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:
Sample Accordion Flashcard (PDF download)
2 Comments:
If you’ve never seen it, Roger Blumberg’s Cipher system for chromatic button accordion, (but not stradella bass buttons) is pretty darn interesting. Very quick way to pick up the easily transposable chromatic button system. (Works for guitar and a bunch of other instruments, but not piano keyboards.)
http://www.thecipher.com/chromatic-accordion-cipher.html
by Bruce Triggs on February 21st, 2008
Thanks for the link, Bruce — I’d never heard of the Cipher system. I don’t have a chromatic accordion handy, but I’ll play around with it using my guitar.
by Chris on February 22nd, 2008