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.
