The languages I know and how it helped me navigate melodeon/diatonic accordion videos

This is a somewhat random post, but yesterday I read a post in Spanish and responded. The diatonic accordion is wildly popular in Latin America (as well as the piano accordion). They like the three row accordions and they like it tuned wet. Probably my least favorite combo, but that is for "me" to play, Ms. East-Coast-Suburban-Urban-White-Woman-Raised-in-Iowa. If I were in Mexico or at a Mexican festival, I would love it as it's taking in the culture.

Anyway, it made me realize, I have been able to follow and understand a lot of posts. I'm a native English speaker, obviously. I have an undergrad degree in Spanish (my Masters is in Educational Administration). I married an immigrant from Croatia and we raised our children hearing both English and Croatian. Our oldest son is fully bilingual (in speaking) and our younger son (and myself) mostly understand it, but respond in English. When we visit Croatia I can get by - ordering food, going to the market, asking for help, etc, but I wouldn't consider myself even conversant... just could survive and listen a lot and nod! :-) That artwork at the top? Says 7th Croatian Competition for Accordion.

So, it happens that a lot of posts about diatonic accordions are in English (because of the UK), Spanish, and Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian - all which are understandable to me. Because written French and Italian are somewhat kind of similar enough to Spanish, I can pick out some of that too. The one regular language I cannot decipher much unless they are crossover words in English is German. Of course, what is my dominant cultural heritage? German. GO figure it's the language I can't decipher without help from Google translate.

Accordion music, though, has been popular all over the place. Here's a great video sharing some of that history:

In other news got a good night of sleep and my cold symptoms are lessening (though my son has it now), so hopefully I can get in a good practice today. I might delve into some of the new material that has been sent to me too. We'll see how today goes.

Head is above water and I'm here

The last little bit has been a rocky road. This "fun stuff" my destresser stuff, was too much to add in the last 9 days... OMG, it's been 9 freaking days!

So what has been up? Writing it all out might help me process it all. First, I have my normal work stuff which keeps me busy. And my second job work which had quite a bit in the last little bit more than usually as things are finally moving faster and foward there. Add in that I was in a show as part of work and there were rehearsals and practicing on my own as I didn't want to be the person who messed up as I did in rehearsals (OMG - I had two nightmares about that). And as always, homeschooling my son, teaching my older son to drive on Fridays, cooking, etc.

And then, quite literally, a day after that variety show happened successfully (and was great fun!) I started to get sick on Sunday. By Sunday evening I was super congested, super exhausted, and had a terrible sore throat. I attributed some of it just being exhausted - the nightmares weren't helping! Monday, I was achy and tired and napped twice during the day briefly - and for the first time in my life, I had no voice! Boy is that annoying! Tuesday, my voice was back (yay!) and many of my heavy symptoms were lighter, but by midday I started to develop a fever and by evening, it was significant. Wednesday, I felt quite a bit better and decided to stay home another day from work. By 3 pm I was getting antsy (a good sign), so I did minimum work in the kitchen - I cleaned a few pots and pans, decluttered the counter and made a meal in the electric pressure cooker. Oh, and a couple of lessons with my son for learning. Those other days my husband dealt with more of the learning, all of the snow/ice cleanup  and laundry and dishes, etc. I had no energy or desire to pick up the melodeon. I felt it would just discourage me instead of encourage me.

Today, Thursday, I was itching to get out of the house and to work and it was a productive day, but long as I had evening meetings. I came home about 8:30 and I was starving and getting pretty exhausted. I ate. Thanks goodness for leftovers! And then I came upstairs to spend time with my family. Of course, a minute or less after going upstairs, my hormone ridden son threw an epic fit about saying he had wanted to watch a movie and Sven, my husband, hadn't understood he had wanted to watch a movie. Yes... that was what the fit was about - for real. That burned off my last bit steam and took away any joy left for the day. I was completely sapped and zapped. My son was still so mad at us, he didn't want either of us to read to him tonight which is the first time in his nearly 12 years - and as a child with autism, giving up a ritual on his own is a big deal. 

My only take away from that is that I'm proud my husband and I kept our calm and stuck to our guns and didn't give in to his tantruming. Kiddo calmed down fairly quickly on his own, but he is currently still crying himself to sleep.

That is when I decided to steal a bit of time to play. There was no joy in it. I'm exhausted, but just making the time to play after several days away from it was in itself soothing. It was grabbing some me time once again.

I haven't been to the melnet site, or to my email associated with this blog for more than a week. I'll get to that tomorrow.

It hasnt' been 10 days though since I practiced a wee bit. Thanks to the Streb (what a joy to play on) I got a couple practice sessions at work in break times between work and rehearsals last week. It was short and it made me realize I need a different set of headphones or an adaptor for the port, but I did practice with the volume just turned down low. That was awesome! (even though I was walked in on by someone of our organization and I was still embarrassed!

Attached are some photos of our act in the show, which honest to goodness, now feels like 50,000 years ago. It's been a very, very long few days here. I don't like share pictures of me, but I do it because I need to get over that crap and accept me for who I am!!!! So below are me and my colleagues presenting "Be Our Guest". We are all dressed as exaggerations of ourselves. I work with children and I tend to wear petticoats and full skirts for festivals and holidays because the kids love it when I have fun and dress up. The kids decorated my skirt the week before too (if you're wondering why I have scribbly drawings on my skirt).

And less than 12 hours after the show, the work must go on. One of the classes I work with made dog toys from donated materials to give to a shelter.

PS. I chose this illustration because it has a robin and snow. Kind of like now. We had our only significant snow this Monday/Tuesday in mid March, just as, quite literally, the earliest spring trees started to bloom; killing probably all the cherry blossoms and kind of making pointless the Cherry Blossom festival in DC this year. Maybe they didn't want to bloom for Trump?

The good and the bad

Since I'm an optimist and like to get the bad out of the way to end on the good, let's start there. So, the bad is that I've been insanely busy. This past week I put in between my full time job, my part-time job, homeschooling, and teaching my older son to drive, I spent nearly every second of my available time which means very little practicing. Means I barely had time to try out the Streb sent for me to use for a few months too! Tomorrow is my day off for my full time job, so I'll have more time to practice tomorrow!

The good, while I was stressed all to heck and super busy, I found I wanted to grab the melodeon to practice and it does act as stress relief.  On Saturday morning, I had three things super looming over me to get to before noon and before I went to the take my son out driving and grocery shopping for the week, I said, "Give me a few minutes to play the melodeon so I can relax a little bit." So, as bad as I am and will be for a long time, playing is serving a crucial purpose - stress release!

Today I received another gift of music from Wally too. I haven't had a chance to open it fully Wally, but thank you! It's shocking and amazing and so generous.

And today I stole an hour at the end of the day to practice. Probably not the best to practice between 8:45 and 9:45, but that is what I had available to me.

I ran through all the pieces I am learning (about 5) and decided to show the second piece I'm working on as it's a march and marches are a Theme of the Month of melnet - maybe I'll put my feeble attempt up as it progresses as, hey, it's a march! Then, I tried the last piece I'm working on which is a reel. I can play it a tiny wee bit better than what I recorded here, but not much better as I have to slow it way, way down to try to get left and right hand to work together.

More progress on separating hands and out for delivery!

Two days ago (didn't have a chance to practice yesterday) I had another small step in a listener's ear, but a huge step for me! I had another micro-step in being able to do one thing with my left hand while doing another with the right hand.

In some new exercises in the Pignol and Milleret Method book there are eighth notes in the left hand basses and quarter notes in the right hand melody.  For the first time I was able to do that - I could lift my hand off the basses without simultaneous lifting my hand off the right hand melody. Of course, it didn't come automatically or every time it appeared in the exercise, but that it even started to happen was a gleeful moment. It means that my brain is beginning to build up connections which allow my hands to work more independently. Yes, this middle-aged brain can still learn new tricks!

I think it helped that it was earlier in the day too - when I'm fresher. Most of the time practice is after a long work day and dinner and a bit of family time - basically, I'm usually practicing when I'm at my worst, not best! When I practice a bit later today, I'll be curious if I can still do it and if it gets better and easier.

In other news, the silent melodeon is out for delivery for today. It got shipped in the UK on March 1st and will be delivered to my house on March 3rd. Before I continue about that - first a comparison about mail. This package from the UK is taking 2 days to get here - door to door. I had a priority mail package sent to me from Minnesota last week. It was mailed on February 22nd and expected delivery was Feb. 24th. I got it on February 28th... When someone pays for priority shipping, they are paying for faster delivery over 1st class mail, but that package got here at 1st class mail timing and that is just wrong. I have no complaint about mail taking days to get here - OK. fine. but if you pay for faster delivery, having it take 6 days is not acceptable.

OK, back to the silent melodeon, the Streb e-melodeon. I can't wait to try it out. Like, last night I could have used it. I got home at 8:30 pm. I had been away since 9 am, so I hadn't seen my family all day. My son and husband were watching a movie together, so I didn't want to disturb too much. Now, when my son watches a movie, he half pays attention as it's not a new movie, so we talk and chit-chat about the day, so talking is OK, but playing an instrument in the room would not be. Yes, I could have left the room to play, but I hadn't seen my family all day. These are the times the e-melodeon will come in useful. I could be there and practice. So practice didn't happen. By the time movie was over and spending a bit of time and reading a book to my son, it was 10:30 pm. I almost went to practice, but I was afraid practice would suck as it was now bedtime, not play time.

So, gleeful!!!! Today is the day! Too bad I have to work today too.

Overdue updates, a new development, and generosity

Has it really been 5 days? How is that possible? Business!!!! I have had several really long work days and with the weather being unbelievably seasonally warm too, more 'blog time' has been spent outside too. But, it doesn't mean I've quit! Nope! I'm plugging away.

First, let me talk about practice and developments. Practice has been more sporadic as my time has been more sporadic, but they have been good practices with seeing improvements nearly every time I sit down to play. I have decided not to move on to the next section of the method book yet I decided to  just keep going back through the tunes and exercises I have already started so that they start to feel less strained and approach even their lento tempo on the recordings. It feels a bit less horrible - not good, but less like random notes being played on a page.

The new development actually has me almost giddy. There has been a lot of discussion on melnet about how to learn and how to play the melodeon. I totally get the thoughts and feelings on this too. The melodeon is a folk instrument. It's meant for dance and singing along and for a showing emotion.  It's a music to be felt deep in the soul to be "good" really. I've posted some really, heart felt, deeply felt - either in joy or sorrow pieces. The players might not be feeling sorrowful or joyous, but their music expresses it.

Like these two in an off the cuff moment. They play off each other and let the tunes evolve. It's just a joy to watch and listen to.

I didn't grow up in that tradition or learn music in that manner.Maybe there is just less of that overall in much of the US? (I grew up in a mostly rural-ish part of the country - but as an adult I've always lived in or near large cities). I learned in school, on a classical instrument and I was to strictly play what was on the written page and to follow the director for tempo, etc.

There was a jazz band at school, but the French Horn is not ever used in a jazz ensemble (though I did get to play on one piece and got to go to state as there was an arrangement for horn... but it was still all on paper.)

And I think I'm a German deep in my soul and to top that - a mid-westerner through in through in my behavior - don't let loose -follow the rules - don't show emotion. All scripted music.

So, that has been how I've been approaching picking up the melodeon because that's how I know how to approach music. People on Melnet tell me to noodle around on the box. That leads to nothing. The melnetters who grew up with hearing the music and experiencing this instrument as a folk instrument are probably dying inside or wanting to throttle me for wanting to make this folk music into a classical, strict, style of playing. I get that, but I cannot undo my nature or my more formal learning on an instrument (despite huge gaps in learning).  The notes on the page work for learning and introducing new tunes to my ear -hearing it and seeing it written out gets it in my head. BUT... I do have an inner voice that does want to break free. More on that in a minute.

Anyway, one of the five pieces I'm working on in the method book is a catchy tune. I found myself this morning humming it, but not as it's written on the page, but how my inner composer is feeling how it could be played. In my head, the basses compliment the melody - it's not in the traditional um pa steady rhythm, but instead are stressing certain tones and notes. Just now I thought of it again, and the tune in my head sounds differently with stresses elsewhere in the piece.

This is a huge development for me. I am feeling the music specifically for this melodeon and it's off the book. It feels heartfelt in my head. It sounds fun! Yay! Now, there is no way in hell I can play that tune that is running in my head as I stink at this instrument as a beginner, but I"m feeling it differently for pieces that "stick".

And that might be a problem for the one piece especially that is not working well at all. I don't hear that song in  my head - it's either not interesting or not natural sounding or something. And I've decided that if I don't particularly like a piece, I shouldn't play it or practice it! There will be other pieces that go over the same skills I can work on that I do like and do feel more natural and will therefore be more interesting and easier to learn.

So 'by the ear' learners. Take heart. I will break free from the page too - somewhat, in time, within my comfort zone.

And now, generosity and how it comes at a time when I need it.

I had a hard Sunday this past week. I don't like it when my work doesn't feel "good". Not so much for me, but my volunteers. I want their experience working with kids to feel good and to be rewarding and when it's not possible (usually do to too many kids at one time), I don't feel good about it. 

Monday was a really good day, but it was a very long day. I had hoped when I got home I could practice... this in itself in interesting. I wanted to practice. because even as horrible as it is to listen to myself right now, it is a stress reliever. I look forward to it. However, I got home at 10 pm. Read to my son before he went to bed, and then it was nearly 11 pm. Too late! I was feeling a bit deflated, but then I saw there was a package for me. A package from Wally from Minnesota, Walleye on Melnet, I discovered. He had sent me a book of tunes for the diatonic accordion. I even recognized most of the names that provided the tunes. I felt dumbfounded... another gift - just because. I did choose to play the melodeon because I found that the group on melnet were so generous with helping new people learn and that it was a true community built around the playing (and restoring) of melodeons, but I didn't expect this generosity of materials and I'm really touched and I can't wait to dive in more.

Then I checked my personal email and I had two messages - one for tracking info from the UK and a message from Steve Rouse who makes the Streb e-melodeon. It was a note saying he sent me an older, loaner e-melodeon just to test it out and to use as a silent melodeon. So on those 12 hour work days, I can practice at work too without bothering anyone for a midday break. I had put myself on a queue for buying a new instrument a week or so ago. The queue for these hand-made electric melodeons is 12-18 months long. That he is lending his older one to me, is breath-taking generosity from Steve. 

Honestly, there is so much generosity, I need a list:

1. Scott Bellinger - spent his time with me helping me choose an instrument.
2. Scott Bellinger allowed a like for like swap of CF Hohner Liliput accordions so I can get it faster.
3. Scott Bellinger threw in a soft-sided carry bag and free shipping to send the two instruments.
4. Sean sent me the Pignol and Milleret Method book - just needing to pay for shipping.
5. Playandteach has answered so many of my questions and even answered one by doing a tutorial on a skill just for me on a youtube video.
6. I was sent two books via Amazon from an anonymous person.
7. I was sent a wonderful tune book by Wally.
8. I am being sent a loaner e-melodeon by Steve where I just need to pay for shipping.

This has all happened in the last two months. That is incredible. I am a giving person - always have been, but I'm not used to being on the receiving end of such generosity. I'm deeply touched and I promise it won't go to waste.

A silent melodeon

I don't like being heard while I horribly work my way through anything right now. It sounds horrible to me. It has to sound mind numbing horrible to anyone else. I find that I don't play out at home if anyone else is around. I'm more tentative. and where and when I can play is also limited.

It's a bigger problem at work. I would use break at work to practice for 10 minutes, but not if I can be heard anywhere. I thought today I might be able to, but our front area is on 16th Street in DC - cars, pedestrians and windows on our building everywhere so I couldn't hide. The back area has picnic tables, but again, people! There are nursery centers that use the play area and even if they were inside, they have windows and could see me and, people park in the back to come inside too.

My office has a door, but no room is sound proof enough. I would drive my colleagues nuts or invite comments and the snickers behind my back. Who wouldn't? It's awful!

Sure, you can say, "get over it"! It's not going to happen. I don't want to be heard by strangers and colleagues for sure. Home it's fine if my husband hears it (he's being unbelievably supportive) and my son just goes to his room to block me out. This is only OK if someone's not watching a movie or my son isn't doing some learning for homeschooling.  I can't really go to another room or another level because besides this one room, all other rooms are adjacent, over, or under one of my mother-in-law rooms. I don't want to invite criticism or interest or questions from her either. I just want a space to feel safe and quiet, without needing to disappear and that is the large family room which is over the garage and not near anything else.

When my son was taking piano, we bought a Yamaha Clavinova. That piano is digital, but plays and feels like a piano - weighted keys, etc. My son could put on earphones, or tun the volume way down low when he was practicing.  It was great and the piano is not nearly as annoying to listen to as the accordion while practicing. Believe me! 

So I looked to see if there was such thing as a digital accordion. Getting a silent or near silent melodeon would allow me to increase practice time by a lot - maybe double. And right now, anything to get me past this horrid early beginner stage sounds fantastic!

Creating an instrument that can do this, in theory, sounds simple enough, but you still want it to play like a real accordion. Meaning, all parts moving and feeling relatively the same as if air were passing through the reeds. You would want to be able to control the volume by bellow movement, etc. If it doesn't have these features, it makes it harder to move back and forth from the digital to the traditional melodeon and I want to be able to do that. It's why we bought the Yamaha Clavinova 15 years ago. It plays like a piano in all respects - unlike an electronic keyboard. 

So, is there something like this? Yes. There are basically two options - the Roland FR-18 and the Streb e-melodeon.  There is sort of other options, but that involves building something myself - not going to happen. And there is the option of getting a box with no reeds (I guess just for practicing fingerings with bellow movement to get it coordinated well?), but without any sound at all, it wouldn't help me realize I'm doing something wrong with notes.

Just as I was thinking about all of this, a Roland FR-18 came available for a very reasonable price.

It's advantage is that it's midi, so you can wear headphones and be silent and it has a lot of voices. It's affordable-ish even new and you can then play in any key which has advantages to having more music easily available. But other than that, I cannot get jazzed by it. It's big, heavy, and you need an amp to play out if/when you want to play without headphones. But the worst for me, is that it sounds like the accordion you think of when you think of bad accordion music. It has other sounds too, but again... reminds me of just bad music. (my personal opinion, of course) The Roland piano accordion is what Weird Al Yankovic plays. Need I say more?

Here's a sample. The kid is actually playing great, but it's the type of sound I just don't like:

Here is a demo of the instrument with many voices from Roland:

And on top of that, I've heard it's not very easy to go back and forth with this and a traditional melodeon and being able to do that is precisely what I want to do.

Then there is the Streb. This looks like a melodeon and is called an e-melodeon. It is also midi, but there is a built in amp and loud speakers in the body of the machine, so, it's easier to take and play like a traditional melodeon. And it too can be played in any key. It has fun sounds too.

Just listen to these:

Sounds like a melodeon. Which I love that sound.

And here is Helena playing her Streb. Again, sounds like a melodeon:

Clive has several great videos:

Clive does some interesting things with it too - strings! (and organ, etc... I didn't attach them all.)

I love it. Like love it and it is affordable as far as melodeons go. The only downside? They are handmade and there is a year wait to get one. I put myself in the queue. Not to replace the traditional melodeon, but to supplement it!

Oh but if I could just sound good! Today was an ok day of practice. I practiced about 90-100 minutes this evening at home... but everything is just horrible - though I feel and sense progress. I'm just not some late blooming prodigy.

Good day, bad day, good day, bad day next?

It's like that game you played as a child with a daisy like flower - he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not. He loves me! That is how learning feels recently. A horrible day - a great day, horrible day, great day. Today was a great day.

I didn't do anything different, I just started going through the pieces again. I even started a new one and it started to come (horribly, but recognizable) almost immediately. Muscle memory, head memory. I don't know. We all know it's true though. Sometimes stepping back, giving it some time is all that is needed to make forward progress. Today I had forward progress - significantly.

I am also realizing things about myself. I'm super self-conscious about playing and practicing and bugging people with practicing. I said on melnet today that I don't know if it's my personality (probably) or the years of being told listening to me practice was like listening to a dying cow when I practiced my horn in my early years.

Plus, I like to be with my family. We have this habit (which I love) of being together but doing different things. My husband will be playing chess. My son watching a movie or doing something on his iPad and my working or writing something all in the same room. We can tune each other in and out as we wish. But with practice... I sort of dominate the room. I could go to other rooms, but it's not as convenient and some of it then interferes with my mother in law's spaces and I definitely don't want to deal with snooping, irritating, etc.

I am highly thinking of getting a midi diatonic accordion just for being able to practice. It is more for me than anyone else. I don't play as well or as boldly if I'm worried about bugging people - or even as long. I had my accordion with me all day yesterday at work, but there's nowhere to go and I don't want to play and annoy people. And, if my older son wants a go at it, he can practice too as headphones will make it silent anywhere!

Being a beginner totally stinks

There is just so much to learn and nothing is intuitive and it's not much stress relief if it's having to learn and practice dreadfully. I mean, I am learning and I'm not getting impatient enough that I'll quit, but when I hear all these tunes and I cannot play any of them, and it feels like it will be a thousand years before I can play any of them, it's a drag. Like today, The piece that was introduced in the book today has 16th notes on basses (left hand) and quarter, 8th and 16th notes on the right hand and those 16th notes are opposite of the ones played on the basses. The 16th on right hand against the 16th note on left hand is so unnatural to me that I feel like I'll never get it. The recording I have of the song has it at speed and slowly. I can't play it if you halve the tempo at the slow version. Sigh.

And you wouldn't think I would have problems playing on and off the beat as I am a horn player and horns always get the offbeats while most of the the rest of the band is playing on the beat, but that is a different skill to be learned. This is learning to untie my hands.  When I was talking to my son about that, he said he remembers how hard that was in learning to play the piano too and that in itself is so interesting. It's not like we do the same things with our hands. Right now typing - my hands are working independently. I can drum fairly well (rhythmically using my hands and feet differently from each other) when drumming on the table or my lap. What is it about piano and the button box? I'm seeing progress in that, but any slight new step in making the hands more and more independent leads to a new skill that needs to be developed.

Now, I have only played it through a few times - or tried to play it through. I can't. I'll have to dissect it more and just have patience.

Maybe I'll record some of it. Here is a violin version of the piece, just to give you an idea of how it is supposed to sound: Reel du Sirop D'erable

Here is me... OMG... It's embarrassing to share as it is so, so, so bad. Well, it does say the song means maple syrup... maybe maple syrup is in my melodeon thus making it sound horrible?

I did two takes - no clipping, stopping before the end. Totally lost the thread, etc.

Take one. Stopped midway through.

Take two. Struggled horribly through - embarrassing to even share.

Playing it at the piano - sloppily - right hand only. I'm not a piano player, but it gives you a sense of what I'm trying to play.

The art I'm sharing today? It's how I feel when I play - dufus.

It feels like no progress is made, but the brain is faulty at remembering

Yesterday my college aged son was home. He's been curious about the melodeon, so he picked it up. He, like I, feel it's a bit non-intuitive. It all seems to be going along swimmingly until you hit a half step on a scale on both the C row and G row. Adrian asked, "why did they do that?" And I know why, because of being able to play multiple button play sound harmonious, but it's a bugger for learning as a beginner!

I didn't have much time to tinker yesterday with all I detailed in yesterday's post, but I played a couple of things for him, one being a beginner thing so he could try. I breezed right through it like I knew what I was doing and at a decent tempo. And I played one of the pieces I'm working on now, buturing it.

Today, I spent an hour after lunch, working back to front of the recent exercises and pieces I've been working on and amazingly, it's getting better. The newer and harder stuff is rubbish. I'm taking it at like 1/5th the speed it's intended and it's full of missed notes and pauses and starts and stops. However, as I kept working backwards, the tempo picked up, the mistakes lessoned. Nothing is perfect, not even close, but I can feel that what I found hard a week ago, is now not so daunting. 

In the two weeks I've had the melodeon, I haven't made tremendous progress, but I'm learning and it's serving its purpose of being a stress-reliever. I'm not training to be a professional musician. With that said, I would like to be able to pick up the instrument and play quite a few pieces without it being horrible!

So, despite having  super full day tomorrow, I just spent an hour practicing. Perhaps I'll record where I'm at later, but now it's time to take a walk on this gloriously sunny and warm February Saturday afternoon.

Not much time, but practicing where I can

Life has gotten busy the last couple days. I was commuting or at the office 14 hours on Thursday. I brought the GC instrument in case I found time to practice, but I did not. Today is a work from home day and I started bright and early, but between work with two jobs, making meals, teaching my older son to drive, spending time homeschooling my younger son, and grocery shopping, I was only able to nab about 15 minutes total. Tomorrow should be better.

To wind down the last two days, however, I started nabbing things for pinterest to post different forms of (non photographic) artwork pieces that included some type of squeeze box. I'll probably divide them out by theme/style at some point, but from about midnight until 2 am yesterday I grabbed about 400 of them, and today between 11 pm and 12:20 am, I grabbed the rest. There's probably some duplicates in there, but I have nearly enough pieces to supply 3 years of posts with accordion, concertina, and melodeon images. You can tell it's an important instrument through the last 100 years just by the shear number of things I found in such a quick time. Here is the link to the board. I've also created a Pinterest link on the sidebar.

I decided I would use a piece or two a day to include on this blog. Today I picked a cute pair - before and after. With more searching, I found a different pair, but quite similar. I'm not sure if the second pair are also Riedler or a copy cat artist... but they're cute. Looking forward to some more practice time, but if you want to see the stash of squeeze box images, feel free to take a peek on Pinterest.

Solving puzzles

The last couple days of practicing have been bits and pieces of time here and there, not long stretches, but I'm practicing. One thing I am struggling with is (in my head) what is the best way to remember bellow direction.

The music, pretty universally that I have seen so far, is written on staff with button number with the underline or no underline and basses either written in on its own line or like with guitar chords, written in over the staff. But there is no universal. Here I was trying to force myself to do something that is actually quite unnatural to me. I was trying to look at the notes on a staff and just remember what direction the bellows go. Well, this is somewhat unnatural because bellows switch based on key of instrument (I think?) and which row/button they land on. I cannot explain it well, but it is a thing either memorizing a song or written notation makes it easier.

So, the notes for the GC melodeon are these. Each button is two notes - both treble and bass side. Here's the keyboard layout.

And this is how the method book I'm using writes out music. Top section of music shows the notes written on a staff with fingering help noted just below the notes (the bad habit I've been forming is following those because it's telling me which finger to play and which direction of bellows - Underline is pull, not underlined is push.

Below that is C row - it's empty because everything in this piece is written on G row. 

Directly below the C row is the G row, and then you see different fingerings with some being underlined and some not. This is precisely telling me which button to push or pull. So, you see the first two measures it's 3 4 5 4. That means I should play the third button on the G row, then the 4 and then the 5 - all on pull, and then next measure back to 4th button on the push.

Directly below the G line on the top section of music (first 6 measures) the basses are written in with the rhythm of what to play being the bottom most thing shown. The second section of music is the same, but this time they took out the bass line. I was first confused by this because I didn't know what that meant. Do I not play basses? or was I supposed to just figure it out? But, I figured out that they were giving me bass information above the staff line for the first time. 

But there are other ways of notating music for the meldeon too. Here are some (found publicly on a google search). And I probably didn't capture them all.

All of them I now can figure out what they are implying, but there isn't a standard. And then I had a super "aha!" moment. This is for me. Not to please a teacher or to play while sight reading with no help. I am doing this for me, so if I want to scribble all over the music, or rewrite things to work for how my brain processes the music, then I just need to do what works for me. Even in my son's piano lessons and my years in band, we would make our own notes to remind ourselves of what to do. So, why have I been limiting myself and getting mad at myself for needing the fingering guides? Reality is, once the piece is in my head better, I will only be using the staff to remind myself of going up or down in notes and to remember the rhythm. Later, I can just ditch the music altogether. 

So, if, for now, it feels better to pay attention to fingering guides, fine. And if I know the rhythm in my head and just want to know fingering, then use fingering, or button guides. It's just notes for myself. It's not cheating! I can have crutches. I am not training in classical piano. Just like as a teen I would rewrite Eb music to F because I could never transcribe music in my head to play along at speed. 

Two steps forward, one step back?

That is what it felt like today - a disaster of some sort. Like I took a step back. I played better two days ago than I did today! Wah! I couldn't untie my hands well with 3/4 time. I was mis-remembering all the push-pull and where the buttons were. I was totally relying on the fingering help row - the one thing that I shouldn't look at as I'm learning as those will disappear soon. ACK! It may be Valentine's Day, but the melodeon wasn't showing me much love today. Wah!

But I stuck with it for almost an hour. That is the way it goes sometimes. Though, I didn't have it in me to go back to stumble so terribly through things I did 4-5 days ago, so I stuck with things mostly I got to a couple days ago in the G row, but a couple in the C row too. Maybe I'm just tired today. I don't know.

But, I'm not feeling overly satisfied. I'm having to remind myself that today is only day 9 or so and I missed two days of practice, so it's only day 7 - 7 hours is not a lot of time to master anything! Even simple little tunes.

I did play (right hand only) twinkle twinkle from my head and that came instantly, so there is progress, but man is it slow.

Here is a march that isn't very marchy that I got to a 3 days ago. And following that is waltz that I got to today. So, I've gone through this, stumbling and falling, a couple of times before recording it. Learning something new and it shows the painful process. Yes, it's that bad! I post it because one day, I'll see, "Wow, look how far you've come!" I hope!

A breakthrough of sorts? A leap forward!

And grrr... I had completed my entire blog post last night and lost it completely when I went to add in a photo. I had forgotten my Chromebook at work and was using my iPad. Ipad and Google don't always play nicely together and Blogger is one of them that has problems. I had such a nice, timely, as it was happening, post... that disappeared and no "back button", refresh, close and re-open could retrieve the body of the post. It still shows as an empty draft post on the iPad, but not even that on my Chromebook. Sigh...

So, what I was posting about last night was a significant leap in playing last night. I started with how I find the learning process quite fascinating. I remember how fascinated I was when my boys were young at how they couldn't do something one day and the next day they could. I told a story of how my son "chose" his right hand one day. It was such an obvious thinking process. His whole infancy his left side seemed dominant. He kicked harder with his left leg. All skills he acquired began with left side and then he would switch to right side. This included using his spoon. My son had been using the spoon for a few months with his left hand. Then one day while sitting in his high chair he looked at the spoon in his left hand. He looked at his spoon-less right hand. He transferred the spoon to his right hand, looked back and forth at his two hands, and then started eating with his right hand and from then on out, he favored his right side for everything. That process is forever etched in my brain.

Learning to read is a great example of how a switch in the brain just happens. Until that switch happens, natural, smooth reading will not occur. Our oldest son was "reading" sight words and sound it out words when he two years old - self-taught. We never forced it. He could sound out books, but that was sounding out words, not reading. Then one day around  4 1/2 he just got it and started reading books for meaning and it just took off quickly from there.

My younger son knew all his letters, upper and lower case by 20 months (self-taught), and was learning sight words (never by sound it out) when he was two. He learned how to truly read by 4.5 by linking sight words together in a story making, meaningful way. 

Neither of them did anything to make it happen. We didn't practice anything to make it happen. It just needed a brain development connection to happen, even with two different approaches of learning how to read.

That is kind what I felt like with last night's practicing on the melodeon. Something in my brain just clicked last night. Of course, I had been practicing, so it wasn't just a growth developmental change, but a brain connection was made last night because of the practicing I had been doing and overnight something clicked in my brain to make the next day easier.

Now, it's still plain dreadful playing. Just ask my 11 year old. He'll gladly tell you it's awful, but something clicked when I picked up the instrument this Sunday. Mindful of a bad habit I was forming (of reading fingering hints for the notes to play), I discovered, that while I still wanted to do that, I was beginning to sense where the note would be on the box and if it were push or pull. It's hard to describe, but I was beginning to fully realize, "Oh, that's a half step, so it's going to be pull pull when in this key and octave". Of course, this is at super rudimentary stage and while I'm practicing/learning different parts of the box piece by piece, but I just moved to G Row yesterday and it clicked almost immediately.

Another, more significant change was that I am beginning to move my hands independently. When I tried a week ago when I first got the box I could not disconnect the two hands at all. (When I was typing this up yesterday I thought it had been two weeks of learning already, when it had only been a week. Man, last week was long!)

The first week it had me playing Gg or Cc. When I went to G row it started me with Dd or Gg either in 2/4 or 4/4 time. It sort of makes you play your hands separately, but not really as it's a simple back and forth between the two fingers at the same tempo either Cc/Gg or CcCc/GgGg while treble had quarter, half, and eighth notes following a similar pattern on both hands - if a treble note changed, so did a bass note. Only difference being if a treble note were sustained in the right hand but continued in the same pattern in the left hand.

Last night they introduced 3/4 time which is not a simple back and forth in the basses, but Ggg and Ddd, while in the right hand it continued the same pattern of quarter, half note, or all quarter notes or all eighth notes. Anyway, I had tried to do an Oompa pah pattern on the first day I got the box and no way Jose could I do that! But a week in and I could with no problem at all with these exercises.

As I said, it's all rudimentary, but so far, everything I've had to do, it was slow everything down to snail's pace and just work it through with no seeming moments of, "I got it!". Until last night.

I didn't really "need" to know that E was push or pull and played by my 4th finger, I could sense it could be. It made learning the exercises a bit faster.

With that said, everything is full of mistakes and hesitation, but with far less feeling of "What is this new thing they are throwing at me" feel to it. I still go back through most of the exercise to try to master them all better so that they get cleaner, but whereas the first day I used the book I did 3 exercises, last night I did 8! I stopped because of time and realizing I was mastering none, but it is beginning to click... which is great.

I didn't record anything because of leaving my computer and phone at work, and the changes I feel are probably not hearable, but it felt like something bigger was happening. Now it is keeping my pace and not trying to move on too quickly before I really master anything. Though, maybe that isn't as relevant for this instrument as I think.

A work day Saturday - but a couple nice surprises

I had two work engagements to day. Both were quite enjoyable, but still took a significant portion of the day. The first nice thing was that my husband and younger son were with me for the second event of the day and we had lunch afterward. We haven't had a nice and slow lunch out in ages.

I came home to a pile of dishes (left from yesterday where my husband and I had a super busy day.) and learning to do with my son, and prep for Sunday and after the last few days of nonstop go I wasn't feeling to happy about all of it. Balance of work/home/homeschooling these last few days.

So, this was my mindset late this afternoon. Just then my mother in law who lives with us was heading out to meet up with some friends and she found a package in the door. I wasn't expecting anything, but it said it was for me. I opened it and I was so confused. It was two new books from Amazon.

Now I had ordered two things yesterday for my son and mother in law, but that package had already arrived. Did I accidentally order something else. Impossible because I have never even seen or heard of these books before! But they would be something I would get exactly because just a day  before I had asked about recommendations about for such books on the melnet forum. Someone had gotten it for me!?!?!

What a very pleasant surprise! I love my husband to pieces, but he doesn't get me gifts - partly because he's lousy at it and feels too pressured. As I said, I love the guy, but that is not a strong suit! I get gifts from my mother in law for Christmas, but they are never thoughtful.They are gifts for the sake of saying she gave me a gift. I really cannot remember the last time I got a thoughtful gift and definitely not one from a stranger!

I know it's a melnetter from this side of the pond as it says so on the note. Just wow! I was a recipient of a random act of kindness. Super nice. I will definitely put them to use once I learn a bit more about G row. I started on G row today too! And, when I have "got it" and mastered things with these books, I will pass it on to another beginner.

But now back to learning/practicing today. I see, though, that I'm falling into a terrible habit. I actually did the exact same thing when I was 6 years old learning piano. I remember it! The book for learning piano,( I think I learned from Miss Adeline?)  Had fingering written under the notes. I paid more attention to the fingering that I did the notes! Then one day the fingering help was gone and there I was clueless.

In this beginning method book, written in small letters is fingering guides with bellow direction guide. See below. Now, there are so many things I could be looking at instead of the fingering guides to know what to play. Things that will never go away for notation, but those fingering guides will, so why am I looking at them!

I tried to start look at the notes above or the C and G lines below, but of course, it's easier to play with the fingering guides! ACK!!! Even though I'm not trying to take the easy way out, my brain can't be quite convinced of that!

I didn't get as much practice in as I wanted today too as I said it was a working day, but I did get some in! Now off to read to my son before bed and to then watch the rest of the movie I started watching with my husband, Sven, last night.

Not much to add

I ran out of spare posts long ago. I only had 10 minutes to practice from all day yesterday. In the evening (from 10 pm to 11:30) I opted to watch half a movie with my husband in the evening versus practicing after my son went to bed.

I just started logging where my time goes on toggl, and yesterday it says I spent 8 hours doing things I log. This means I must be forgetting to put things in for my time because I was working, with just super brief interruptions from 10:00 am to 10 pm. I used 9-10 am for pleasure - reading, catching up on news, asking a question on melnet, etc. Then it was work for both my jobs. Oh well.

Only thing I will add is that for some reason, learning the second octave of the C row seems harder to get in my head. I have no idea why;perhaps because some of the same letter notes have different push/pull, but I think what it really is, I can "get" through them a little faster with left hand and so the right hand isn't getting as much practice of repetition before I try a new exercise. Last night in the ten minutes I had, I went through all the same exercises as the day before and I'll probably keep doing that for today (and maybe) tomorrow depending on how much time I have to practice.

I don't even have a nice photo/link for anything today! So, I'll just attach an art piece with a melodeon today. Though it might be a concertina - not sure.

I don't like high notes and they don't like me

I have started taking a 15 minute break mid-day when I'm at work and during that time I piddle around on the Liliput with tunes I know in my head. Which means, I am trying to play new tunes and it's a mess. Today in those fifteen minutes I was playing the melody only for Home on the Range and Three Blind Mice. I found most of the notes, but haven't added in bass yet. So, at work it will be just trying to find melodies and get used to the back/forth of bellows and placement of notes for each tune.

At home I have the burl Hohner and I'm trying to practice from the book. Today I did lessons 4, 5, and 6 fairly well. It's slow. It's not perfect, but I'm picking up speed. Then I added in 7, 8, and 9 which are exercises. 9 is giving me a lot of troubles because I'm looking at fingering instead of the notes. I do not want to get in the habit of looking at the fingering. I want to see the note and know what to do. Or is that even a bad idea? Like, a middle C is push. An octave higher the C is a pull. This is in the key of C on a GC melodeon. I'm almost afraid to look at the book to see that it's all different in the key of G.

Yes, of course it's opposite. Middle C is pull and the octave above is push. Yes, that is going to be brain overload for me! This is how I'm beginning to feel!

I want to read the music on a staff because that is what is already the most comfortable for me, and it will make it easier to take other music to play. I also wonder if it will make playing cross row easier too? Possibly? I am probably full of it, but if I know it's a C and where the Cs are and in what direction of the bellows, perhaps more fluid play without tons of back and forth of the bellows will happen. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure it all out!

So, the last exercise I tried was 10. And that was an actual piece of music! I can do the first line (which repeats) somewhat OK, but then the rest of the tune escapes me as I can't get it in my ear because the phrasing feels like it's landing in the wrong rhythm or something. I kept plunking it on the piano to see if I could get it in my head better.

So about the title of this post - high notes... Yesterday and today the method book is introducing and working with the rest of the C row - the higher end. I have to give the bellows much more forced air to play the upper notes. This is true on both the melodeons I have. To get the higher notes loud enough to play and hear, the bass notes get too loud. As a novice, I do not want to be playing loud. If I could, I would play with them mostly silenced so only I could hear my playing. For me it's all like worst combination - high and squeaky treble voice - hate it. Lots of mistakes - hate it. And I have to play loud, announcing my horribleness to everyone in the house - hate it.

One good thing, is that playing the basses is getting easier. Of course, they make it easier by always having it be the same rhythm and same note and chord each time, but that's actually smart, because it's teaching me to separate my hands - to have them do things independently without adding in more complications (yet) while I learn where all the notes are in the right hand. 

I did practice for almost an hour today (53 minutes according to my handy dandy time keeper I just started), but my brain is just fried for the day. I was doing a lot of creative think paired with tedious work for my job today. It's funny, I like what I do, and lesson planning is fun/fulfilling, but it's a lot of detail to keep hold of in my head and it tires me after hours of it.

But, this is the good part... when I was driving home at 7 pm, I was thinking, "I just want to get home and practice a little bit." I knew, I felt/sensed that stepping away from the computer, the work, the homeschooling, etc would clear my head. I cannot think about anything else while I'm practicing. It uses my whole brain. Nothing else I do can do that for me - nothing that I enjoy, anyway.

With that said, I'm just too wiped out/tired to record anything today. Most important thing is that I practice, and that I did. So, I'm calling it good. No one needs or wants to hear another horrible day of a beginner playing anyhow!

Day 5 - and I definitely hear and feel improvement

Today I went back to the diatonic GC Method Book. I hadn't looked at it for 2 days while I was working on Twinkle and Twinkle variation. I went back to lesson 4 which is the one I was working, but didn't even record 3 days agom  because it gave me a LOT of trouble - especially with switching basses. Now, it's still a mess, but I can play it slowly and now I'm working on speeding it up (which means adding in mistakes!) That is improvement.

I then went to Lesson 5 which introduces a new "problem". The half step landing between buttons.

So far it has gone like this. Underline meaning PULL the bellows. Without underline means PUSH the bellows to get a note. So, for one key it is C on push and D on pull. So, the keys are:

C/D, E/F, G/A - See, back and forth. BUT... then it changes. 
C/D, E/F, G/A, B/C, D/E, F/G

See that: 
C/D, E/F, G/A, B/C, D/E, F/G

Now, when I look at the staff, I can't just go back and forth with the bellows to play CDEFGABC. In the middle of that is a half step between buttons. I now have to turn off my brain about push, pull, push pull to go up the scale and work harder on recognizing Push/Push or Pull/pull. Exercise 4 had me do Pull/Pull before with an A to an F, but they aren't notes next to each other, so it's less troublesome (though troublesome enough!)

Then it had me do lesson 6 which is a repeat of Lesson 2 except in a higher octave. I messed up at the very end because I ran out of bellow room/air.

On each exercise, I recorded it exactly one time instead of take after take after take to try to get something resembling what it should be. That in itself is an improvement.

Going forward I won't show everything I do as even I'll get bored with that, but for the first week I will. Then, it will probably be once a week. Who knows. Maybe not. I'm still figuring it out.