The reason that I play a button accordion

[dentyr]

I have followed this fellow through his videos and this one explains why I prefer the buttons to the piano keys.



Regards, Den.

[JohnT]

Hi Den. Very interesting. Lots to take in from this knowledgeable guy. John

[Hugh-AR]

Having owned and played a piano accordion I was quite aware of the patterns of the chords in the left hand, following what I now know is called the 'Circle of 5ths'. From playing the piano I always knew that a C7 leads into an F; an F7 leads into a Bb; an Eb follows a Bb7 etc. .. and coming up the other side of the C, an A7 leads into a D; a D7 leads into a G; and a G7 takes you back to C. This is the order of the bass & chords on an accordion. Once you had worked out the pattern to play with your left hand it was a simple matter to move your left hand sideways and play the right chords in another key. But of course I had a piano accordion, so playing the melody was a different matter altogether. So I can see why your 'button' accordion is preferable to having a 'piano' accordion.

In the video above he says a piano keyboard has a "clean appearance", and adds " .. suggesting simplicity, but don't be fooled ..". But doesn't mention why it has a clean appearance. Each note on a piano keyboard is a unique note ie. you wouldn't press two different notes and hear the same sound. This is not the case with a button accordion. You can press two different buttons and hear the same note. This is why the button accordion looks a lot more complicated than a piano keyboard. This seemingly random pattern has a purpose, and that is to make fingering easier, as you often have a choice of two buttons to press to make the same sound, resulting in your fingers not having to jump about so much to play the melody.

There is an explanation of how these buttons work here:
Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.
http://www.tierce-de-picardie.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=450&t=7906

Hugh