Methode d'accordeon - Volume 1

By Manu Maugain

I'm a professional musician and music teacher but a brand new accordion player. This is a wonderful book for the beginning chromatic button accordion player (not piano keyboard)- well laid out, methodical, appropriately paced. But all the text is in French. I don't speak French, and that was...

not really a problem. The photos and diagrams are very helpful, and the exercises and songs are super for developing the coordination needed to play. The colorful pictures are geared toward a younger student, but I find them delightful! There's a CD available, but the cost kept me from purchasing it. I'm guessing the CD might make it more fun, but the book really is enough for me.

This is the best beginner level book for C system chromatic button accordion that I have seen so far. It starts with a standard C hand position exactly the same as the Alfred series piano and Palmer-Hughes series piano accordion books, with thumb on C and fifth finger on...

G. Of course on the chromatic these buttons are not in a linear line, but after minimal practice the hand position begins to feel very natural. I especially like the many one and two line exercises for expanding territory to other notes using various finger arrangements. The exercises are rather atonal, and for that reason they resist memorization even after many repetitions, thus remaining useful longer for training both motor (muscle) and sight reading skills. I soon found myself comfortably playing successive note sequences stretching the third, fourth and fifth fingers between the first and third rows. This author recommends use of the thumb for playing, which seems to me seems perfectly natural.