Clementi Sonatina - First movement

[breezybellows]

Made a lot of progress on this one. I thought I was playing it decent enough to warrant external microphones. @JerryPH @dak tagging you to show that I'm not always lazy.

 

[JerryPH]

Nice… just curious, who ever said you were lazy?

 

[breezybellows]

Nice… just curious, who ever said you were lazy?

That's my own assessment. I'm selectively lazy. Particularly reluctant to set up recording equipment.

 

[JerryPH]

Meh… for that, to each their own. Do what makes you happy, right?

 

[dak]

Made a lot of progress on this one. I thought I was playing it decent enough to warrant external microphones. @JerryPH @dak tagging you to show that I'm not always lazy.

I relistened again, and the recording quality is pretty good. Now there is one thing that really caught my attention, and it is likely tricky to work on: the bass often is lagging behind. That is particularly noticeable with short isolated staccato notes. Of course that is partly in the nature of low reeds and takes a lot of practice to counteract (essentially tone production must be automated to a degree where you can focus your timing on the onset of the notes rather than on the action of your fingers). And to make that more complicated, this is specific to acoustic accordions, different from instrument to instrument, and not similarly a problem with digital accordions.

 

[breezybellows]

I relistened again, and the recording quality is pretty good. Now there is one thing that really caught my attention, and it is likely tricky to work on: the bass often is lagging behind. That is particularly noticeable with short isolated staccato notes. Of course that is partly in the nature of low reeds and takes a lot of practice to counteract (essentially tone production must be automated to a degree where you can focus your timing on the onset of the notes rather than on the action of your fingers). And to make that more complicated, this is specific to acoustic accordions, different from instrument to instrument, and not similarly a problem with digital accordions.

Yes. My teacher tells me that advanced players offset that delay by starting the bass notes sooner. I'll have to start addressing this one at least one accordion. Getting it right on all accordions will be hard

 

[dak]

Yes. My teacher tells me that advanced players offset that delay by starting the bass notes sooner.

I think that is a description of the mechanics of getting it right. For me the way to wrap my head around this is practice a piece to the degree where the fingers run essentially on autopilot and then focus my mind on what I am hearing rather than on what my fingers are doing. Takes a whole lot of concentration. Hopefully it will become more automatic at one point of time.

 

[JerryPH]

Yes. My teacher tells me that advanced players offset that delay by starting the bass notes sooner. I'll have to start addressing this one at least one accordion. Getting it right on all accordions will be hard

Not really, in time you get to understand and know your accordion. It’s easy to know where the “lags” are. For example, on my Gola there is near no lag on the lowest notes, there is ZERO lag on the digital, there is moderate lag on my MORINO and TONS of lag on the little FB36.

The “compensation change is not immediate but doesn’t take more than 1 take of a song to get that feel back and if you are focused and are listening, that lag is mostly eliminated the moment you are aware of it.

The mind is an incredible thing.