Thank you for sharing this. This is really heplful, a really nice way to explain it. The "chromatic trick" by adding the tritone to the 7th chord opens a whole lot of new possibilities!
Great! Another thing that comes in handy is the fact, that the combination of a chord like g7 plus C# as a bass tone or f7 plus B as a bass tone (and so on) gives you the possibility to represent chords like C#7b5 or B7b5 - those are often dearly missed on a stradella accordion. I always look for a bass in the first row if I stumble across a chord like that. They are very common in jazz music. So if the musical piece demands for example an A7b5 I go almost automatically to Eb7 plus the A in the first row. All thanks to the fact that the stradella system leaves away the fifth in the (7th) chords! Otherwise it would be messy... I am not such a versatile player as you are, therefore I always try to find solutions within my technical range. Sorry for being nerdy - and for my bad English. And thank you Sir for the enlightenment!
Dear David, Many thanks for the instructive and instructive video! It´s terrific! I am looking forward to hearing from you again soon. All the best and best regards from Graz.
Thank you David for sharing your knowledge on the accordion. Your ideas and method really work and sound great. I really like how a quirk of the instrument - not having the 5th note of the Seventh and Diminished chords, opens up new possibilities with the stradella system. It's helpful to know also that you don't have to get a Free bass system to play swing and jazz on the accordion in a good way. Cheers from Sydney, Australia.
Great video! That's a real handy tip. Navigating the basses is a unique challenge to this instrument when playing more complicated harmony. btw, your instrument sounds great. How did you record it for this vid?
I have a B&K 4011 just out of frame pointing at the right hand and am just using the internal mics for the left. I also have a hypercardiod Sennheiser mkh 50 for the voice mic. I did a vid on recording the accordion that includes my preferred method. The great instrument and a little reverb help.
Oh how I wish I could afford an accordion just to learn and play that intro! Would make my dad proud that would. Thank you David, real great stuff yet again. Is your accordion double cassotto?
Great stuff, David. Thank you. Also.. could you recommend any 'produced' recordings that use the accordion in this way (ie. using LH and not just a jazzy RH)
Thanks for asking Edward. You and Oliver sound great together. Your bellow control is particularly impressive. I don’t have any specific examples of tritone work other than the etude I did that is the companion piece to the tritone video. It does pop up in the CDs Ive done with Pearl Django and in my solo CDs. On my last solo CD “Melange” there are a couple of duets that have some advanced left hand chord choices. “Waltz with Pierrot” is all about the left hand and while L’indifference starts out traditional it does go a little out in the C section. I think you can find both of them on You Tube. Best
Hello David! :) On the Bass Side, Regarding The Circle Of 5ths, I Guess You Meant or Wanted To Say That You Descended in 4ths and Ascended in 5ths! Please, Correct Me If I am Wrong Sir! :) Best Regards From Brazil! :) /O
Thanks for the comment. I’m not sure I talked about going down in fourths and up in fifths. But it did make me think that I have always accepted that convention from my early training. I think it’s an easy way to think about the left hand but of course it’s not r true. I have a low C accordion so when I go down from C to F I’m actually moving up a 5th because my F is a higher pitch than my C. I wish my accordion teachers had mentioned that. I think I perceive octaves worse than most of my fellow musicians because of these confusions
