December 1st, 2019
Well after yesterday’s disappointment in not getting my accordion back, I was talking to Ed and after letting him know about my accordion situation, he was saying how he felt that his technique was dropping a little and that a couple of weeks ago he said that he started a series of exercises from the C. L Hanon and Czerny “Velocity Studies for the Accordion” and that in a mere couple of weeks, he felt that his technique jumped a huge 30% or more… that’s amazing!
Now, I know that the more time one puts in to playing, the better one will become, but if there is anything that I learned as a musician over the years is that no matter how much time you put in to practicing, the rule of GIGO (garbage in-garbage out) is a supreme truth. One has to have a measured increase of not just practice time but quality practice material.
Now, not many people enjoy musical exercises, but the facts are that if done right, they are of tremendous importance… and so with the help of my friend Ed, I am embarking on testing out the waters of getting in some hard core practice time. I am going to do the C. L. Hanon exercises… each one in EVERY key and I am going to start the Czerny “Velocity Studies for the Accordion”.
While on the phone with Ed, I tried looking up the Czerny books he is using online… found nothing, but found a link on eBay.ca for “The Little Czerny Part 1-2-3 Velocity Progressive Studies that includes a whole book just for the stradella left hand side of the accordion. I picked it up right there on the spot… sweeeeeet!
The books are supposed to come sometime between the 10th-20th of December… just in time for Christmas!
I’ll update this post after the books come and check them out in a bit more detail!
Addendum: December 12, 2019
Well, the books came today and they are both old (1939 versions!), original unblemished books, but most importantly, they are tough exercises. What they call in book 1 as “easy” is definitely a great start and apparently, Czerny started the left hand bass exercises well before getting to book 3, which is supposed to be dedicated to mastery of the bass on the left hand.
Now, I am a bit confused about something… traditionally when someone says “for accordion”, they usually mean for accordions with Stradella bass, and yet I am seeing the left hand range on many exercises far exceed 1 octave… so does that mean that this was intended for Free Bass users? Maybe, maybe not… but I see this as a great option to take advantage of the Free Bass, however, if you manage to play these exercises on the Free Bass at the speeds they ask, wow, you are going to be an amazing player!
That’s it for now… enjoy!