Like many accordion players, Bill Funkhouser came to the accordion from the piano and figured, “It has a piano keyboard… how hard could it be?” And then, like many accordion players, he struggled to master the layout of buttons on the bass side of his accordion.
So to help others making the same transition from piano to accordion, Bill came up with a novel study aid: Accordion Flashcards. Much like those old cards you used to cram for finals, these cards quiz you on the layout of basses and chords in the Stradella bass button system. The cards currently come in two varieties: a 12 bass set ($7.95) and a standard set ($12.95). Check out this sample card and start studying:
Bulgaria seems to have no shortage of great accordionists and Milen Slavov is one of the brightest lights in Balkan traditional and contemporary music. He moved to America in 1997 and currently performs, composes, produces, and teaches throughout the United States and Canada. I know a few of our readers saw him perform with the Yuri Yunakov Ensemble at the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio last year.
We’ve seen some online accordion lesson courses before, but nothing quite like the ones that Milen is currently offering through his website. He offers both custom audio (he’ll send you an MP3) and custom video lessons based around one of four subjects: ornaments in Bulgarian music, Bulgarian/Balkan piano accordion music, phrases and techniques, or improvisation. Even cooler, though, you can schedule face-to-face lessons to be conducted via webcam.
Normally, I’m a little skeptical of online video lessons because there’s no substitute for the feedback you get from a real teacher. But I’ll admit I’m intrigued by the possibility of taking lessons (even long-distance ones) from one of the world’s top accordionists. If anyone out there takes a lesson from Milen, let us know. I’d be really curious to hear how it goes.
Registration for Lark Camp has begun! This is the 28th year of the world music and dance camp that takes place in the Mendocino Woodlands in Northern California, August 1-9 2008. You can register for full camp (all 8 days) or half camp (4 days) either online or by mail.
Along with an extensive list of dance and vocal instructors, there is an instructor in practically every acoustic instrument and world music style that you can imagine. Accordion instructors include Javier Blanco (Galician Accordion), Claudette Boudreaux (Cajun & Creole Button Accordion, Cajun French Songs), Alan Keith (Button Accordion), Louis Leger (French Canadian Songs, Quebecois Button Accordion), Keith Livingstone (Piano Accordion), and Vickie Yancy (French Music & Button Accordion). There are also a variety of jam circles (Cajun/Zydeco, English country dance music, Old time music) to join in!
Check their website for more information about prices, registration and to hear some great sound bytes of the instructors’ music.
Can’t find an accordion teacher in your area? Don’t have time for formal lessons? The U.S. School of Music had a solution: an accordion home study course available via mail order. This particular set — copyright 1930, but mailed in 1942 — contains four lesson books (”Home Study Lessons for Piano and Chromatic Accordion”), as well as twelve records to accompany the lessons. I’m tempted to bid just so I can get a closer look at the study materials. Plus, I’ve always wanted to take a correspondence course… in accordion.
Expert Village bills itself as the “world’s largest how-to video site,” but even I was surprised to find their series on learning to play the accordion. The 15-part series (each part is about 3 minutes) is led by Brett Larsen, a middle-school teacher who plays in the Santa Barbara band, Spencer the Gardener. The series is very basic — “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is one of the tunes taught — but you can’t beat the price (free). Here’s a clip:
If you’re interested in more advanced video lessons for the diatonic accordion, check out our previous post on the Italian Accordion Academy online.
September 14th, 2007 at 12:20 am · Posted by Chris
Last month, the Washington Post Magazine had a glowing feature on Virginia accordion teacher Dale Wise. Three years ago, Wise started Accordions for Kids, a program designed to introduce a younger generation to the accordion.
Accordions for Kids is essentially a no-risk trial program for eight to twelve-year-old accordion students. Each student is loaned a 12-bass accordion and study materials (music stand, sheet music, etc.) and receives 10 weeks of lessons with a teacher free of charge. At the end of the program, the student performs in a recital and then decides (along with with his/her parents, of course) whether to continue. Children usually love it — and are oblivious to any stigma associated with accordion playing — but parents often need convincing:
“There’s some selling that has to be done… But this accordion thing is going to happen, one way or the other. How big it becomes is just a matter of how much energy we got.”
Accordions for Kids has been so successful that Wise has recruited teachers nationwide to participate. I absolutely love the idea and hope it continues to spread. Maybe one day we’ll have a nation of “accordion moms,” loading minivans full of accordions and shuttling them to lessons and recitals…
I have a question for the button accordionists out there: I am learning to play button accordion (after having played piano accordion for 15 years) and have been having a really hard time playing (remembering!) the correct button fingerings when I change the direction of air flow to my bellows. When beginners (like me) are learning a song, how do you recommend we go about it? Is it better to learn via rote memorization, breaking the song down into two-measure chunks — playing two measures with the bellows pulling out, then two measures pushing in? Or is there another method you prefer? Thanks in advance!
“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).
Warwick Thompson has an interesting piece in the London Times on the accordion renaissance taking place in “serious” music circles.
Along the way, Thompson chronicles his personal struggles on the accordion, including his lessons with Owen Murray of the Royal Academy of Music. (Murray forces him to play a free bass accordion, claiming that “the standard bass system condemned the accordion to a life of three-chord waltzes in C major and prevented it being taken seriously.”)
Thompson does a good job of conveying the challenges of accordion playing (”it’s like rubbing your stomach and patting your head, while standing upside down doing the splits”), as well as its rewards. He also talks to Russian accordion virtuoso Friedrich Lips, who suggests there’s no better time to start playing the accordion than now:
“The golden age of the violin was the Baroque era. For the piano it was the Romantic era. The accordion is still changing all the time, and we are just entering its golden era. It’s the most exciting time possible to be playing it.”
We’ve shared our disappointment in the rock accordion lesson books of the past, but now there’s a DVD aimed at a new generation of budding rock accordionists.
Like many accordion players, Bill Funkhouser came to the accordion from the piano and figured, “It has a piano keyboard… how hard could it be?” And then, like many accordion players, he struggled to master the layout of buttons on the bass side of his accordion.
Last month, the Washington Post Magazine had a glowing feature on 