Hello from Albany, NY

[tonyg]

I am Tony G. I've played accordion from a young age and currently I do professional restoration and tuning of accordions. The attached is a summary of my wanderings around and with the accordion as well as my musical background. I look forward to engaging with, and learning from, other folks who love this instrument. I consider myself to be a life-long explorer...

College Of Saint Rose, Albany, NY
• Degree: Master of Arts
• Major: music
• Concentration: classical & flamenco guitar performance, analysis, composition, history.
• Guitar study: Raymond Andrews (MM Hartt School of Music); Joel Brown (B.M., Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts; M.M., Ithaca College; Senior Artist-in-Residence at Skidmore College).
Siena College, Loudonville, NY
• Degree: Bachelor of Arts
• Major: Spanish
• Minor: Education
Teacher Certification
• Permanent Secondary Certification in Spanish and Music
Private lessons
Guitar
• Raymond Andrews, Albany, NY
• Joel Brown, Saratoga, NY
Piano
• Edward French , Albany, NY
• Findlay Cockrell, SUNY Albany
Violin
• Herbert George, Delmar, NY
Accordion*
• Anthony Maiello, Latham, NY
• Edward Gurzynski, Schenectady, NY
• Charles Nunzio, Basking Ridge, NJ
• Martin Ainspan, Albany, NY
*I play a classical chromatic button accordion. It is dry-tuned and has no fixed chord buttons. All chords are fingered in full as with other keyboard instruments. It has the capacity of other keyboard instruments with the tonal, accent and breathing characteristics of an accordion. The range is over 5 octaves. This instrument is also known as harmoneon, bassetti accordion, portable harmonium, free-bass accordion, bayan (Russia).
Music Shop
• Free-Reed instruments: tune and repair, including complete restoration
• Classical & Flamenco guitars: set-up; fret adjustments; tuner repair and adjustment
Membership
• Capital District Classical Guitar Society: playing member, steering committee, former president.
• Classical Guitar Society of Upstate New York
• Monday Musical Club



Accordion background for use in concert programs:
Anthony Grieco began studying accordion as a child and has explored both piano and chromatic treble with various bass systems. He has also studied violin, piano and classical guitar and holds a Master of Arts degree in music from the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY (USA) where he concentrated on classical/flamenco guitar and composition.
Since his youth Anthony has been fascinated with how accordions work and for many years now he has done professional repairs and tuning in his own shop. He got early training in accordion repair and tuning from his primary teacher, Anthony Maiello, who in addition to being an excellent accordionist, was an accomplished tuner.
He has a passion for exploring free-bass configurations in order to understand which approach would be the most dynamic, practical and simple. He has studied stradella bass alone, chromatic basses w/stradella, chromatic converter, quint converter, chromatic basses alone, and the Kuehl system. Over the years he has studied the ideas of many knowledgeable people regarding free-bass: Anthony Maiello, Edward Gurzynski, Martin Ainspan, Joesph Zon-Frilli, Charles Magnante, William Kuehl, Charles Nunzio, Stanley Darrow and especially, Julio Giulietti, William Cosby, Mort Herold and Pierre Monichon.

 

[JerryPH]

Welcome!

"chromatic basses w/stradella, chromatic converter, quint converter, chromatic basses alone, and the Kuehl system."
Have you tried the inverted Bayan Free Bass? Most importantly, which is your favorite?

 

[Glenn]

Welcome to the Forum Tony.
It's really great to have experienced performers amongst us.
Do you have any on-line examples of your performances?

 

[Soulsaver]

HI Anthony, and welcome to the forum.

 

[Zevy]

<FONT font=Garamond><SIZE size=125>Welcome aboard, Tony. I am familiar with the term, Kuehl free bass, as I studied with Charles Nunzio. He would mention it from time to time. I remember him selling the last two prototypes.

 

[tonyg]

Zevy,
I studied the Kuehl system with Charles Nunzio and explored it with Mr. Kuehl himself (via phone and correspondence). I found it to be a good system for passage work, but very, very difficult for harmonic movement. Any chord could be fingered easily, but then moving through a series of chords in particular inversions was very confusing. By that time I could play chromatic free-bass and came to better understand why that was so widely accepted.

Also, Mr. Kuehl was not especially happy that Charles had had the instrument built with a 3-reed-per-note configuration (no register changes) which Mr Kuehl felt undermined his intent regarding tonal purity. He understood that clarity, response and sweet tone quality were more important to overall musicality and flexibility than the supposed raw power obtained from all those reeds.
Thanks for your comment.
T.

Soulsaver,
Thank you. There is sooooo much to learn here.
T.

Glenn,
Thanks. I have no stuff on-line. Mostly, I can't get focused enough on playing to present anything. I'm hoping that some of what I learn here from other folks' perspectives will help me get out of my own way.
T.

JerryPH,

I have not tried the Russian style bayan basses (with C in the 3rd row & low notes at the bottom), but I do have a Harmoneon with C in the 1st row and low notes down below. I've learned to work with it, but have much more experience from top down. I like the large buttons. They resolve the crossing issues caused by the chromatic layout with tiny buttons. I can play the small buttons, but they require special attention to crossings.

When left to my own inclinations (which means ignoring most of the accordion world) I prefer chromatic basses alone, large buttons, low notes at the top, C in the 1st row. This removes the coincidental relationship between stradella and chromatic on either converter or 9-row systems and allows the player to focus on making one basic system truly intuitive. This is the way that ALL other instruments work - keyboards, winds, strings - each works off of its own basic system based on directional logic (keyboards) or the pitch characteristics of the tube (winds), or the stretching and stopping of strings.

Ironically, I think the stradella is a stronger system on its own than in combination. Some players in France are so good that sometimes I'm convinced that stradella is really enough.

With the accordion we try to do too much.

Thanks.
T.

 

[Zevy]

Hello Tony,

I know it's been a while since this thread was active. I would like to know if you ever tried the Moschino free-bass accordion, and if you did, what were your thoughts about it?

Thanks,

Zevy

 

[JIM D.]

Hello Tony:
:tup: "Welcome" :tup:

 

[Deleted member 48]

Hello Tony,

Welcome to the accordion forum. Please tell us more about your free bass experiments and experience.

What is your opinion on the stepped free bass accordions?

Steps in the bass on the accordion (Øivind Farmen)

This design facilitates the passing under technique for the left hand thumb on the first two rows in the bass side of the (free bass) accordion.

Did you ever try this system?
Do you know of USA (free bass) accordion teachers teaching stepped free bass accordion?