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BS marketing makes me mad.

JerryPH

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It's rare I post on facebook... but when I see this marketing ad put out by this guy that basically says "buy my PDF, go through it front to back and you will be able to play LITERALLY ANYTHING with ease and the accordion will have no secrets for you"... I instantly have this deep seated need to scream BULLSHIT... and this in a time where I feel anyone that wants to create material for my beloved accordion in it's time of need is supposed to be a good thing.

Was I wrong to do that??
 
Well, that guy can always say "you did it wrong". Like, "why didn't you press all those keys in a fast sequence like I told you to? Works when I do that."

Housemate here sometimes buy horsing magazines, and they always have some frontpage stuff like "from scaredybat to reliable pal in 4 easy lessons" or similar. I mean, there may be some valuable advice or not in there, but the suggestively mentioned time scales are just absurd.

Maybe people want to get lied to in order to feel duped by the supergifted/superrich and thus be associated with them. I mean, that's how you get the votes for "taxcuts for the superrich": you obviously need a lot of non-qualifying people to vote for that.

Yes, it annoys me too. But apparently it sells.
 
I sent of to Charles Atlas dynamic tension muscle 💪 course once....
My stamped addresses envelope came back with a sheet of paper in it....I shook it again and again and not one muscle came out....
Ripped off....learnt my lesson then
 
I sent of to Charles Atlas dynamic tension muscle 💪 course once....
My stamped addresses envelope came back with a sheet of paper in it....I shook it again and again and not one muscle came out....
Ripped off....learnt my lesson then
You gave up too soon. Shake for a few weeks and the muscles come out.
 
hey it all started with the original double breasted tone chamber that
was featured in the Scandalli Factory marketing advertizing about a year after
the Scandalli/Farfisa factories were shuttered/abandoned/left to rot

accordion vapor has steadily increased ever since
 
It's rare I post on facebook... but when I see this marketing ad put out by this guy that basically says "buy my PDF, go through it front to back and you will be able to play LITERALLY ANYTHING with ease and the accordion will have no secrets for you"... I instantly have this deep seated need to scream BULLSHIT... and this in a time where I feel anyone that wants to create material for my beloved accordion in it's time of need is supposed to be a good thing.

Was I wrong to do that??
You're right. There are no shortcuts to learning the accordion. It simply takes thousands of hours - and unfortunately natural rhythm and talent are required to take you to the next level, whatever that may be!

I have a friend that is an accomplished pianist. I mean ACCOMPLISHED. Accordion was a nightmare for him. Just the vertical keyboard alone was difficult for him. The left hand did not come naturally but what he was most surprised about was the phrasing and nuances that proper bellow use produced. That alone takes years.

A PDF? Nah...not going to happen.
 
what he was most surprised about was the phrasing and nuances that proper bellow use produced. That alone takes years.

I'm feeling this at the moment. For the last five or so years I've played double bass in a big band, but it stopped being fun, so I've changed to piano and a teenager is stepping in to the bass seat. While he learns the parts I was asked to help out playing the double bass part on piano, but it is hard to get the right feel. So much of how I played bass was based around the instrument.
 
I'm feeling this at the moment. For the last five or so years I've played double bass in a big band, but it stopped being fun, so I've changed to piano and a teenager is stepping in to the bass seat. While he learns the parts I was asked to help out playing the double bass part on piano, but it is hard to get the right feel. So much of how I played bass was based around the instrument.
Hah! I took guitar lessons for six months. At the end of six months the instructor told me this instrument probably wasn't for me. I couldn't play a freaking F chord! I quit and sheepishly caressed my accordion!
 
Hah! I took guitar lessons for six months. At the end of six months the instructor told me this instrument probably wasn't for me. I couldn't play a freaking F chord! I quit and sheepishly caressed my accordion!

Likewise, I tried to learn 6-string guitar as a teenager, and tried again during covid and I just couldn't get the chord shapes. Then a friend suggested I try mandocello which I'd never heard of, but I acquired one and just loved it from day one.
 
Hah! I took guitar lessons for six months. At the end of six months the instructor told me this instrument probably wasn't for me. I couldn't play a freaking F chord! I quit and sheepishly caressed my accordion!
To be fair: the "freaking F chord" is one of the hardest to play, and it's quite harder to play on a beginner's guitar than on a guitar only a seasoned player would afford because the latter has quite more precise fret clearance, also known as "light action". It establishes itself differently in different instruments, but the lighter action of a good instrument is also something an accordion exhibits.
 
To be fair: the "freaking F chord" is one of the hardest to play, and it's quite harder to play on a beginner's guitar than on a guitar only a seasoned player would afford because the latter has quite more precise fret clearance, also known as "light action". It establishes itself differently in different instruments, but the lighter action of a good instrument is also something an accordion exhibits.
Also to be fair there’s a lot of intermediate steps for guitars between the cheapest one and the unobtainable. Some of the more modest priced options can be made to play plenty easy by just getting a relatively inexpensive setup done and not using the heaviest string gauge they sell.
 
To be fair: the "freaking F chord" is one of the hardest to play, and it's quite harder to play on a beginner's guitar than on a guitar only a seasoned player would afford because the latter has quite more precise fret clearance, also known as "light action". It establishes itself differently in different instruments, but the lighter action of a good instrument is also something an accordion exhibits.
This is hilarious! I did not know that. Of course I was playing on a $39 special. No wonder. Still, I think I severely lacked aptitude for guitar.
 
I'm feeling this at the moment. For the last five or so years I've played double bass in a big band, but it stopped being fun, so I've changed to piano and a teenager is stepping in to the bass seat. While he learns the parts I was asked to help out playing the double bass part on piano, but it is hard to get the right feel. So much of how I played bass was based around the instrument.
It doesn't even have to be a radically different instrument to cause trouble. For many years my main instrument (I play in several ensembles and orchestras) is the bass accordion. Some accordion players may think that it's just an accordion with only a treble side and with very low notes. But actually when an accordion player tries the bass accordion for the first time everything comes out wrong: the lower notes are all noticeably too late, there is no "umph" in the notes when needed, Pizzicato doesn't sound right, and bellow-shake is a disaster. I don't know how they do it but on a bass accordion you can also play loud low notes without the frequency going down (not even on push), unlike with almost all accordions. It takes years of practice to make a bass accordion sound right. Ensembles or orchestras often give the bass accordion to one of the accordion players and think that the position is then filled (provided the player can even read the bass clef). Sadly the bass part then sounds rubbish.
 
I don't know how they do it but on a bass accordion you can also play loud low notes without the frequency going down (not even on push), unlike with almost all accordions.
I am not sure this is imperative. It may help that bass accordions use longer reeds, but pitch on accordions is much more stable than on blues harps, and the reason is reed profile: as more of the reed is engaged (and the effective reed length gets longer), the additional parts are thicker and stiffer, resulting in the same frequency in spite of larger engagement. Reed profiles of course are for a specific frequency, and frequency constancy changes with tuning and particularly with added weights. Added weights also limit the effectiveness of corrective profiles, so longer reeds with smaller weights may be easier to keep reigned in.
 
is "iron man" still the go-to song for new wannabe guitar players
picking up an ax for the first time ?

we don' need no steenkin' chords at all man !
 
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