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Joe Schafer's Accordion Journey

JCarl

JCarl

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So this will be an online journal of my progression on this beast. An Excelsior 120 Rocker from long ago, it's journey coincides with mine right now. Below is a short video of me playing it literally out of the packing box. Sorry for the Chicken Dance, it's the fist song I thought of. I just wanted to hear the thing and I'd just put the straps on.

Right now, two of the biggest challenges are the left hand (learning it!, although I know the chords and layout) and changing my instincts on the stretch. I've played piano all my life and I KNOW where an octave is supposed to be on a piano, which means of course that I am overreaching on this all the time.

 
Nice job! Welcome to our little world....
A buddy of mine has been documenting his musical progress by creating YouTube channels over various times as he learned violin, accordion, and piano. It's just another way to encourage himself to keep improving, with an even wider audience, I think, than just our forum.
 
JCarl said:
Right now, two of the biggest challenges are the left hand (learning it!, although I know the chords and layout) and changing my instincts on the stretch.
Click to expand...
They are what is immediately apparent from your view as a piano player. I'll add a few things that are worth developing an ear for in the long term:
a) the difference between piano and organ: your notes don't have an attack and release as much as they have a start and end. The end is just as conspicuous as the start is, so articulation is a lot more about how you release the keys than it is on the piano. That also means that "legato fingerings" that don't force a key release before you can approach the next key press are more important than on a piano.
b) the difference between organ and harmonium: you have control over the development of long notes and the volume within a particular registration
c) the difference between harmonium and accordion: bellows reversals are necessary, but bellows expressivity is immediate. There is some inertia in the air supply that means that a leggiero articulation is best-suited to accent the attack of notes in a run (because pressure accumulates when the bellows continues travel while no note is playing) and this effect is most prominent when reversing bellows often enough that the bellows doesn't open wide particularly during fast passages.
d) the difference between acoustic and electronic accordion: notes cannot just begin and end but can begin and in particular end softly even when the bellows needs to support other voices and/or the other hand. As a corollary: don't hit the keys/buttons as if the strength of hitting them has anything to do with how loud they sound. Probably one of the harder longterm lessons for piano players

Nothing of that is pressing right now of course. But those are elements to grow attentive to in a longterm strategy to stay obsessed with accordion as a music instrument that has things to offer (other than portability) that a piano doesn't. I remember some accordionist meeting where I grabbed a guitar someone brought and put out a few songs from old repertoire, and a very good accordionist remarked that if he could sing and/or play like that, he'd not be playing accordion. I cannot really connect to that kind of statement; it's sort of like "if you can cook lasagna well, don't try making chop suey". Still bothers me. He was way better with the accordion than I will ever be.
 
Great project Joe, you’re looking good. You’re gonna have a great time with that Excelsior I can tell!
 


This is after 2 weeks. Just working on memorizing where things are, and learning not to put pressure with the right hand. But mostly just having fun! Not a real song, just improvising to give me something to play while I work the left hand buttons with 3 finger fingering.
 
I'm to obese right now to hold it vertically, but we're working on that..!
 
JCarl said:
I'm to obese right now to hold it vertically, but we're working on that..!
Click to expand...
A common sight with moderate-height female players with 45-key piano accordions is some sort of slouching position behind the keyboard that also is anything but vertical. That case (more a size mismatch than anything else) would be better addressed with a chromatic button accordion. But of course the instruments they started with were smaller, and at some point one has invested enough effort to make switching systems painful.
 
Sometimes I'm wondering if I should have gotten a button accordion so I would learn a whole new type of spread of the hand instead of trying to retrain my hands on a piano keyboard, knowing that I still play piano professionally weekly. But I still figure the hand stretch is easier than the buttons maybe, and besides, there's no goin' back now! It's me and Excelsior for a while-and I love it! Do we call them "her" and "she"? Or it? I could name it Lucille, but that's taken...
 
JCarl said:
Sometimes I'm wondering if I should have gotten a button accordion so I would learn a whole new type of spread of the hand instead of trying to retrain my hands on a piano keyboard, knowing that I still play piano professionally weekly. But I still figure the hand stretch is easier than the buttons maybe, and besides, there's no goin' back now!
Click to expand...
I think that when practising both regularly, the distance problem establishes resolves itself comparatively solidly. The keyboard placement is quite different anyway. Hand span appears to be mostly mentioned in the context of health issues. But your hands look fairly large, so the respective tradeoff between hand shape contortions and hand stretches between the instrument types does not look like much of a win.
The largest obstacle to progress on an instrument is a lack of having fun. With your background, starting with piano accordion is eminently sensible I think. If you find that the instrument really ticks your boxes after a year or two, that might be a more sensible point to consider the tradeoffs of a possible change of systems that will set you back for a while and change the focus of what you can focus on for quite a time span.
JCarl said:
It's me and Excelsior for a while-and I love it! Do we call them "her" and "she"? Or it? I could name it Lucille, but that's taken...
Click to expand...
I find that musical instruments get called personal names comparatively rarely. But what is to stop you?
 
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JCarl said:
Sometimes I'm wondering if I should have gotten a button accordion so I would learn a whole new type of spread of the hand instead of trying to retrain my hands on a piano keyboard, knowing that I still play piano professionally weekly. But I still figure the hand stretch is easier than the buttons maybe, and besides, there's no goin' back now! It's me and Excelsior for a while-and I love it! Do we call them "her" and "she"? Or it? I could name it Lucille, but that's taken...
Click to expand...
You have to name her Doris from what I’ve heard. 😉
 
JCarl said:
Sometimes I'm wondering if I should have gotten a button accordion so I would learn a whole new type of spread of the hand instead of trying to retrain my hands on a piano keyboard, knowing that I still play piano professionally weekly. But I still figure the hand stretch is easier than the buttons maybe, and besides, there's no goin' back now! It's me and Excelsior for a while-and I love it! Do we call them "her" and "she"? Or it? I could name it Lucille, but that's taken...
Click to expand...
One of my favourite utoob accordionists, Ksenija Sidorova, calls her extended keyboard piano accordion “The Beast” ‘cos of its bulk.
 
dak said:
I think that when practising both regularly, the distance problem establishes resolves itself comparatively solidly. The keyboard placement is quite different anyway. Hand span appears to be mostly mentioned in the context of health issues. But your hands look fairly large, so the respective tradeoff between hand shape contortions and hand stretches between the instrument types does not look like much of a win.
The largest obstacle to progress on an instrument is a lack of having fun. With your background, starting with piano accordion is eminently sensible I think. If you find that the instrument really ticks your boxes after a year or two, that might be a more sensible point to consider the tradeoffs of a possible change of systems that will set you back for a while and change the focus of what you can focus on for quite a time span.

I find that musical instruments get called personal names comparatively rarely. But what is to stop you?
Click to expand...
Well, said and you’re right it is fun
 
JCarl said:
Wait, where did you get Doris?😁
Click to expand...

I think that it began here -

Giulietti Keyboard grills

Good morning! I would appreciate any information regarding Giulietti keyboard grills. I have this instrument, a Giulietti M52, and the keyboard grill is different than the more common grill associated with Giulietti. This instrument came to the US via Italy sometime between 1965 and 1975. Thank you!
www.accordionists.info

:D
 
Walker said:
I think that's a typo Jerry... did you really mean "your beast is about 68 pounds (or more) lighter than my beast... lol" :D
Click to expand...
Haha... no.
6 dash 8 meaning that my beast is 6 to 8 pounds heavier, but after doing some thinking, that could be closer to 9 to 10 pounds (9-10) heavier . :)
 
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