Everything has arrived and trying it out!

First, Friday afternoon the melodeon in GC method book arrived. Yay!!!

Saturday early afternoon the two melodeon's arrived, but I am currently waiting to open the box because I was advised to let them slowly warm up before opening it to prevent condensation from forming. Amazingly,  I have patience. Why? Because I have so many other things on my plate. Today is my one and only day off in a week and well, it's always kind of full!

But I am a bit amazed at myself for this lust/need to learn. For over a month now I have been researching and looking and asking questions. The last two days while working, I've had different mixed lists of accordion/melodeon players youtube videos playing in the background. Like right now while writing this. I'm listening to a mix of "accordeon diatonique". I have never had this passion or need of just "I have to do this". Of course, I've never felt so much prolonged stress before either.

I hope it's like I remember of a high school acquaintance. Here's her story. There was a girl in middle school, a year behind me, who played the French Horn. She hated it and was pretty awful at it. She really wanted to switch to flute. The band teacher wouldn't allow it because he was desperate for horn players and was drowning in flute players. She kept pressuring him. Finally he relented. Within one semester - 4 months, she went from last flute player to the best flute player of about 15 flutists. She just had a passion and, therefore, put out more effort. In 10th grade she made all-state for flute. She was going nowhere on the horn... the passion wasn't there.

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to be a super star. But if I keep this passion, I should get to "passing" ability more quickly.

I'm also excited because it's a hobby that can fit in with my life - no mess so no clean-up. This so uber appealing to me right now.

Now to figure out how to record things!
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That above was written before unpacking them and trying it out.

First, Scott did a great job of packing these! And the Liliput case and Liliput are so tiny! (unpacked Liliput not shown)

And then, it's practicing. playandlearn on melnet posted just a week or so before I was to receive the GC Melodeon some tutorials/exercises for learning some basics to learn a piece called Valse Triste. He made 4 videos for a beginner. Well you can't get more beginner than day 1 of ever holding the instrument!

As I figured, learning to separate my two hands was/is going to be hardest thign to first figure out as fingers like to do the same at the same time with the same fingers. I could get this exercise about 75% of the time right for fingers on the right buttons (after an hour or so of building up to that). However, my fingers want to both do the same thing - either both hands legato or both hands staccato. And, of course, I'm just figuring out the bellows of how much air for the phrase I'm trying to play, etc. It's a lot of things to concentrate on at the same time.

All in all it went as expected.  Here is after an hour of practicing the first video lesson. I'm not done with that video yet as I am still working on being consistent and with separating those hands as if they were controlled by two brains instead of one.

As per usual Melissa - I don't dress up for such things. This is Melissa, at the end of a day, sans makeup, just as I am... raw footage on a crappy IPad Air 1 camera. But hey, it works.  Tomorrow I'll probably look a bit better as Sundays are the "big work day" but I'm also likely to be more frazzled.

Enjoy and cringe and laugh with me. Now, if you have some tips for me... be nice, but I'll listen!

First attempt at Recording... Oops!

Second attempt. I was distracted by the camera... semi-oops!

Third attempt. I tried hard to concentrate on what I was doing... but putting it all together - even in such a simple oompa-pa-pa and two notes on the other... not so simple! I tried to zone out to not really 'see' the camera.

It can only get better from here! Here is what these exercises are building up to (someday).

And thank you Sean for the method book and Scott for the button box! 

The Hohner Liliput that is on the way

I talked about the Hohner Liliput when I talked about how I always looked for bargains, but I haven't shared much more about it.

If you recall, I decided to swap the one I got from ebay with one already to go at Bellinger's Button Box. They were practically identical. So, this one below is "the one" I'm getting.

Scott does a similar test on all his melodeons, which has made it great to hear the different voices and to compare one type with another. When you listen to this you will notice the voice has a slight tremolo to it, which means it's not completely dry and I'm actually glad about that as it will also give me a different sound between the two boxes I will have (besides being in a different key).

The Hohner Liliput was made between 1935-1940. (The other Hohner on the way was made some time pre-WWII).  From, Gumshoe Arcana:

Accordions accompanied German soldiers and officers to the front. To this end, Hohner designed instruments that were small and lightweight for soldiers to stow easily in a rucksack. Today, the Preciosa and Liliput are much sought after accordions.

Yes, these accordions were specifically made smaller to take to the battlefields. And they are quite amazing to have such a full voice in such a small box. (the Preciosa was made even smaller for the same reason). The smaller size makes it easier, supposedly, to learn to play because you learn to play the bellows and other skills without tiring the player as quickly because it's easier on the back, shoulders, etc with less weight. I hope the smaller buttons don't add complications, but we'll see.

What I find funny about a "rucksack" accordion is that: a. of all the things to carry, even a small accordion would be one of the top things to go on my list! It's added bulk and weight to have to march with and it pushes other things out of the rucksack - like FOOD and blankets! I guess it shows how important having entertainment and comfort on the battlefield mattered.  Also, funny to me is that the accordion is a fairly easily to damage instrument. My grandfather, born in 1900 was a bugler... THAT instrument on the field is much less destructible, of course, it was used for service, not for entertainment... big difference. And I suppose, besides a simple flute and mouth harmonica, a square wooden box is the next "safest" small instrument as fiddles and guitars have shapes that are more prone to breaking and definitely not able to stuff in a rucksack.

Here is more about the Liliputs, this time post war from Melnet from 2009:

I recently played my little Hohner Liliput to my mother who is 83. She immediately recognized the instrument and came up with an interesting story.

Just after the war in the late 40's she went on a walking holiday in the Swiss and Italian Alps guided by a former member of the French Resistance. Apparently whenever they met German hikers in chalets and inns, the German's produced little accordions out of their rucksacks just like the Liliput and played and sang. Given that at that time in history Germans were not the most popular people in Europe, these little accordions did a lot to break down ill will and establish friendship between people who only a year or two before had been killing each other. 

Now that's a nice thing to know about melodeons.

So, how does it play? Here is Pikey playing a nice piece on a Liliput I believe in CF like what is coming to me:

Here's another two, but in BbEb the first one just makes me smile. I think a BbEb will be another voice I will get if I fall in love with playing. I love the tone in this key:

Here is another tune, this Liliput converted to a DG:

Melodeons are getting shipped!

I paid for everything in the last day or two and now they are on their way! I can't wait to try them out and I'm going to promise I will not get frustrated! Well, I will get frustrated, but I mean not frustrated enough to quit!!!

Here is the box, ready to go out this morning.

And here in the video you can see and hear the instrument. In the video, Scott has this cool spinning table. Next to the Hohner he picks up is the other box he's sending me, the Hohner Liliput (in a purple-ish tone).

On top of all of that, I have a Pignol and Milleret method's book on it's way to me from Sean. Both the melodeons and the method books should arrive around Monday. Yay! Soon the test will come of whether or not I'll get the hang of this!

On the days that I can, I plan to practice an hour a day. Not more, not less. I say not more because I don't want to aggravate any carpel tunnel or shoulder issues and I simply do not have time to be be devoting more time than that.

I did decide to just swap one Liliput button box for another with Scott Bellinger's shop. This way I get it earlier than later.

But it was a difficult decision for me because I had to decide to club it or not. In the end, I decided not to keep the Lilput I bought on ebay that is clubbed. There was less difference than I thought and for now, keeping learning one way of playing on diatonic accordion seems better and smarter. This way I also get it months earlier too. If I regret that decision, I can swap in the future, I suppose, or try a dfferent clubbed box. So, I will have  GC and CF boxes. If I get going with it, a DG would probably be next to try as the melnet site is primarly DG boxes and they could give me a lot of pointers. And then an AbEb and then and then...

But first I must start in the beginning, like Maria sang in Sound of Music. Lesson one...

Ok, why does no one really show lesson one? SHAME ON YOU ALL! The best I could find of a beginner was this one and if I'm that good into week two I will be ecstatic!

Maybe this blog will turn into - see, even at 47 you can learn something new - starting from ground zero. The only thing I'm bringing with me is sort of kind of being able to read treble clef with sight reading and can read it well if I've heard it before.

Waiting in a queue - my instrument

Because I am on a budget and because I'm wanting to do this in a logical, smart way. I didn't want to spend a fortune on a beginner instrument and on something I didn't know if I would continue with or not.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I found on my own and was later directed to a person who refurbishes button box accordions as well as plays. He helped me choose an instrument and now it's just getting tuned up and cleaned up for use once again - bringing life back to an old accordion. That brings him joy to do and brings me joy to re-use and repurpose too. Need a box? or want to learn more about different diatonic accordions? Scott can help you out and his prices are very reasonable.

Here is a link to his website, where he demonstrates all his instruments (so crucial to buying): Bellinger's Button Boxes. You can see all his videos of current instruments for sale and sold instruments here.

As much as I'm excited to get my instrument, I am yearning for the beautiful instrument I just want to stare at and pet - as much decoration as useful instrument. Like these:

But to ever justify that level of instrument, I'll have to be quite good and really love it. Though there are smaller, less fancy ones that will do just fine by a couple of brands - like these:

But what I have on the way, and I'm so excited about is this below. I should get it in about a month. See, I can be patient!

The seller has sold one nearly identical to it and once the keys are cleaned up and such, it will look more like this:

And now I wait... and dream...

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Addendum: I wrote this post the day I put a deposit on it. That was over a week ago. Since then I've learned more. Started to worry a bit more and my life has gotten super busy again, but way more stressful again. I am hoping this is a good stress reliever as things here in the US if you are a liberal are pretty bleak feeling right now - one week into Trump's term in office.