If you can play a tune in all three main chord positions on the different rows, you can choose the phrasing that matches how you hear the tune.Įxample: On a C-system the outer row is C-Eb-Gb-A. Imagine a fiddler playing Lark In The Morning, but in the key of C… the phrasing would change! On a CBA you can play the same phrase with multiple fingerings, and each fingering gives a slightly different flavor. But inner rows have an ergonomic advantage over outer rows… elbow angle less acute, less bicep strain.Ĭhoice of rows definitely affects phrasing… different chord shapes, different connections under the fingers. This predictable layout also gives chord shapes that can float across the buttonboard.)įrench Musette players often used the outer three rows, partly because there were also 3-row and 4-row models common then, partly because “pistonette” style used a thumbstrap and outer rows were an easier reach. Any three neighboring rows contain the 12 chromatic notes, and with 5 rows that gives you three different positions to play the same notes. Each row is a half-step from its neighbors. Each row is a diminished chord, four notes, ascending octaves. (I ask the last question as someone whose interest in listening to jazz has rekindled recently and decided that - for anything other than trad - the diatonic I am putting so much effort into is, leaving aside the weight question, a slow and clumsy carthorse compared with the CBA racehorse.) ↳ĥ-row C-System Chromatic Button Accordion… how to finger it for Irish dance tunes, how to get the sound? Is playing on the inner rows forcing you to use the bellows differently? Or is the fingering more awkward and that is what is making legato playing difficult and hence making you sound more like a B/C player? □Īlso, why would you want to reproduce what you can do on the B/C on an instrument that is considerably larger and heavier? And why would you take an instrument that can do so much more than a diatonic and try to play it like one? Re: Traditional Irish music on the Chromatic Button Accordion (C-System)Ĭan you explain to those of us who have never tried a CBA how changing the home position from the outer three rows to the inner three would change a “very efficient legato style” into the “kind of phrasing you would get on a B/C”? I only know of one other player who focuses on IrTrad on the CBA (ceemonster), and I’m curious if there are any other players of the instrument on the board who would be interested in discussing the instrument in this context. From what I’m finding so far, it works and gives me the sort of phrasing I would get on a B/C diatonic. So, considering there is essentially zero information available on what I’m trying to do, I’ve pretty much made up my own fingering system for IrTrad on C-System CBA, based on essentially a two-dimensional extension of the B/C style linear shifting and has the home position on the inside three rows. Those fingerings work great for a lot of non-Irish tunes and music with chords, but it doesn’t really encourage the sort of phrasing one would do on a B/C box as it’s design to minimize shifting. What I found is that the standard fingering charts and methodology one can find on-line and in various methods for the CBA to me seem to focus on playing with a very efficient legato style mostly on the outside 3 rows. Originally, I had zero intention of playing any traditional Irish music on it, focused mostly on French and Russian melodeon tunes, but as time went on, I started playing some simple polkas on it, and as an fingering exercise, as I’ll often do with a new instrument, I started working through every single tune in the “Smoke in Your Eyes” Seattle tunebook, just completed the reels tonight. Along with playing Anglo Concertina and B/C box, I became absolute enamoured with the C-System chromatic button accordion about a year ago after a friend loaned me one for a week.
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