Accordion Lesson 1.

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Instrument Overview

In this first accordion lesson we will discuss the treble keys, the bass buttons, the standing position and how to work the bellows.

Let's look at the instrument first. It has piano keys which are played with the right hand, and the bass buttons, small and round witch are played with the left hand. Let's take an quick look at the piano keyboard. It is looking like that:

You might notice that the notes are repeating and also the patterns are repeating. We have actually a 5 black keys pattern that is repeating and it goes like this: 2 black keys, space, 3 black keys, space, and again 2 black keys, space, 3 black keys, and so on.

Try to localize C, it is the white key located just at the begging of the 5 keys sequence. Can you find all C keys?
D is the next white key. Search all D from the keyboard. Notice that the D is always in the middle of the first 2 keys from the 5 black key sequence, that we talk about. Now take each note and try to localize it on your accordion keyboard, meaning take all E,F etc. Try localize them backward, all C, all B etc., try random keys.

Take your time! No need to hurry. The more time you spend with localizing the notes, the more comfortable you'll be skipping from a note to another (actually playing :).

The distance between two notes, for example the distance between two C, is called octave from octo which means 8 in Italian, because there are 8 notes: C D E F G A B C.
Now try singing C,E,G in first octave, in second and in the third.

For now we don't need to worry about the black keys. We'll see their meaning in a latter chapter.

OK good, now let's continue the lesson by moving to the left side of accordion. There we have all this little round buttons. Yap I know, they are intimidating, they are to many and not that different. And like this is not enough, while playing you can not see them. Well don't despair, with enough patience you will feel very familiar with them.
You can click on the left picture or better save it, to look at it while I'm explaining.

All the bass button are arranged like this: horizontal rows and vertical rows (columns). On the horizontal row we have 6 buttons. And starting from left to right we have the counter bass note, the root note for the chords buttons to come, the major 3rd chord button, the minor 3rd button, the diminished chord, and the 7th chord button.
So for every root note we have an entire horizontal row specially for it. For example let's take C. We have counter bass note which is the 3rd note in this case E(CD and E). Then we have the C bass note, then the CM (C major chord) which is compose from three notes CEG, so when we press CM button we actually play 3 notes. The same with Cm (C minor chord), Cd (C diminished chord), and C7 (C 7th chord).

The columns are arranged in the circle of fifth order. This means that every root note button is the fifth note distance from the root note button bellow. For example lets take the root note C. Just above the C is the fifth note which is G(CDEF and G), above G is D(GABC and D), and so on A, E, B, etc.

Now, for the end of this lesson let's try to put on the accordion. Piano keys in the right, bass in the left, the stripes one for each shoulder. Adjust the left hand stripe from the little wheel from the left top. That is it! And remember to keep you back always straight. You can seat on a chair an put the right part of accordion on your left leg to sustain the weight.

Now that we cover the instrument overview, we are ready for some playing!!! But that in the next lesson. :)

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