FR 4x, Beginner Level Orchestration, FREE Download 

I totally agree that the FC-300 pedal unit is a tremendous advantage for making complex orchestral changes quickly and easily while playing. And most importantly, you demonstrate the best way to do it - by saving the various parts of each performance in sequential order within a user program bank, and then taking advantage of the user program up operation on the FC-300 to advance through them as you play. I purchased an FC-300 and I use it in exactly the manner that you recommend. Although I am not a professional musician, family and friends agree that the orchestral variety that I am now able to achieve represents a significant improvement in the quality of my music. They are all amazed at the wide variety of different sounds that I am able to so easily apply to different individual songs. All my song orchestrations, about two dozen so far, are saved on to a USB flash drive, and then easily and conveniently imported individually back into the instrument to play. It's not hard at all to do. Thank you so much for posting this, as well as other videos at Roxy's RU-vid channel that promote this playing technique. I have learned more from your videos than by attending any accordion event, many put on by prestigious accordion societies. Several times at such events I have asked advanced players about your playing technique and they have all discouraged it. Some say that it's not the proper way to play. Instead they recommend developing the skill of pressing register buttons that have been previously set up to play certain sounds. But pressing register buttons in widely different locations not only requires that I remember where each particular sound is located, it's much more challenging to accomplish while playing. The way you do it makes it easy. What is it about easy that these guys don't like? Others say that the FC-300 is overpriced, and for what it can do is not worth it. But you are certainly proving these people dead wrong. Still others say that your technique is too complicated to set up. But after downloading some of your free orchestrations to see how they were built, and then creating my first few song orchestrations myself, I find the process to be quite easy. It's like any new skill, challenging at first, but easy once you get used to it. Plus, the features of the FR-4x make it so easy and flexible compared to the FR-3x. Note that I no longer attend such accordion events. When I did attend them I always felt that for me they were not worth the travelling and registration expense. At no time did I ever learn anything that might be useful to myself at my playing level. It was always just a bunch of guys, all better players than me, comparing and showing off their skills to each other. Worse, the playing techniques that they present in their workshops are all from the acoustic world. Although they play Roland accordions, they don't take advantage of them compared to an acoustic by incorporating more modern playing strategies as you demonstrate in your videos. The playing ability of the advanced players at the first few events that I attended did impress me. But after a while I began to realize that their emphasis was always on very fast playing skill, speed, not musical quality. Hence their music was more noisy than entertaining. I eventually tired of it and I now consider their music not worth listening to. As an amateur accordion enthusiast, I do not wish to ever play like them. Leon, we are so blessed to have you post videos like this one showing the best and easiest way for players at all skill levels, including mine, to take full advantage of a Roland accordion. No accordion event was ever able to accomplish this for me. And Roxy's is so smart to use you to support their customers. After all, what good is an instrument if I don't know how to use it, and how would I know if people at accordion events use them in an antiquated, acoustic manner? Roxy's is the only dealer I have seen who provides such support with public videos at their RU-vid channel. Bravo!!!

Excellent student level example of how a complex orchestration should be played. Yet, it's not just for beginners. I encourage all advanced accordionists who are still playing their roland accordions in the outdated manner to take a hard look at this.

You make it look so easy.

Hi! Is it possible to program the Roland Fr-4x button accordion in the 6 + 6 Beyreuther musical principle? Thanks for an answer.