New from Richmond, North Yorkshire

[piengravy]

Just found this forum and it looks great!

I've been self-learning on a cheap Scarlatti 48-bass piano accordion for about a year. I learnt piano to grade 7 as a kid, and am currently playing bass in a gigging rock band. But being more interested in folky/acoustic stuff, I decided accordion would be a good instrument for me to learn, given experience with piano and bass.

I've hit a bit of a brick wall though. I'm fine with right hand because of piano background, and I've sorted out a basic left hand technique. But I'm struggling to play anything more interesting with left hand than 3rds, 4th's 5th's, minor/major, on the beat. Been looking for on-line stuff, books, DVDs etc to get some tips on more interesting left hand techniques, but not found anything with good reviews. Having learnt piano formally, but taught myself bass, would prefer to follow the latter course, and not be a note reader.

Anyone got any tips on good tuition material? I don't really want to shell out loads of money on lessons, but happy to pay for a few good books, preferably with CD/DVDs.

 

[Glenn]

Hi and welcome.
What style of music are you looking to play where you feel that your bass skills are lacking?

 

[Soulsaver]

Piengravy...mmm me too. Let me guess - UK north west Welcome, I'll watch how this unfolds, maybe stuff here for me, too.

 

[goldtopia]

Books and DVDs are OK but a teacher would get you over the first hurdles which then would make the books and DVDs easier. You need to get out of the earlier habits otherwise you would have problems with the finguring, particularly the bass.

 

[dunlustin]

With (almost) a chromatic octave in the L hand, how about using your bass technique as a starting point?
Also, with your piano background, Beginners' books/CDs don't necessarily oom-pah and offer more melodic stuff in the bass clef

 

[george garside]

For 'folky acoustic stuff' there is absolutely no need for complex bass anad indeed going too fancy could detract from the efficacy of the rendition!.

If you are playing for any sort of folk dance eg ceilidh/barn dance/morris etc rhythm is king and using no more than 4 diagonal rows is rarely advantageous eg if playing in G use CGDA. The job is to provide the dancers with 'lift' (gravity brings them down!) and so it is vital to emphasise the off beat. This is simply done( but takes a while to get the hang of) by playing a short bass note followed by a longer major (occsionaly minor)chord i.e. a short UM and a longer PA.
The dancers land on the UM and take off on the PA!

The counterbass can sometimes be usefully substituted for the bass here and there i.e. play bass/chord, counterbass/chord. bass/chord, counterbass/chord et etc.

Another variation is to just play the chord ie no bass(gap) chord , gap chord, etc aanad to use this for a bar or two before returning to bass/chord etc.
It can also be very effective to play a bar or two without any bass to place the emphasis on the melody before retu;rning to bass chord.

There is also the technique of crossing the bass eg Gbass/Gchord, G bass/D chord, G bass/G chord etc etc

Whatever you do on the bass must be staccato with the button tapped as if red hot and a clear gap between bass and chord, otherwise it will be 'mushy' and lifeless for dancing.

For folk song accompaniment it is often better to use only chords whilst playing the tune on the treble or indeed to use the bass chords very sparingly whilst playing chords on the treble end.

Playing in the loosely termed 'folk' genre is all about experimenting so playing becomes intuitive and can be aadapted 'on the hoof' to suit the occasion, what you are playing for, who you are playing with , etc etc.

Trying to follow rigid rules or worrying about ''correct' bass is not particularly useful -- better to work on the basis of '' if it sounds right it is right and if it doesn't do something about it'!

george :ch

 

[Panya37]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

I am teaching myself PA, coming from a piano-playing background. At the moment I play mostly Scottish/Irish/contemporary folk and am very much a learner. I have discovered a lot about constructing a not too oom-pah bass line from watching numerous acoustic PA YouTube videos; I often slow them down to half speed (in the settings underneath the video) to get a better understanding; e.g. -

(Sandy Brechin, fast stuff - though he uses unconventional chord combining by necessity)
(Sandy again, slow tune with a great example of chord bass, after the first part on treble only)
(a bit more contemporary folk)

(A Manfrini accordion demo by by an accomplished player)

(Karen Tweed jamming - using block chords in a non-traditional way)

Thats probably more than enough because you may have very different musical tastes.

Two Scottish music tutorials with more interesting bass lines have been my main written inspiration -

Buttons and Keys (Scottish Accordion Tutorial) Vols 1 & 2 by DJ MacKenzie
Scottish Folk Tunes for Accordion by Ian Lowthian

Hope there may be something here that helps.

 

[piengravy]

Wow, thank you all for these fantastically constructive and helpful replies, there's loads of material and tips for me to have a go at, particular thanks to George Garside and Panya37 for taking the time to give me such great material!

And yes Soulsaver, I'm originally from Wigan....pie eaters capital!

 

[shelialee]

Go to https://shelialee.wordpress.com/ and click on the Beginner Link on the left side - and search for Bass exercises - then search the site for Level 1-2 solos. You will find great instruction.