Children value the sense of achievement they gain through playing piano accordion, and group participation makes this even easier. Furthermore, learning this instrument teaches valuable lessons about leadership and responsibility towards others.
Begin practicing at a consistent tempo with the aid of a metronome; this will enable you to develop rhythmic time-keeping.
Keys
Your selection of an accordion will depend both on its musical requirements and how comfortable you are using its physical size. For instance, if you plan to perform Bach keyboard music then diatonic piano accordions may be more suited than their chromatic counterparts (Stradella system or one of various free bass systems).
Beginners should familiarize themselves with the layout and distinctive sound that each bass button makes, until they can instinctively place their finger on the correct button without looking. This will enable them to make fast progress as a musician!
A standard layout for bass buttons on an accordion is a circle of fifths with each button producing its own note or pitch allowing chords to be played. Some accordion manufacturers mark each bass button with different colours or rhinestones to make them easier for players to identify; additionally many accordions will have one or two “chord keys”, enabling the player to play major, minor, seventh and diminished chords without using bass/tonic buttons.
Reeds
An accordion’s reeds allow it to produce a range of notes. Most accordions typically feature two sets of treble reeds and five bass reeds; more expensive instruments usually feature better quality reeds. They change pitch as the player compresses or decompresses their bellows; therefore it is recommended that new reeds be broken in slowly by playing softly at first before gradually increasing volume to create an expressive dynamic range for your instrument’s voice and wide expressive range.
A thin strip of reed leather connects each reed, and when a button is pressed it sends air through their ranks and plates, making them vibrate. While treble accordions typically feature four ranks, smaller instruments such as 48 bass can have only three. Unused ranks are kept connected via valves; and accordions may be tuned either with standard piano key tuning, or different pitches to achieve French Musette sounds.
Tuning
Accordions can be modified with various tuning setups to achieve different musical effects. Smaller instruments typically feature two or three voice tuning setups while larger four voice models can feature any number of configurations such as standard tremolo where one reed is flattened out while two sharpened in order to produce the acoustic vibration effect.
A quick way to check a reed’s tuning is using a chromatic tuner and measuring by cents its deviation (in any direction) on its display screen. Once this information is available, adjustments to its tuning may be made via dry filing or diagonal filing without having to disassemble and open your instrument up again.
If a problem reed is too far out of tune to be corrected through spot tuning alone, it will need to be removed from its reed block, dried thoroughly and retuned using the same method.
Maintenance
Accordions are exquisite works of handiwork. When one key, button, or valve becomes sticky or out-of-tune it can usually be easily identified as the source and resolved quickly and successfully.
Locate and identify which switch controls the issue reed, along with which bellows direction it does not function correctly. Press that key and observe which reed plate opens (and in which direction); this will indicate which inner leather of your reed block must be closed off.
At this stage, open up the accordion, remove both reed blocks and reeds, clean all components thoroughly, remove reed pins using special accordion-specific pliers designed for accordions (or pad the jaws of normal pliers with tape to avoid marring their pin heads) as necessary, then perform maintenance to reduce friction where it exists. Sand, smooth, polish or loosen as necessary as necessary to reduce friction where it exists – using light pressure when pushing on reed tongues to avoid bending them. Use light pressure when pressing to avoid bending of their tongues; using heavy pressure can damage their tongues – use light pressure when pushing on them (to avoid bending), realign or loosen as necessary to reduce friction where necessary to reduce friction where friction exists – using light pressure when pushing on their tongues so as not to bend their tongues when pushing against them instead bending them without damage occurring them using drill chucks or similar blunt instruments can ruin its reed tongue. Use accordion specific accordions designed accordions for accordions when it comes to removal reed pins whereas normal pliers might mar the pin heads, with tape covering tape padding on their jaws instead to avoid marring their jaws in case marring its heads!