How to Play the Accordion

Love to play the accordion? Well, I have here a few information for you to consider while you are learning how to play the accordion.

The Fundamentals of Accordion

First things first – know the fundamentals of accordion: Sit down on a chair. Set the accordion on your left knee. The right hand operates the keyboard, while the left hand pumps the bellows. Place the straps over your shoulders, and adjust them if necessary. Slip your left hand under the strap on the button side, and don’t forget to adjust the strap as necessary.

The Basses

The accordion has actually a number of bass buttons, but there’s no need to worry because you only need four or six of them to start with. Note that a normal accordion can have up to 120 basses which are arranged in up to 20 columns and up to 6 rows. Also, in learning how to play the accordion, you should know that there are two bass rows and four chord rows in an accordion. The first row, the one closest to the bellows, is the counterbass row which is denoted by underlined capitals. On the other hand, the second row is the fundamental row which is denoted by capitals.

The Keyboard

In learning how to play the accordion, one should know that the white keys on the accordion keyboard are named from A through G, while the black keys are named after the white keys, depending on whether they are a half step higher (sharp) or lower (flat) than the adjacent white key. Perhaps the best thing to consider here, in learning how to play the accordion is to play the C Major scale. You should begin on a C near the low side of the keyboard (towards your chin) and lay adjacent white keys until you get the next C an octave higher, which is towards the base of the keyboard.

Reading the Music

When you wish to learn how to play the accordion, you should know how to read the music. Basically, the melody is located on the upper staff of the printed music, and the bass line is on the lower staff. Note that the melody is usually shown in treble clef, while the bass part is shown in the Bass clef. Well, for some people reading the music while learning how to play the accordion seems confusing, but actually that is how music works. You will just be surprised later that after a while is almost makes some sense. Just note that in learning how to play the accordion, locate C, which is the first note and just follow the music. After all, the melody is relatively straightforward to play.