Not "not lifting a finger"!

[StevieJ]

From what I can gather on other lists and forums box players don't care to talk about technique much. Maybe because everyone has their own, I don't know. But for me, working in (far from splendid) isolation as I am, intelligent use of fingering patterns seems to me to be the key to achieving fluency on the box. So here's a thread for people to share tips and discoveries in this area.

(BTW, Rob G illustrated some moves he uses in the "C#/D general advice" thread, and a while ago he also posted clips and abcs with fingerings for a few tunes "tunes of the week" on the <a href="http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Ir ... rd/">Irish trad accord group on Yahoo</a>.)

My current obsession is changing fingers for repeated notes in jigs. I've never had anyone show me this technique, but I've heard about it and started exploring it on my own. The surprising thing is that, far from hampering mobility as you might expect (by concentrating too many fingers in a small area), in most cases it's possible to use this trick in such a way as to help you get into position for whatever comes next.

The other advantage - the main one, in fact - of changing fingers is that it's easier to get a smoother flow in the repeated notes than when using the same finger, esp. when playing at faster tempos.

Here are a few examples as played on a C#/D (or any box with a D row)

A few bars of Connaughtman's Rambles

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% 121 212   222 321   121 233   321 221
  FAA dAA | BAB dAG | FAA def | edB BAG |

In the 3rd bar, moving onto finger 1 for the second A positions you nicely for going up the scale in the next series of notes.

My Darling Asleep

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% 212 212 221 2 1 121 233 313 233 212 212 221 2 1 121 233   321 1 
  fdd cAA|BAG A2G|FAA def|gfg eag|fdd cAA|BAG A2G|FAA def|1 gec d3:||

% 132 221 132 221 121 233 313 233 212 212 221 2 1 121 233   321 1 
|:FAA BAG|FAA BAG|FAA def|gfg eag|fdd cAA|BAG A2G|FAA def|1 gec d3:||

What I like about this one is the way just two fingers take you all the way down the scale in the first two bars... Also, in the second part I use 132 for FAA when the phrase comes back down, and 121 when it continues upwards, again to get ready for the onward upward movement.

Here's a more radical idea... I know there are other ways of playing this phrase, but if you want to play three consecutive As, this gets your hand in the right place nicely, using three different fingers to hit the same button, one way to prepare you for going up, and the other for going down.

(Start of) The Mist Covered Mountain. (On a B/C, the same fingering would produce the tune in its original (and sweeter) key of G.)

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% 132 112 312 321
  EAA ABd|eAA AGE...

This will no doubt strike most of you as complete lunacy, but I have to say, it's working for me. All comments welcome - and any other tricks anyone has to share.

Steve

[gregS]

Thanks for that tip Steve. I completely agree with you that fingering patterns are vital for fluency on button boxes, especially single row and C#D boxes like ours. Like you, it seems, I spend a great deal of time trying out various options for every tune I come across and finally, after nearly 18 months, I think I'm starting to feel some patterns emerging.

Those double notes you're talking about do appear in so many jigs and I haven't been happy with my ability to give them their proper and separate value so I'm definitely running off right now to try out your examples. Incidently, How would you approach the B part of the Connaught man? Personally, I find the high B double notes very hard to articulate clearly. From memory, the relevant phrase would be: fbb faa | fef fed.

[StevieJ]

Greg,

Agreed, the second part of Connaughtman's is not the easiest passage to play convincingly. Using the finger-swapping technique I've been playing 132, as in

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% 132 132   122 123
  fbb faa | fef deg

But I'd probably also play the occasional b3 or a3, or f2b / f2a to break up the monotony in the repeats.

Steve

[gregS]

Thanks Steve and next question... How do you set out the abc together with the fingering in those professional looking code boxes?

[StevieJ]

If you click the "quote" button on my post you'll see how it's done. There is a [code]...[/code] tag pair in BBCode, which is similar to the html tag pair <pre>...</pre>. It puts the text between the tags into a monospaced font.

There is a help topic on BBCode here: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/faq.php?mode=bbcode

[maze]

Steve,

Thanks as always for posting your lunacy... (so close to lunasa...)

Box is coming along, but slowly. Have a few jigs (not up to speed) a hornpipe, and pieces of reels that i have played on the pipes for years... keep the ideas flowing.

[Ro3b]

Thanks for starting this thread, Steve. I've been wanting to respond but I wanted to wait till I had my box in my lap -- I always get befuddled thinking about this stuff in the abstract.

(Start of) The Mist Covered Mountain. (On a B/C, the same fingering would produce the tune in its original (and sweeter) key of G.)

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% 132 112 312 321
  EAA ABd|eAA AGE...

In licks like this I like to do a cut on the third repeated note (viz., on the beat). The way I usually play this phrase involves some stretching:

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  122  3 223 433  4 321
  EAA {d}ABd|eAA {d}AGE...

So I might modify your fingering like this:

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  132  3 212 323  4 321
  EAA {d}ABd|eAA {d}AGE...

Pretty cool! It eliminates the stretching and lets the strong fingers do the heavy lifting.

My tendency is to want to shift where there are two different notes on the same button, like the ABD in the first bar. No reason not to when there are two or three of the same note as well -- it's just not something I've exploited before.

[StevieJ]

So I might modify your fingering like this:

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  132  3 212 323  4 321
  EAA {d}ABd|eAA {d}AGE...

Pretty cool! It eliminates the stretching and lets the strong fingers do the heavy lifting.

My tendency is to want to shift where there are two different notes on the same button, like the ABD in the first bar. No reason not to when there are two or three of the same note as well -- it's just not something I've exploited before.

That does work well, Rob - a useful variation. I would have cut that third A before I started exploring the two (and three) finger trick and now you suggest a good way of putting cuts back in.

Anyway it all goes to show there are so many ways of skinning this accordion cat. You'd never think that with so few buttons and so few fingers that so many permutations could be possible.

And I must say I've never taken anything like such an analytical approach to an instrument, but the box seems to force it on us. I know I'm holding myself back in terms of getting tunes safely under my belt because I'm constantly experimenting like this, trying out different ways of tackling passages and constantly revising when I discover new tricks. The hope being that at some point the best possibilities will rise to the top, or sink to the bottom, and become second nature. Some time soon, I hope, LOL.

In the meantime it's such fun figuring things out and getting little tips from people that you can try out and then run with. Here's my latest triumph in a teacup:

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Jackson's jig
K:G
321 232   321 223 
BGG Bcd | ecc efg

Until the other week I would never have thought of playing Bcd with 232, crossing over the third finger with the second. I got the idea from a piece sent to me by Michael Gregory, one of my classmates in Jackie Daly's Catskills class last year. He used it for an efg passage (something I thought I'd tried every possible permutation for). It's a very neat way of getting the hand up into the higher reaches for those of us who try to avoid using finger 4. But it works a treat here too, avoiding some not very elegant slippy-sliding across the rows.

Steve

[Ro3b]

This is related to something I started doing early on: putting the odd triplet in as an expedient to fingering. Looking at the first bit of The Wise Maid:

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2 2 2111 23 4 33 3211 2    343 2132 3221 31 2 11
F3G FEDE|FA{d}AB AFED|d2 (3efg fdec|dBAF BE{G}EE|

That triplet in the third bar is something a flute player might do. It sounds nice, but the cool thing is that it lets me cross my third finger over to hit that g.

[Ro3b]

Actually, that's not such a good example. Look at the B part of the Silver Spire:

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2 1 2 3 2321 2112 23   2 3 2 21 2 11 1223 3132 2
A,B,C,D EFGE|FDEF GA (3B=c^c|dB{c}BA Bcde|fdgf e2

The chromatic triplet in the second bar is a nice elegant way to shift my second finger up to the d. I also do one of your crossover-on-the-outside-row maneuvers in the first bar, on the EFGE figure.

[StevieJ]

More from my teaching-myself-C#/D fingering blog. Latest discovery, a trick that is related to but a little different from the chromatic triplet shift illustrated by Rob above: shifting fingers in the middle of a Bc#d triplet.

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   121 
(3Bc#d

The principle is the well-known one of changing fingers to play a second note on the same button, but this little figure is generally executed so quickly that it had never occured to me until just recently to use it here. But it is soon mastered and I'm finding it very useful in many passages. Example, in The Floating Crowbar (start of second part), it gets you up to the high a on the third finger very easily:

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K:D
12{3}22 2    121   23 4  33
Ad{f}dc D2 (3Bcd | ea{d'}ag

Other tunes that spring to mind: The Congress, Cameronian, etc. etc.

I think I've mentioned the five-minute lesson I got about 18 months ago from a good player in the dressing room after a concert, which I'm still absorbing the benefits of. One of the things he advised that I haven't paid much attention to until now was to work out ways of going up and down the scale using first, three fingers, and then only two. This has sort of started happening naturally so I've started working on it consciously.

I am astonished at how fast one can play passages in this way: for example a first octave upward scale of D using just fingers one and two, and your outer row F#:

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1  12 12 12  2
D2 EF GA Bc# d2

It doesn't take long to get this happening at a very surprising clip, and it feels, well, extremely satisfying having your fingers scoot around like this. Practical applications will be manifold but here's a little one that combines the Bc#d triplet as well.

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T:One of Johnny O Leary's polkas, second part
K:D
3 3 31   121 21 2 3 1 2
f>e fA (3Bcd ef g/b/f/g/ (or G2~) 

The idea being to hit the high g with the second finger to make the note sequence or roll easier. It's a very natural movement and I feel like a kid who's just learned to ride a bike.

Hope this helps somebody. I don't need to add that although things are coming along nicely I'm still very much a novice player and if anybody more (or less!) experienced has useful comments or criticisms to make of these postings I would very much welcome them.

Steve