Twinkle Variation

So, two days ago I practiced standard Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Yesterday I decided to try a variation that has been in my head since college that I had made up for fun while fiddling with the piano. I remember my roommate in college my freshman year had to write a variation of Twinkle... for an assignment for a class. She was a transfer student majoring in voice. She spent a lot of time on that assignment, but she failed the assignment. She realized that term that being a big shot at a rinky dink private university was getting her nowhere at a larger public university.  Anyway... I came up with my own variation after that and it's just kind of stuck with me. It stinks, but it's what I got... and it's like the only variation of a song I think I've ever done in my head.  But... after listening to these below, I realize I'm oh so not creative! My variation is so boring!  I'm not a composer and it's outside my scope of ability. I'll just try to repeat what others can do better than me for probably like, forever for playing tunes

. I did a search on youtube for other variations. These are so much better than mine. Like this one will make you smile, if you aren't weirded out first! 

This one from a tutorial on melnet somewhere I suppose. Not really a variation, but better than my attempts!

On a toy... A TOY sounds better than me! I just have to smile...

Mine? It goes at snail's pace and it's full of mistakes and the basses are awful. I thought writing it out would help - it didn't (much). I think tomorrow I'm going back to written stuff in the method book for another change of pace.

Below is my attempt for the night. I'll limit it to one of standard twinkle and one for the variation. There is no "good one". This is a fully - ton of mistakes, stop and start again video. Painful!

My elbow is aching me quite a bit today. I hope it's muscle and not joints. Muscles heal faster than tendons. Though it doesn't show, but with writing the music down and practicing, I probably put in 3 hours today (a day off from work (mostly).

Day 3 of figuring this thing out - just noodling around

Today, I just tried to try something by ear after getting that recommendation on melnet. I decided to try Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. On one hand, I got it nearly instantly. However, adding in chords with the left hand is a totally different experience.

I practiced about 15 minutes before going to work on the Hohner GC. I practiced 15 minutes at work (on the Liliput CF) and then I practiced over an hour at home divided in two sessions. Some of that time was doing some cross row playing to try something out, but it's not even close to going prime time yet as I still can't get Twinkle Twinkle Little Star without messing up - and I mess up differently each time! Rhythm is off, nothing is smooth/good yet. And it's one of the simplest tunes ever! But it is only day 3... practice, practice, practice.

Around 10:30 pm I decided to record what I had accomplished for Day 3. I tried  to record about 15 times back to back. This is not a pretty process. 🙎I just wanted to make it through the tune without such horrible mistakes that it becomes unrecognizable. 

Anyway, here's attempt #1 and it really was the first attempt for recording after about 1.5 hours total of practicing the &$#%ing nursery rhyme.

So I tried a few more times, deleting after I made a few bazillion mistakes. You all don't want to watch 457 takes, right?  This next one was around attempt 8 or so.

Then around attempt 12.

And then around attempt 20 or so. I was getting so hesitant with each note because I just don't "feel" it securely yet.

So, that was Day 3. First day I tried to follow a video tutorial and play along with it after I learned a bit of it. Second day I followed lessons 1-3 in the method book. Third day I just noodled around.

I think what would help me is actually looking at notation or sheet music - even for twinkle twinkle. I just don't seem to be able to hold the notation/feel for it in my head. I have so little experience with that! Only time I had to do that, I think (?) was when I was in college and we memorized marching band music for the shows. I can't even remember if that was at both the universities I went to (Freshman year at Central Missouri State University) or my senior year (University of Northern Iowa). Or maybe we never had to do that? In high school I did flags, but I remember the rest of band needing to memorize music. Huh... too long ago!

Anyway... I think if I saw sheet music or handwritten notation, I could have gotten further along, but then, this is helping me gain new skills and it's stretching my brain muscles which is good for me too.

I won't show tons of takes most of the time. I just want people to get a real feel of what it is like to start an instrument. It's a process and it takes time, work, and patience. If I only showed you polished stuff, I'm fooling myself and everyone else at how much work it takes.

Also, I have a bit of left hand fatigue, but nothing painful. I'm just using new muscles! It's mostly the muscle of my left palm on the pinky finger side. No shoulder or carpel tunnel stuff flaring up - which is GREAT!

This is not your grandmother's accordion!

(This top part was written while I was waiting. Day two of practicing is at the end).

What an amazing instrument. A couple days ago I linked the Blue Danube played by Vitali Dimitriev on a chromatic button accordion. I was so impressed with that one I decided to look up some more as I was working the other night. I listened to a collection of 50 videos of other virtuosi. Nearly all of them I found were Russians (on this instrument) initially.

Amazing players on superbly built accordions. Just wow. It's not just their hands flying, but using the bellows for dynamics and for playing legato or staccato. I'm awed essentially.  That collect of videos is here (though I was listening, not watching - unless I got sucked in and just had to take a peak while I was working.

Here is the collection. There are some piano accordion in there too: 

But melodeon can be pretty darn amazing too. Here's a collection of some people playing - starting with the first one which was filmed at 1 am after the player had many pints!

What I like about much of what is played on melodeon is that you just feel joy for so much of it... or longing... or melancholy. I cannot explain it, but seeing young people (well any age) playing with such fun makes me happy. It's just more expressive as... a people instrument, I guess I feel... the common man/woman instrument.

OK, I feel more secure about my decision now. (More on this another day but I just did an enneagram the other day... my research into all of this now makes so much more sense!)
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Day two of practicing. Today I went to the GC French Method book. I had a couple of "huh, what does that mean?" moments while trying to understand the notation for the box, but I figured it out. Having the digital CD with it helped in hearing what they meant.

So, I did lessons 1 and 2 pretty easily. Then I want to lesson 3. That one gave me more trouble, so I took it very slowly. That is what I recorded. To break it up, I also started practicing lesson 4- again, very slowly.

In the book it recommends "turning off" the 3rds in the base, but my box won't allow me to do that, so it doesn't sound exactly like the recording, but it's close enough. Slowly, slowly, slowly...

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! 

Now that I have the diatonic accordion on the way, maybe I should have gone a different direction?

While I am waiting the last few days for the two diatonic accordions to come my way, I had a new thought...what if this was a mistake and I should have gotten a Chromatic Button Accordion (CBA)?

The diatonic accordion is limited by the keys it can play and some pieces just don't fit well in all keys. For solo work, it doesn't make much difference, but if I ever wanted to play in an ensemble, having the box be in the right key would be crucial. And even then, each box only has so many notes available to it and puzzling it out is part of playing the instrument. You could need to carry - 3-4 boxes with you to a gig and even then the pieces wouldn't be spot on because of the need to switch bellow directions for different notes, etc.

One way around that is the piano accordion (PA), of course, or the Chromatic Button Accordion. The latter is probably where I would go if I really wanted to blend in with a band, chorus, etc or, more importantly, to place a larger variety of music.

Of course, that got me thinking immediately then, "Crap, maybe I should have just started with the CBA" - and not really for playing with anyone. I mean come on... I'm 47 and probably not going to ever play for anyone but myself... but will I find the diatonic limiting? (Why the doubts Melissa?!?!?!?)

A CBA accordion is basically like a piano accordion, but uses buttons instead. From everything I've read, they are easier for most people to play if they are coming to the instrument fresh, but the piano accordion would probably be easier for those who come from a keyboard background.

One of the reasons the CBA accordion is easier (from what I've read) is that it is super easy to change key (same fingering pattern) and more importantly, it's more ergonomic for the hand. Here is one piece played on a melodeon and then on the PA and the CBA:

And then there is this Virtuoso on this CBA: WOW!!! This is just AMAZING!

The CBA also has more notes than a keyboard can hold... those a wider range of what can be played without modification. I would never, ever, ever, ever be able to play like the one above, but I can appreciate the enormous talent! 

What will I sound like? Probably a lot like this, including lots of F bombs....

But, I will start with what I have on the way. It is less to learn all at once. "If" I ever find that limiting, I can switch to a CBA and would have a head start because I would understand bellows, playing the two hands separately and would have a better understanding of playing basses. The wait is almost over! (The method book arrived today!) Oh... and the two melodeons should arrive today too! Whoop!!!!

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.