Long-term piano accordionist newly learning CBA - experiences?

[losthobos]

Lovely... you'll enjoy I'm sure.
Further to Steve's notes it's probably worth mentioning that to allow the 7th chord to substitute for a diminished it is stacked differently ...it comprises notes 1,5,7....where on the usual stradella notes 1,3,7 outline the chord....
So be careful if you're playing any altered 5th chords...on a plus (and this has just dawned on me while writing this)the 7th stacked this way could be used for either dom7 or min7chords....wonderful...

 

[vivdunstan]

I checked the chords/buttons with Maugein some days ago. Yes the 5th button uses the French system, so for C it’s E / G / Bflat. I only very rarely play diminished chords directly, so am quite happy to reach down for eg Cdim. I’m also not very often using 7th!

 

[JerryPH]

Totally beautiful... but I *think* forum rules are that once it arrives. unless you post a video of you playing it, it never happened... lol

 

[CC_PDX]

Have fun with the new box / system!

I'm one of those who made the switch to CBA never looked back. Like others, a lifetime of piano and keyboards and the local availability of PA boxes made them the default starting point. Last year, I decided to give CBA a go. I didn't find watching videos useful, but spent 2- 3 weeks working through "Methode D'accordeon Débutants" book by Manu Maugain to get some basics down--i.e. 3 scale fingerings and intervals and then have explored on my own after that. I started with 5 row and really don't use rows 4 or 5 all that often. In November. I picked up a minimalist 3 row box and haven't felt limited at all. Being self-taught, I suspect I may be doing lots of things "wrong", but I use my thumb quite a bit and do a lot of ad hoc fingering based on melodic contour and other harmonic voice I want to keep

I'm also a big fan of how learning another melodic / harmonic format has rewired my brain. I now find myself mentally "playing along" to songs imagining them on the C-Griff layout instead of piano, and I think a lot more about relationships of notes instead of mentally translating to actual note names. I also love a lot of the "happy accidents" that come along when you are learning when you play something you didn't mean to, but it can knock you out of habits and prompt new ideas.

 

[vivdunstan]

Gosh that’s an encouraging story @CC_PDX - thanks for sharing! I actually have that Maugain book coming today, plus the Gallliano next week. I would be very happy playing basic scales and tunes to try to build up muscle memory.

My box is probably coming in April, so a way off. But I am very excited.

Thanks folks!

 

[JerryPH]

I've heard from several people now that if one plays to any kind of standard, it takes about 10 years to make the move from PA to CBA and be at the same level on the CBA as one is today on their PA so for some people, like me if I undertook that task, I'd be deep in to the 70's and well past my prime or ability to likely even get close to where I am today on my PA, so for me, it is not an option. I'll muddle along and try to keep improving from where I am.

That said if I was younger (even as late as in my 30's), I would definitely consider it. When I see others with that courage, I have to tip my hat to them... this is not an easy path at all.

 

[vivdunstan]

That said if I was younger (even as late as in my 30's), I would definitely consider it.

I’m 50, and with a time bomb neurological disease. But I’m happy to give it a go. I expect to be doing basic exercises for years. I do not hope to get to my current playing standard. But I will be happy trying something new and challenging, and very much appreciate the potential for me of this compact box. And the new right hand workouts will fight my disease. Excited!

 

[JerryPH]

Excited!

That makes one of us, I'm too chicken to go that route... lol
It's too bad I did not know earlier that you were in to genealogy (just visited your blog), I used to do work for Ancestry.com and had full access to their Pro Genealogist Team for anything that I wished. I've since moved on to other endeavours.

 

[vivdunstan]

It's too bad I did not know earlier that you were in to genealogy (just visited your blog), I used to do work for Ancestry.com and had full access to their Pro Genealogist Team for anything that I wished.

I’ve been tracing my family tree since 1981 or so, so just 5 years less than I’ve been playing the accordion Ancestry isn’t the most helpful site for Scottish genealogy. That’s ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk, the official government website for digitised BMD certificates, parish registers, census returns and much more. But back when I started there was none of that and it was a case of going to the General Register Office for Scotland search room in Edinburgh. Ancestry has been very helpful for the English side of my family. Especially after they digitised West Yorkshire parish registers, including many marriage certificates after 1837. But yup, eager genealogist here! I also have squeezebox playing in the family tree, including a cousin, my granddad, and a younger brother of my great great granddad who emigrated from Scotland to Australia with his accordion over a century ago.

 

[Walker]

I’ve been tracing my family tree since 1981

That's the year I was born! Genealogy sounds like a lot of hard work. I have occasionally considered doing such research, but then decided to wait until the feeling passed. Do you find with the Scottish records that you can only go back so far before they really thin out in the middle ages? I might be wrong, but I imagine the English are way better at record keeping - like the Doomsday Book etc. Highlanders were maybe less details focussed.

I am quite interested in the DNA marker technology, to find the broad patterns of matches and early human migrations etc. That may be less genealogy and more lazyology though.

 

[vivdunstan]

Do you find with the Scottish records that you can only go back so far before they really thin out in the middle ages? I might be wrong, but I imagine the English are way better at record keeping - like the Doomsday Book etc. Highlanders were maybe less details focussed.

With most British family trees people tend to get stuck in the 18th century, unless they can tap into nobility or wealthy types. Many Scottish records are more detailed than similar English ones eg Scottish parish register baptisms include mothers’ maiden names, and Scottish BMD certificates from 1855 onwards are vastly more detailed than the English equivalents. But for both Scotland and England parish registers only started in the 16th century, and for many places we only have them surviving from the 17th or even 18th century.

Most of my known ancestors were fairly ordinary types, but I can trace most back to the 18th century. A few lines I can tap into nobility and even royalty and go further back by other means. So my known family tree goes back to the earliest times.

In the Highlands the situation becomes extra complicated, especially in the Gaelic speaking areas. Patronymic naming patterns can add an extra challenge to the research. And records can be more sporadic in survival. But research is still possible.

I am quite interested in the DNA marker technology, to find the broad patterns of matches and early human migrations etc. That may be less genealogy and more lazyology though.

I think at a broad population level DNA can be interesting. However individual ethnicity estimates can be highly dubious and often just rather expensive guesswork. On plus though DNA matches with identifiable cousins - even distant - can validate and extend family trees based on conventional paper based research. I was able to prove I’d traced my Irish great granny right for example through DNA testing with cousins, despite very incomplete records in her case. But I think the ethnicity stuff is a bit of a con.

 

[saundersbp]

Update: I’ve ordered a 60 bass Maugein Dauphin CBA. To be made up, but it’s all ordered. I was very tempted by the custom musette tuning, but after a number of plays of the audio recording even my Scottish ears were slightly struggling with it! So rather than go for a fully custom model I’ve gone for the Rouge Passion standard one, with Swing tuning, a tuning which my husband and I both like.

Hello Viv, I was inspired reading your journey to a small cba so I took the plunge myself, although in a less posh way: good old bargain eBay and in lurid boy-racer-red (beggars can't be choosers). Anyway I've just had it tuned up and I think it's going to be great fun for playing outdoors. How are you getting on with yours?

 

[vivdunstan]

Hello Viv, I was inspired reading your journey to a small cba so I took the plunge myself, although in a less posh way: good old bargain eBay and in lurid boy-racer-red (beggars can't be choosers). Anyway I've just had it tuned up and I think it's going to be great fun for playing outdoors. How are you getting on with yours?

Oh that looks lovely! Do let us know how you get on. Mine isn’t here yet. Expected April. New build direct from the factory who have a few months build time: But looking forward to it! I have a bunch of CBA C tuition books in and am making plans.

 

[debra]

I'm glad to see more people having a go at CBA. My wife and I are going towards 14 years on the CBA after the switch. We really really wish we made the switch 10 years earlier (would have saved quite a bit of money too), but today we play like we never played anything else in our entire life. However, be warned that the first five years or so are the hardest. It's a bit like giving up smoking... it gets easier over time (or so I hear, as I never smoked at all).

 

[stickista]

As a former pianist, my .02 regarding fingering on CBA.
1) not using your thumb seems needlessly handicaping one’s self, unless you find the consistency of always using the same 4 finger patterns everywhere helpful. I suppose that’s argueably a benefit. Perhaps the stability a fixed thumb provides is another.
2) as an Accordina-ista, I’ve come to appreciate the minimalist beauty of 3 rows. Having to use all 3 ‘positions’ for the root (at least as an improviser) forces you to use different ideas and shapes (at least a third of the time) and freeing you from motor patterns. I can see the convenience of simply moving your hand across rows and transposing at will, but in the long run I think that’s a trap, and can be a crutch keeping you from really learning all 3 topologies. 4th row as an occasional tool does make sense to me.
3) ‘official fingerings’ are handy at first, to teach you what’s generally an effecient way to play a series of notes, but in the long run, every song dictates its own fingering. Just as on piano, you frequently have to ‘reverse engineer’ fingerings by identifying a target note that really has to be played by a particular finger, then working backwards from there.
In addition, on piano cross-unders are always just that…the thumb crosses under 1 or 2. Something that took me a while to figure out was that on CBA, an index finger sometimes crosses ‘over’ finger 3 going up (or 3 over index going down), something that’s very CBA-specific. Kinda like Chico Marx playing with his index finger like a pistol. Took me a while for it not to feel ‘wrong’, while its actually often useful.

 

[vivdunstan]

It's been a bit of a wait, for my new box. The French factory has a 3/4 month wait time/queue at the moment. But my new French accordion is finally en route. Asking the factory for courier + tracking number if they have one. But woot! Gigantic challenge for long-term piano accordionist me, but a wonderful workout for a right hand that is affected by stroke damage and so often weaker. My way of fighting back.

And this is what it looks like. Picture posted a few days ago on the maker's Instagram page, as a recently finished built-from-new box. And it's mine.

I plan to update the thread with how I get on as I start to learn this new box. More posts in due course. It is going to be a very long project. And very very slow progress expected!

 

[JerryPH]

It's been a bit of a wait, for my new box. The French factory has a 3/4 month wait time/queue at the moment. But my new French accordion is finally en route. Asking the factory for courier + tracking number if they have one. But woot! Gigantic challenge for long-term piano accordionist me, but a wonderful workout for a right hand that is affected by stroke damage and so often weaker. My way of fighting back.

And this is what it looks like. Picture posted a few days ago on the maker's Instagram page, as a recently finished built-from-new box. And it's mine.

I plan to update the thread with how I get on as I start to learn this new box. More posts in due course. It is going to be a very long project. And very very slow progress expected!

Congrats on the new challenge, I hope it brings you a lot of fun and pleasure!

That accordion looks stunning too!

 

[LibraryJoe]

Best wishes as you begin your CBA journey. I'm 69 and have been toying with trying my luck with a chromatic button accordion. My first accordion lessons were as a kid in the 1960s, then put it aside for 20+ years, and finally picking it up again in the 1990s.
As a kid taking lessons back in the 1960s, we understood, and Palmer-Hughes encouraged it, that we'd one day need a full 41/120 accordion, with lots of register switches--the heavier, the better. About 10 years ago, I went down to a 37/96 piano accordion just under 20 pounds.
I realize that the CBA is more logical, but this old guy-- hey we're contemporaries, lets say experienced musicians, decided about 3 or 4 months ago to research CBA-- in hopes of something even lighter, smaller, and might just give this older brain a bit of a work out.
I bought a Chinese made E Soprani a little over a month ago, and I know I could, or perhaps should, have waited to buy a European model. But the time was right, and with a trade-in of my one of my several piano accordions, I walked away with even a little cash in my pocket. Will I keep it up? I hope so, and already have begun looking at possible upgrades-- but nothing before Christmas at least. Forum members are all over the place with opinions of Chinese accordions.... but if daily practice continues to be on my daily "must do" list, then I'll feel my purchase was a success.
Please keep us updated on your progress.

 

[ChromaticPaul]

I also just bought an E.Soprani CBA at Liberty Bellows. I stopped playing a few years ago and sold all my accordions at that time. Now I feel like playing again and I regret not keeping at least one. But I'm unsure if I'm really going to stick with it again, and hence I didn't want to invest too much money. So, I took a chance on a new economy instrument, and I'm glad I did. The sound quality and button action of the E.Soprani is better than I expected for such a low priced instrument. Plus, it's really light weight, an important factor at my age of 77. It certainly meets my needs. Of course I've lost most of my playing skill and so I have to start again at the very beginning. Still, it's great to be playing again.

 

[Tom]

I also just bought an E.Soprani CBA at Liberty Bellows. I stopped playing a few years ago and sold all my accordions at that time. Now I feel like playing again and I regret not keeping at least one. But I'm unsure if I'm really going to stick with it again, and hence I didn't want to invest too much money. So, I took a chance on a new economy instrument, and I'm glad I did. The sound quality and button action of the E.Soprani is better than I expected for such a low priced instrument. Plus, it's really light weight, an important factor at my age of 77. It certainly meets my needs. Of course I've lost most of my playing skill and so I have to start again at the very beginning. Still, it's great to be playing again.

Welcome Chroma Paul and good luck with getting your chops back! A young guy like you should have no trouble!