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Greetings from sunny South Africa

  • Thread starter Thread starter krisroux
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krisroux

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Hi Everyone.

My name is Kris and I'm from sunny South Africa. I have only recently acquired my accordion (Dec 2014) and have been practising everyday since. I have also started lessons from our expert here in South Africa, Mr Sergio Zampolli.
I love the accordion and my primary goal is to become a talented accordionist. I have read through some of the threads on this forum and it seems that everyone is willing to help with any topic that is posted. I have been playing guitar for the past 18 years and finally decided to start something new and fresh.
 
Hi krisroux,
Can you send us some sun?
Possibly not, happy new accordion, what make and size is it? I am relatively new to the accordion after 35 years playing guitar.
The trouble with the accordion is when you get hooked there is no time for guitars or other instruments.
I have found that by playing an hour a day, my sight reading has improved so much that when I pick my guitar or clarinet up I can play better.
I am pleased you attend lessons as instinctively you know you have to practice to please your teacher. It started at school and never goes away, but only for lessons that you enjoy and look forward to. I have an old Weltmeister 80 bass and a new Roland FR-1X.
Keep playing
BarryG (not so sunny England)
 
Hi Kris, welcome to the forum.
Great having someone from South Africa with us (are you the only member from SA?).
Let us know a little about your likes/disliked with regards to music and of course what accordion do you play.
 
Goeie dag, Kris and welcome to the forum. I worked in Jo'burg for 6 months in the 80's. Loved it there then, different today, though.
Welcome to forum, I know the box is popular in some SA music as demonstrated by the some tracks on Graceland.
 
Wow guys, I havent even been a member of this forum for 24 hours and already I feel at home :mrgreen:

BarryG, I have to be honest with you, we have been experiencing rain for at least 5 of the 7 days a week where I stay in Pretoria from October last year onwards. So we also miss the sun a little bit as its summer here, nice time to have a braai while having a sundowner but we cant complain, it was a very dry winter and the rain is always lovely.
Okay, so I have Scandalli 41/120 with 7 treble registers and 2 bass registers. Not sure if its the correct way of describing the accordion but I will take some photos later and post them on here. I totally agree with you on the enjoyment of the accordion. I am definitely hooked and when I practise the time flys! I wanted to get the instrument right from the word go hence my decision to enrol for private lessons. I have only been for 3 lessons thus far as they are scheduled 2-3 weeks from each other which gives me ample time to practise the chapters I was doing in the lesson.

Glenn, Im not really sure if there are any other persons from South Africa on here. Im sure they will notice my heading and comment on the thread if they are indeed from my beloved country. I have always liked music from a very young age and have always been actively involved in some form of music entertainment, whether it being for myself or for a crowd. Way back in my varsity years, me and my brother used to have a DJ business catering for weddings/birthdays/functions and always had great feedback on the music that was played, so I guess music runs in my blood. When my dad taught us to play guitar when I was 12, the love of music didnt stop there and we constantly played among friends and family. However, last year I decided that I want to play something new, something exciting and I decided I need to play the accordion. I have watched numerous videos on the accordion and I love it. Its just something about the sound of an accordion that really does it for me. So after I made my decision, I started doing some research on local accordionists and teachers and I was little bit shocked to see that there are very little interest :o
Eventually I found a person by the name of Sergio Zampolli, which is also my tutor at the moment, that are trying very hard to revive the accordion in South Africa. His site : http://www.accordionsa.co.za/sergio-zampolli/

So Sergio, born in Italy in 1944, started playing accordion when he was 9 and moved to South Africa when he turned 11. Not gonna mention his whole history here, its on his webpage, but in short, this guy is brilliant and I can only be lucky to have him as my teacher. From the first lesson, Sergio explained everything to me very accurately and made sure that I need to understand that from the start, its about the quality of the sounds that I can produce and not the speed at which I produce them. I still tend to try and learn the song to fast and at the end the presentation is a mix of everything and doesnt sound to good. Anyway, enough about that, all I can say is that Im enjoying the lessons thoroughly and its great to have him as my tutor.

Soulsaver :D Goeie dag, ek is bly om n bietjie afrikaans op die blad te sien. Yes, SA in the 80s and SA now is 2 totally different places. Still a lot left to be bettered in our country but Im not going to talk politics, it usually gets ugly :oops: and this is after all an accordion forum :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: I have 4 concerts on video of Paul Simon and each feature some of the graceland songs. The boy in the bubble is a song that I listen to at least once a day. Love the use of the accordion and the mix of folk, african and accordion produced a master track! There are a couple of other artists in South Africa that have made the accordion popular and its usually played in the boere musiek style. People like Nico Carstens and Ollie Viljoen have made a big contribution, there are some youtube videos available of them. Theo Erasmus is another great SA accordionist and have also made great contributions to the accordion.

So now that you guys have some knowledge about me and some background of accordion in SA, I need some advice and I would appreciate your comments. As I mentioned above, Im still very new to the accordion and Im loving every minute of it. I have started with my lessons and the book we are currently working through is called Palmer-Hughes Accordion Course, Book 1. I have read everywhere that this book is an excellent newbie beginners book and have thus far learned a lot. Each and every song teaches you something else and Im currently sitting on page 30 of the book. My teacher said that Im making very good progress but must concentrate getting my bellows correct from the start and also make sure to go slow and steady and rather produce the piece with 100% quality and 0% speed as my brain need to be trained to handle all the senses and as soon as its comfortable, the speed will come automatically. I have already noticed that with a couple of the songs that I started in the beginning of the book, which I can play 100% quality and obtain the necessary speed to make the song sound great.

What is your opinion on the way I started. Is there any tips that you guys can give me that have helped you from the start? Did you also start with the Palmer-Hughes book?

Once again, thanks for the hearty welcome and you will be seeing alot of me on this forum and hopefully I can also contribute at later stages :mrgreen:
Kris
 
Welcome Kris. This is a great site with a large number of knowledgeable, helpful people. South Africa is certainly on my list of places I want to visit...have been to most of Europe and Australia but never made it to your locale. Here in the Mojave Desert (Nevada) we get too much sun I think and pray for rain all the time. I have to say that my first interest in South Africa was many years ago...as a coin collector, I realized early that some of the finest gold coins came from there, and South Africa was the first nation that many of us in the U.S. bought coins as most other countries weren't making them then. Anyway, good luck and best wishes on your accordion venture. You'll always find someone here who can usually answer any question you have.
 
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