piano accordion help needed

[reedmasters]

Looking for sheet music or any other useful info for learning Irish trad on piano accordion. I'm on Florida's treasure coast. It's the bass notes that concern me the most. The searches that I've done have yielded little.

[Anyanka]

You could try Karen Tweed's "Traditional Irish Music" or Tommy Walsh's "Irish Piano Accordion". Tweed's is better on the playing advice - she is a fantastic accordionist - and you can get CDs of her playing every single piece in the book. Her bass style is quite unorthodox, very fluid. However, the book is not aimed at accordion exclusively.
The Tommy Walsh book has more of my favourite tunes, but the bass chords are the standard oom-pah type rhythm.

Thanks to the intelligent layout of the piano accordion, it's actually quite easy to work out chords to go with tunes - try out the buttons just above and below the key note (i.e. if your tune is in G, the C and D will fit in) and the relative minor chord. There are standard chord progressions that are used in the majority of trad tunes, as in the diagram below for C and D.

[reedmasters]

Thanks Anyanka; I've seen Karen Tweed on YouTube. She's great! Most of my playing has been in the B flat to E range on the bass side. That chord progression chart will come in handy. My teacher was Italian and didn't know of Trad. Too bad! Doesn't sound like there is a big pool of sheet music for Trad for piano accordion. I'll check out Karen Tweed's and Tommy Walsh's books.

[Anyanka]

I had an accordion teacher who wasn't comfortable with any kind of folk, either. Gave her up after two lessons, and now I go for workshops with Karen Tweed whenever she comes down this way!

You don't need sheet music that is specific for the accordion, except when starting out (I've only been playing for 18 months actually). Once you've got the basics, any sheet music with chords will do. For Irish trad, there's a great series of books such as this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-Away-Now-M ... 880&sr=1-3.

[reedmasters]

Anyanka; Thanks for the pointers. "Fire Away" looks promising. You're fortunate to be able to attend Karen's workshops. I didn't have a box with me during my time in Ireland or Scotland during the early 70's. I started on the accordion in 1957 but took a long time off. I did manage to learn the GHB along the way. My latest box was loosing all the white keys due to age, kind of like loosing teeth. When enough of them fell off I replaced all of them with 7 different kinds of wood. Now it's "Some Looker". If I can figure out how to put up a picture, I'll post one. Thanks!!! By the way, it's a "Rio" and there was no saving the carring case.

[Bill Wolfe]

There's a long series of sometimes heated discussions on this topic at the other forum, for example http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/19891. My experience is that books can be useful, but the toughest aspect of ITM on the piano box--I suppose on any intrument--is getting the rhythm and phrasing right, and that can only be learned by listening. If the basic lilt and pulse is there, the absence of left hand accompaniment is certainly not fatal. You can see videos on Youtube of Oliver Loughlin playing brilliant trad on a piano box, and I don't think he touches a button on any of them. On the other hand, the best left hand in the world won't salvage a mushy melody line. Having said that, I can recommend one absolutely brilliant treatment of the left hand by Ian Lowthian:
http://www.elderly.com/books/items/49-916689.htm

The focus is Scottish rather than Irish music, and the layout is attrocious--there are a dozen 2-page tunes printed back-to-back on the same sheet. Even so, he really gets into really subtle chording using non-standard combinations of buttons. Moreover thplaying on the accompanying CD is just superb. Hope this helps!
Bill

[reedmasters]

Thank's Bill. That's a help. The Sessions had a YouTube link of Foster and Allen that's great. I do play the Highland Bagpipes and have lived in Ireland and Scotland but didn't have a box with me at the time. Too bad! I'm also working on getting a set of Northumbrian pipes going.