Joseph wrote in to ask:
“I am an old man who loves music… I have a student accordion I fool around with but I would like to know a book that you would recommend. There are a thousand on the net but I can’t afford to buy 3 or 4 ’til I find one I’m happy with. I don’t want to be a professional, I just want to ENJOY.”
My experience with accordion lesson books is fairly limited; I started with the first couple books in the Palmer-Hughes series, but I was bored by the repertoire and eventually abandoned the books in favor of playing by ear (learning tunes that Anna taught me).
What about you? What accordion lesson books would you recommend to Joseph? Leave a comment and tell us what books have worked for you (or your students, if you’re a teacher).
7 Comments:
The book is not as important as the teacher. Learning yourself can be very boring because there is no demand for discipline and practice. Get yourself a good teacher and you will be very happy.
Good luck!
by Zevy on April 23rd, 2007
I live in an area where getting a teacher is an impossibility…. small farm based community in an agricultural area of central Ky. I don’t think I could even find another accordion PLAYER within a hundred miles or so - I would recommend two books that I am having real success with.
One is from Alfreds Publishing : Miriam Davidson ‘teach yourself accordion’ has a CD included with all material covered - the other is a Mel Bay : ‘you can teach yourself accordion’ it too has a CD with it.
As to the demand for discipline and practise - if you really want to learn then you don’t NEED to have someone else drive you to pick up the instrument and work at it daily - if it takes someone else to make you want to then you didnt really have the want too’s bad enough anyway :P
I would also recommend a few DVDs 2 by Debra Peters - which can be ordered from her website http://www.hitshack.com/debweb
and another that was mentioned here at this site a month or so ago
Professor Louies’ rock and blues accordion
it is available at homespun records
Hope this helps!
Im a bare bones beginner myself - never touched an accordion till this past November and still pluggin away at least 2 hrs a day :)
BTW this site is ALSO a great source of inspiration if you do still need some outside help with discipline and desire :)
by Steve on April 23rd, 2007
A really good book I ran across is L.O. Anzaghi’s
Complete method, theoretical-practical progressive for accordion. Covers Piano AND Chromatic. One of the only books I know of in english (in print) that does chromatic (C system) 217 pages.
It has a pull out chart ,bass and keyboard.
Has tunes and exercises in a good progression. Even has photos of a disassembled accordion with identification of the parts. Pics of how to hold the instrument.
It does assume you know how to read music.
In the back of the book it gets into playing augmented 5th and major 9th on the dominant, among other things on the bass side.
I usualy have this book in stock, it is imported.
Kimric Smythe
by Kimric Smythe on April 25th, 2007
Mel Bay’s book has worked well for me. It does NOT assume you know how to read music. It begins as if the reader has a 12 bass, and moves on to more buttons at the en d of the book.
by Mr. Florentino on April 26th, 2007
I learned how to play using the Sedlon Accordion Method. I still have my old lesson books. It was a solid method that worked well–at least for my brother and me. I would get bored just doing practice exercises, but the Sedlon method was very effective in the way that it integrated practice material into actual songs So that, for the most part, one was always learning new songs, rather than endlessly practicing only scales, arpeggios, and chords, etc. I don’t know how Sedlon compares with the Palmer/Hughes method; it may well be that Palmer/Hughes uses a much different method. Apparently, at some point, the Sedlon method fell out of fashion beause it is no longer being published–though I notice that Charles Nunzio carries many Sedlon volumes on his website, and used copies of the Sedlon Accordion Method, as well as the supplemental series “Entertaining With The Accordion” are generally available on the Internet, particularly via ebay.
A side note:
In recent years, I’ve heard some players criticize any method which instructs in the usage of the middle finger (rather than the ring finger) for playing fundamental bass notes. I’ve never appreciated the advantage (or disadvantage) of either approach, but if it matters to you, I shoudl mention that the Sedlon Method is guilty of this.
by David Auslander on January 4th, 2008
Thanks for the feedback, David! I inherited a couple Sedlon method books recently, but haven’t spent much time with them. I’ll have to take a closer look.
by Chris on January 4th, 2008
Dear sir,
I have purchased a accordian, I want to learn kindly help me to learn
by Devanand on July 21st, 2008