out of the C-system or piano books on a B-system instrument so you can get ideas for fingering. Somebody did all 10 books of Palmer-Hughes a while back that way. (But again, on 5 rows, and using the thumb rather than the old 3½-fingered Russian 3 row style.)

There are several of us lost souls self-teaching the B system in North America, and I am keeping notes on my trials and errors, with a view to someday putting out a B system method in English... but it's not within a year of being ready.
 
mhseeger73 said:
What are some good method books for 3 row B system accordions? Right now, as I type, I have NO accordion knowledge! I know of "The Complete Accordion Method" book, but I have read that it is for C system and Piano accordions. If you can help me, I would appreciate it!
Click to expand...

I'm a beginner musician learning to handle the B griff and Stradella - the Stradella is the same as on C griff and Piano key board instruments and really, since the keyboard on a CBA is so logical, I find that fingering comes quite natural to me without specific teaching material.
I am using the Galleano book for my lessons since it seems to teach the basics quite well and, as I go through the exercises, I adapt whatever fingering suits the piece of music and I can rattle through scales quite speedily once mastered.
Do you already have an accordion? for if you are setting out to buy one, I would suggest that finding a 4 or 5 row unit might make life a bit easier than a 3 row only keyboard - the extra rows do make a difference once you get beyond very basic tunes.
 
Siegmund said:
There are several of us lost souls self-teaching the B system in North America, and I am keeping notes on my trials and errors, with a view to someday putting out a B system method in English... but it's not within a year of being ready.
Click to expand...
Not only in North America, either!
I live in a CBA desert "down under" and seem to be getting along reasonably well without material writtem specifically for the B griff: I tend to noodle around a lot and find that things fall to hand quite quickly when my ears complain about the missed notes ;)
 
Siegmund said:
I wish I was more help: there are several books for C-system and for piano, but most of the books for B-system are in Russian, and most of the books for 3-row B system are very old (70s and before).

The good news, such as it is, is there isn't much text in the books - learning the chord and note names and a handful of words (like "scale" and "thumb") is enough to make a Russian book usable, even if you speak no Russian.

Sometimes you can find Youtubes of people playing the songs out of the C-system or piano books on a B-system instrument so you can get ideas for fingering. Somebody did all 10 books of Palmer-Hughes a while back that way. (But again, on 5 rows, and using the thumb rather than the old 3½-fingered Russian 3 row style.)

There are several of us lost souls self-teaching the B system in North America, and I am keeping notes on my trials and errors, with a view to someday putting out a B system method in English... but it's not within a year of being ready.
Click to expand...
What are some of those russian books names? I'm trying to learn russian and I think i might be able to read 1-5 of those words in there.
 
mhseeger73 said:
What are some of those russian books names? I'm trying to learn russian and I think i might be able to read 1-5 of those words in there.
Click to expand...
mhseeger73 said:
What are some good method books for 3 row B system accordions? Right now, as I type, I have NO accordion knowledge! I know of "The Complete Accordion Method" book, but I have read that it is for C system and Piano accordions. If you can help me, I would appreciate it!
Click to expand...
I have used the following books from accordionlife.com (12$ download) _ The Serbian Accordion Method Book One by Dr. Zoran Rakić. in english and book 2 in russian. They refer to the B system or piano accordion.
 
First of all, welcome to the wonderful world of accordion! I started on B-system ~6 months ago and will share what I know.

Search “bayan” on ruslania.com and you can find lots of books of etudes and arrangements for bayan (basically, Russian B-system). I picked up Modern School of Button Accordion and Music Folder for Bayan (there are 3 such books, only linked book 1 but I purchased all 3). The books there are mostly in Russian or Ukrainian, which I do not speak or read at all, but the translate app on my iPhone does a decent job of deciphering into English for me. I open the app, point my camera at the page I want to translate, and presto.

There is also a shop in Philadelphia, PA, USA called Liberty Bellows that sells all kinds of books on their website. These include the Galliano method book (which is for C-system but I picked it up anyway and it’s still a great resource), as well as accordion-specific arrangements of all kinds of music at various levels of difficulty.

You may also want to find a teacher. I have been taking weekly lessons over webcam with Nina Tritenichenko for a few months and I have enjoyed the experience. She has tons of sheet music for B-system, both Stradella and free bass. If you’re not interested in lessons and want to go the autodidact route, more power to you. She has a bunch of instructional videos on her YouTube channel (tritenina) that may help you get started.

Hope that helps. Wishing you luck on your accordion journey!
 
If you want specifically 3 rows, the newest 3-row book I know of is Agofonov's "Button-Accordion Self-Instructor" (Samoutsitel igry na bayane) from 1998. Before that, Basurmanov's in 1989.

If I had a choice, I would use a newer 5-row book like Semenov's. You will find that even in a 5-row book, something like 90% of the notes get played on the front rows at least until you get to playing two notes at once a lot.

The Russians have a rather flexible notion of copyright, especially for works written in the Soviet times. A lot of their books are lurking as free downloads on Russian-language sites.
 
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