I would like to hear and read the opinions of accordion teachers of public music schools and higher music conservatories in the UK, USA, continental Europe, Russia, and other countries and regions.
What one can observe and is public information to all, is the website of music conservatories and accordion teachers at conservatories worldwide.
There is a very large majority of official accordion teachers at conservatories that play CBA accordion. You can check the photos on the web, lots of times their accordion is in the photo/picture. By checking the black and white buttons, if not unicolour, you can see if c-system or b-system.
How many accordion teachers are here on this forum?
It could be helpful to hear the opnions of the teachers... After all, it's these official teachers that are in a position to influence students and starters.
There seems to be a big gap between the teachers and many older amateurs, what can be explained from historical facts (absence of official accordion education and teachers, the dealer-teacher system, lack of international communication in the past, etc).
In my opinion, piano accordion players need not to worry. When one would try to count all (amateurs, beginners, professional) accordion players all over the world, the number of PA players can reach up to 80%, 90%, maybe even higher than 95%. Because of the global character of the piano and piano players (pianoforte, electronic piano keyboards, ...).
The piano can attract some more pianists to the accordion, via the piano accordion, and this is helping the accordion industry a great deal, possible supply of new accordion amateurs/buyers. So piano accordions are very welcome to the accordion scene.
When you read the articles in "Modern Accordion Perspectives", edited by Claudio Jacomucci and the Pigini accordion company, note the photos of the authors, almost everyone of them with a CBA accordion. Many born after 1970, so still young teachers, the new generation.
I play c-system CBA for over 20 years. If I would have been a piano accordion player for more than 20 or 30 years, and be able to play every tune I like on my PA, why change to CBA? Just stick to the piano accordion and be happy.
CBA is more attractive to new starters, having no or little piano playing experience, and to young accordionists who want to go to music conservatory.
If you play the PA, and do want to change to CBA, I talked to people having done that. It took them about 6 months to 1 year to change to CBA, but individual flexibility and talent also come into play.
An accordion teacher, having passed the accordion curriculum at higher music conservatory, is a good guide for this transition process. It's important to correct invalid fingerings as soon as possible. Otherwise the student will learn bad habits, and these habits can be very hard to correct if waiting too long.
Did you know Russian master class CBA teachers still had to correct bad fingering habits of some of our accordion teachers (not only students, but also teachers!), when our teachers followed summer courses and masterclasses from the Russians. Because our first generation of accordion teachers on the continent, learned the accordion by selfstudy or with the 4 finger technique adopted by the French old musette players.
The 4 finger technique (without the thumb, thumb resting behind the keyboard) is a remain of the diatonic accordion, where the thumb is used for stability. Because old diatonic accordions had no shoulder straps or only 1 shoulder strap.
This 4 finger technique was transposed (without thorough evaluation or analysis) to the CBA accordion, even when these CBA accordions had 2 shoulder straps. This is explained in Russian texts about the history of accordion playing.
Every player at Conservatory level uses the 5 finger technique, including the thumb.
So starters need good accordion teachers with international experience, I mean who have studied at national and international music conservatories. The best practices have been compared by these teachers.
If you do only selfstudy , you lack the discipline to compare and to correct yourself. You need a teacher, or better some teachers.
It's too tempting to skip sturdy, dull or difficult music pieces, and only do cherry picking. A good teacher can save you from cherry picking
