Left Hand Jumps

[Ventura]

well a few threads have touched on things like marking bass buttons
and how to master jumps and such, so i wanted to offer how my teacher taught
me to do it

Bob Homovich, Pittsburgh PA. (Jazz man through and through) played an AC

so he would assign me a song from Fake Book one each week and i had to
make lines on a paper, re-write out the song, then fill in full Chords for every
melody note etc. before i even attempted to play it

the objective in playing full chords for each note was to absorb them into my DNA
but when performing the song, to just use the chords that you want to of course.

where the Bass stuff comes in is that one week he assigned me the Rhumba,
"Temptation"

it probably took me at least a whole month to get this one down so it
didn't sound butchered with mistakes, and then he would make me play it
once every lesson for like the whole summer just to make sure i kept
practicing it

you see, Temptation has more bass jumps, huge bass jumps, serious
bass progressions, major to minor counters, all over the map !
i never encountered another song quite like this and have to say
if YOU follow this lead, and fight your way through this number,
you gonna be able to do any left hand jump for the rest of your life

i mean it worked on me, and i am no rocket scientist,
so it should work for you too

 

[JeffJetton]

Temptation has more bass jumps, huge bass jumps, serious bass progressions, major to minor counters, all over the map ! i never encountered another song quite like this and have to say if YOU follow this lead, and fight your way through this number, you gonna be able to do any left hand jump for the rest of your life

Oof. Yeah, that's the thing about the Stradella system. It makes it super-easy to play a chord progression that moves in 5ths and 4ths, as most progressions often do. But that's the expense of making chromatic chord movement a huge pain in the tuchus. And "Temptation" is chock full of those.

Another one sort of like that is "Un Homme et une Femme". Parts of it are absolute murder if you want to play all the chords on their fundamental bass row.

 

[brna]

where the Bass stuff comes in is that one week he assigned me the Rhumba,
"Temptation"

Nacio Herb Brown https://musescore.com/user/498481/scores/6837281 ?

 

[Ventura]

yep.. but on my fake book
D natural for "Born to be" (kissed) (D F A)
then back to Db "I can't resist" (Db F Ab)
and
B natural for "Take it and" (say) also

might have been Bob altering those chords, he would often change
the chords from the fake book to ones he preferred

 

[Ventura]

for "a Man and a Woman" i love those progressions too, and
always tried to use stretch octave chords that i could reach

and the bass, same timing as the melody meaning duplicate the beat
in the left hand with the fundamental button

then in the Bridge, after hearing Mantovani's version (i think it was)
always played the bridge with a samba sort of rhythm

 

[Joakim Monsen]

Progressively playing songs with bigger jumps is a good way to be better at the jumps. Also doing exercises that covers that problem will help.

 

[Ffingers]

Progressively playing songs with bigger jumps is a good way to be better at the jumps. Also doing exercises that covers that problem will help.That is working for me, a late age beginner with only three usable fingers on my left hand.

One thing that helps me a lot is the use of a fingerless glove on my left hand which makes it easier to move my whole hand along the bass strap.

 

[debra]

One thing that helps me a lot is the use of a fingerless glove on my left hand which makes it easier to move my whole hand along the bass strap.

The other thing that helps (on accordions with the "right" type of bass feet) is to add a spacer/bridge on both the top and bottom end (in the playing position) so that the bass strap starts a bit further from the plate and thus stays more straight instead of in a curve.

Above: the bridge on both ends (and added rubber feet to avoid that the accordion rests on the bass belt instead of the feet.
Below: the result with the bass belt.

Some accordion manufacturers used to always add these bridges to their convertor accordions, but for some reason they stopped doing this. (I heard that supposedly the bridge might cause a squeaking noise, but I never noticed that, not on accordions with factory-installed bridges and not on accordions where I installed by 3D-printed bridges.)

 

[petch]

I wish mine had the bridge, gets a bit tight at the top and low ends!

 

[debra]

I wish mine had the bridge, gets a bit tight at the top and low ends!

It's easy enough to make one yourself. If you don't have a 3D printer, just make something out of wood.

 

[saundersbp]

Some accordion manufacturers used to always add these bridges to their convertor accordions, but for some reason they stopped doing this. (I heard that supposedly the bridge might cause a squeaking noise, but I never noticed that, not on accordions with factory-installed bridges and not on accordions where I installed by 3D-printed bridges.)

How did you get the bridges printed Paul and designed? I'd love to add them to my accordion.

I've just looked at my baby Pigini B2 (great instrument) and it does have the bridge which I think makes it easier playing the lowest and highest notes on LH in freebass.

 

[debra]

How did you get the bridges printed Paul and designed? I'd love to add them to my accordion.

I've just looked at my baby Pigini B2 (great instrument) and it does have the bridge which I think makes it easier playing the lowest and highest notes on LH in freebass.

I design 3D objects in Google Sketchup, and then print on my Flashforge Creator Pro (about 8 years old now). People who don't do 3D printing can quite easily make such bridges out of wood. It will likely be just as strong.

 

[saundersbp]

Thank you. I'll need some help I think. My woodworking skills are of a six inch nail solves all variety!

 

[JKJ]

Thank you. I'll need some help I think. My woodworking skills are of a six inch nail solves all variety!

If you don’t know a woodworker do you know someone with a milling machine, even a small one? I do 3d printing, woodworking, and metalworking but the quickest way for me would be cut a piece of wood to size with the bandsaw, mill it to desired size and shape, then file or sand a bit to soften corners/bevels if desired.

I’d prob pick a species with a natural color to compliment the accordion but some of another color are easily stained/colored to match. (wood can often be dyed with leather dye too, if for example you wanted black.)

Many of of the strong fine-grained woods such as ebony, african blackwood, one of the “ironwoods”, hard maple, bloodwood, olive, a rosewood, lignum vitae, persimmon, or dogwood should work fine. These all machine well and are quite strong.

Too bad you don’t live close or I could make something to fit. I have lots of dry wood on hand - at last inventory I listed over 126 species! (mostly for woodturning). I don’t know of it’s a passion or a mental illness…

JKJ

 

[dak]

I have lots of dry wood on hand - at last inventory I listed over 126 species! (mostly for woodturning). I don’t know of it’s a passion or a mental illness…

Po-ta-to, Po-tah-toh.

 

[Pipemajor]

Thank you. I'll need some help I think. My woodworking skills are of a six inch nail solves all variety!

Here's one I made earlier. No woodworking skills at all needed. Just a couple of bits of moulding I had lying around in the garage.
They were meant to be a temporary solution until I bought some delrin to make "proper" ones.
Bought the delrin, but these worked fine so they are still there.