the need for speed

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tedrick
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the need for speed

Post by tedrick »

First of all I would like to say thanks to the nice people here on this forum. There are other web forums out there where flame wars erupt constantly -- making it an uncomfortable atmosphere for new comers.

I have been playing the B/C box for 2 years and am doing pretty well on it but something is holding me back when it comes to speed on reels.

Specifically, I want to be able to play reels at 117 -- but I can't get much above 100 --

What do you think? Is this just normal? Does speed just come with hours of practice? Are there some exersizes or drills I could work on, other than just playing the same tunes over and over again and building them up 1 bpm at a time?

Question #1 for my fellow free reeders: compared to the B/C box, does the C#/D box have advantages in terms of allowing faster playing?

Question #2: is it easier to get more speed on the PA or chromatic button (continental) systems?

Thanks!
Ted
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Re: the need for speed

Post by s1m0n »

tedrick wrote:Does speed just come with hours of practice?
Speed comes with hours and hours of playing slow.
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

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Re: the need for speed

Post by StevieJ »

s1m0n wrote:
tedrick wrote:Does speed just come with hours of practice?
Speed comes with hours and hours of playing slow.
Isn't that one of those glib sayings that become a kind of mantra by dint of constant repetition, as a result of which people start to believe them and trot them out without really thinking about them?

Certainly if you can't play a tune slowly and have it sound really good, it will sound like a dog's breakfast when you try to speed it up. But if you just keep playing slow for hours and months and years... well that's all you'll be able to do. No fairy is going to wave a wand and make you able to play fast - you have to practise playing fast. Oder?

At any rate practice is the word. Lots of it. Joe Derrane tells students they must practise an hour a day at least. Two hours a day if they are serious about improving.

Question for you Ted. Have you really worked on your fingering patterns with a view to making them rock-solid and dependable? Can you rely on your fingers to hit the buttons you want when you want? You can't have speed without reliability...

Do you use the r-h 4th finger a lot, BTW?

As for the question of whether C#/D is faster than B/C - well it might be in certain keys, but if it were, the corollary is bound to be that it would be slower in others. They are the same instrument after all, just played in keys starting on different degrees of the root key (read ceemonstre's long post above).

I wouldn't suggest picking one or the other because you think you might be able to play faster. Someone who can play really fast can do so on either system. Oder?

PS: Q#2: you can run a lot faster carrying a diatonic box than a PA or continental chromatic :lol:
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Re: the need for speed

Post by tedrick »

Thanks for your replies --
good points -- I do slow things down and make sure my fingering is making sense and is consistent -- but yes -- I think that would probably be the root of my problem -- I wish there were someone in the Twin Cities on B/C who I could take lessons from -- any one know of a B/C box teacher here in Minneapolis/St. Paul?

re: fingers 4 and 5 I do tend to poke those guys out their for notes up on the higher side of the keyboard-- is that bad? For example, the beginning of the B section of Star of Munster -- d ee aa b ageg -- the a's and b's would be up on the pinky? is that bad?

Thanks!
Ted
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Re: the need for speed

Post by StevieJ »

Doesn't Paddy O'Brien (the younger) live in your neck of the woods? I believe he teaches.

Well the accordion world is divided into two camps: those that don't use their pinky - and those who can't understand why anybody wouldn't.

I think it makes sense to use it for the highest notes in a phrase - that is if you aren't going any higher afterwards. But for everything else (and even for that) dump it and learn how to scoot around using 3 fingers.

If you're playing both the high a and the high b with the pinky - jumping from one button to a higher one and back all with the pinky - that really sounds like a recipe for slowness to me. Try that phrase without the 4th finger at all and see if it helps.

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Re: the need for speed

Post by MTGuru »

Here's a question, then. Are there any instructional materials out there with fully fingered / annotated transcriptions? Apart from the few C#/D transcriptions Henrik Norbeck had on his site?

This was a frustration for me when I first started on B/C - without a teacher, and no other players around. Being of an analytical bent, I really wanted some explicit fingering models I could study and absorb. Like most approaches I found, the Peter Browne and John Williams vids were pretty cavalier about explaining fingerings, and it's difficult to pick them up just by observation. Keyboard methods always supply suggested fingerings, and the conceptual demands of box fingering are not terribly different.

Of course, over the years I've developed my own fingering patterns, for better or worse - mostly 3 finger, with occasional pinkie. But sometimes I wonder: should I slide/cross/hop here? Not to slavishly imitate others, but it's always interesting to know how others do things, and learn from that. Especially since I'm still pretty much a duffer on the box. :-)
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Re: the need for speed

Post by StevieJ »

Yes: Damien Connolly's tutor has all that, for B/C.

I reviewed it here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=61495

He now has a web page that you can order from: http://www.damienconnolly.com/tutor.html

Otherwise the button box carries it: http://buttonbox.com/learn-to-play-accordion.html

PS I think you mean Han Speek, not Henrik Norbeck...
Last edited by StevieJ on Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: the need for speed

Post by MTGuru »

Thank you very much, Steve!
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Re: the need for speed

Post by tedrick »

Thanks for the tips --
practicing right now I see what you mean about pinky stabbing being a slower downer -- working on moving away from that -- where the melody permits fingers 1 - 4 (pinky) to play a phrase it doesn't slow me down but on repeated eight notes I can see how poking with the weak finger slows you down --

Take care,
T
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Re: the need for speed

Post by StevieJ »

Good! Now try something a bit more radical. I had a crack at the second part of Star of Munster after supper and for the phrase

eaab a

I would suggest playing the e on the outer row (pull) which means that you can do all those notes on the pull, and I would use the first finger on the e, second finger on the a and third on the b.

so use fingers 1223 2

But hitting the same button twice with different fingers is another good speed tip. Assuming you don't want to grace the second a, you could hit the second a with finger 1.

1213 2

Try that and see how you like it.

If you watch the Peter Browne video that MTG mentioned, you'll notice two things: 1) he plays as fast as is humanly possible and 2) he doesn't use the 4th finger. Playing passages at the top of the range, his whole hand is down by his knee.
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Re: the need for speed

Post by BoneQuint »

One thing that works for me on concertina is to isolate phrases I get bogged down on. Play very small sections of those phrases, even 2 or 3 notes, over and over. Sometimes slow and clear, sometimes a medium speed, sometimes as fast as possible. It helps. Eventually.

Another idea is to think not of pressing the buttons on a fast phrase (especially for grace notes), but merely touching the buttons, or even just grazing them. On a nice box, you really hardly need to press the buttons, and if you do miss a grace note by not pressing the button firmly enough, no biggie. You'll learn quickly to feel the minimum pressure needed.

Another thing you can do is get certain notes by rocking your hand instead of moving your fingers. This is a little tricky to explain, but I think you know what I mean. It's especially useful when jumping to and from a single note that's a good interval away from the notes around it. I think some players do this subconsciously.
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Re: the need for speed

Post by MTGuru »

BoneQuint wrote:Another thing you can do is get certain notes by rocking your hand instead of moving your fingers. This is a little tricky to explain, but I think you know what I mean.
You mean rotating your hand at the wrist around the axis of your forearm? Yes, I do that, a very useful technique.
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Re: the need for speed

Post by BoneQuint »

MTGuru wrote:You mean rotating your hand at the wrist around the axis of your forearm? Yes, I do that, a very useful technique.
Yes, that's what I mean.
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Re: the need for speed

Post by ceemonster »

i would chime in with the other voices here about fingering to add that it is paramount, crucial, imperative, for you to as soon as humanly possible to a) seriously research to find which teacher(s) are gifted and expert at explaining fingering in a way that is organized, logical and plug-inable to fingering any tune (many are simply not adept at this); and b) invest whatever you have to invest in terms of time, effort, and expense to get a lesson or lessons with such person. i have no clue whether the billy/sean mccomiskey class at the catskills includes valuable fingering material, i'm guessing damien connolly's does but again, no clue. but this is imperative because many wonderful players or even wonderful teachers simply do not have the conceptual equipment to articulate this in a systemized, transferable way. having it in a default checklist in your head can put your playing evolution ahead by years. you learn it, practice it slowly till it becomes second nature, and you're good to go. i found concertina fingering self-evident compared to b/c fingering.

i have wasted years figuring this out on my own due to being put in a so-called "master" class at clancy week for three years and being too clueless to grasp (and then move on once i grokeed it) that the instructor either could not or would not explain fingering and that this was the wrong class for me. non-irish adult learners pretend to themselves that the irish learn this stuff on their own or somehow magically from osmosis, and it is not true. those kids who become whizzes on box so young are being taught systematically by teachers who use written music (i mean, to help describe technique or ornaments, not for learning the melody of the tune) and technical explanations. i know this for a fact.

another, more general note about developing speed on b/c: i also had to figure out for myself that there are keys that are awkward on different box tuning scales. sure, a virtuoso can play in any key, but there is a reason most b/c recordings are in a minorish, eminorish, c majorish, g majorish, g minorish. you will hear very little d majorish, a majorish, d minorish on b/c records because though one needs to be able to play these keys since so much seshing is in them, they are not optimal for the b/c layout. the c#/d players also avoid many keys. so give yourself a break if you are hitting the wall with an awkward key. take "jug of punch," usually a d minor tune. i can play this nicely on b/c at about 100, but there is a reason john williams recorded it in e minor on his self-titled cd. the younger paddy o'brien regularly transposes to more b/c friendly keys and so does everybody else.....so......
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Re: the need for speed

Post by s1m0n »

StevieJ wrote:But if you just keep playing slow for hours and months and years... well that's all you'll be able to do. No fairy is going to wave a wand and make you able to play fast - you have to practise playing fast.
I dunno. I haven't tried increasing my words per minute since grade 10 typing class*, but somehow between here and there I turned into a blazing-fast typist.

*In which my friend Mark's father, the high school 'business' teacher, played 45s for the class to practice to; gradually upping the tempo as the semester progressed.

Yes, I learned to type to disco and AC/DC's Bank in Black.
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

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