Understanding-the-Basses

[Happy girl]

I have found this to be very informative, maybe others will too.

http://www.petosa.com/pdf_resources/Understanding-the-Basses.pdf

 

[george garside]

That is indeed informative for those who play boxes with a large range of bass couplers and who work from specifically ''accordion'' music with instructions as to couplers required for different parts of a tune.

However there are a vast number, probably a majority, of players without the luxury of a myriad of bass couplers or indeed with no bass couplers and for them matching treble and bass will remain very much a matter of aural judgement!. Same goes for the huge number of those playing from piano music , melody line only music or no music at all!

Horses for courses etc!

george

 

[Glenn]

I don't understand your point George .
Are you saying that Happy-Girl shouldn't have posted this link as there are forum members not having a full, 5 reed bass set on their instruments?

 

[george garside]

NO!. I was not having a 'dig' at anybody as he first line of my post clearly agrees that the bass info is informative. I was merely adding to a potential friendly discussion and making the point that a great many ? the majority of box players would have to use aural skills to sort out which couplers, if any, to use.

george :?

 

[jarvo]

Is a coupler like one of them Dating sites :?: Or putting two carriages together on a train....

and actually, now I think (ouch) about it why is it called a coupler ?

 

[Matt Butcher]

To be honest although the article assumes a "full-size" accordion, perhaps reflecting an outlook that comes from a certain time and place (post war USA by the looks of it) and a musical world that we don't all live in, I'd say the article is not limited to those with the "right" kind of box or a particular approach. Well I can only see the first page on my phone but it is about aural judgement, it talks about how the bass sound is made up, and the best bit is the genius way the Stradella fools your ear by making you think the pitch keeps rising. I don't know what's on the other pages. Anyway I'm so relieved to hear that it's a friendly discussion.

The article isn't sure where the term Stradella comes from, I'm sure someone will know for sure but they've made accordions with Stradella basses in Stradella for a long time, so...

 

[JerryPH]

The article is only a single page from what I think is a full book. The first page is actually labeled page 10, so that's all we get to see.
Nice part to share!

 

[JIM D.]

Thanks Happy Girl:
There are much to much of our many accordionists that play but dont understand the infenent beauty, complexity and ability of the left hand of the instrument we play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradella_bass_system
http://www.accordions.com/articles/stradella.aspx

 

[Zevy]

The article is only a single page from what I think is a full book. The first page is actually labeled page 10, so thats all we get to see.
Nice part to share!

<FONT font=Garamond><SIZE size=125><COLOR color=#0040FF>The same Bob Smith that wrote that article wrote a book titled, Fingering For the Accordion by Robert L. Smith. It is an excellent resource for the piano accordion, as well as for the Stradella left hand. I dont know where one can get it; perhaps from the author himself.

 

[debra]

This is very useful information. But it should not be taken literally. It suggests a specific range (octave) of notes for each of the sets of reeds, going from the lowest C to B, but the actual range depends on accordion make and model. For instance, on most convertor instruments the lowest octave starts with E. On instruments without convertor it can be A (Bugari does this), it can be C, it can be any other note. The essence of the ranges that are shown is that there is a very commonly used "middle" reed that has an overlapping range with the higher and lower one and its function is to mask where the "octave jump" is.

 

[Happy girl]

Thank you JIM D for posting those extra two links, that was a bonus for me.

Thanks to my new acquisition I am now in possession of plenty of bass couplers, so it is well worth spending time trying to understand how to make the most of them.