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The Blind Accordion Master

Well, after a bout of silence and some guilt for things I've said, which were all truth the way I see it, I thought I'd come back and offer some information that would make amends for anyone that I may have flustered, confused, ignored, or offended with my sometimes blatant meanness and twisted trickery. This may be my last post on the Bravenet. I cannot say for certain.

Folks, as you may know, Iry Lejeune attended a school for the blind when he was young. I have come to discover that the instructors at that school taught Iry something very useful and important to his accordion playing and singing abilities. In fact, I'm certain that what Iry learned at that school would eventually elevate or LOL:) "ejaculate" him above and beyond his accordion playing peers both from his past and his present time. So much so, that accordion players from his future could never touch him, until now that is! I hope this information finds you well and you are able to understand it, apply it, and put it to good use.

Blind people rely very much on their other senses. Their senses of feel, smell, and hearing become amped up more than others who have the ability to see. Hell, some blind folks seem to have super human senses when it comes to hearing. You all know this to be true. I believe Iry became aware of how to morph his sense of feel and hearing into one sense to the point to where it became instantaneous and subconscious. Can you imagine being able to hear and feel the music coming out of your accordion and your mouth when you sing?! Can you imagine being able to do it superhumanly?! Can you imagine those sounds bouncing back at you as your reflection does from a mirror placed in front of you?

Now....LISTEN CLOSE !
Can you imagine placing a mirror behind you also, so that when you look in the mirror in front of you, you see infinite reflections of yourself in that mirror going farther and farther away from you and at the same time coming right back to you? Imagine being able to do that with sound and being able to bounce that sound embedded with your feelings now, both out to the world and back at yourself. Imagine that as the outgoing bounced sound leaves you it is laced with your feelings because on the way toward, around you, and into you, that beautiful sound elevated your feelings and picked up some of them feelings, then turned around and shot out away from you for all to hear, and then right back at ya again and again and again! Now, if you would be able to experience this for yourself, you would be very exited by now, because you finally found someone that is finally able to put that phenomenon into actual words for you and others to understand! You'd also be very excited because you would also know exactly how it felt to be able to do such an awesome thing with your accordion and singing voice.

Those instructors taught Iry the power of reflected sound and how it bounces and feeds your sense of hearing into a huge and all powerful superhuman monster. They taught him how to capture these reflections(echos) of sound and use them to help him SEE! Like a got dam Bat does!

I want you to go into your bedroom with your accordion and turn around and close the bedroom door. Then, with your accordion still in hand, open that door to 45 degrees, reach and turn off the light and step behind it facing the corner. Now drop to one knee and rest your accordion on your other bent playing knee. Now play a song into that corner and sing into that corner and let it feed you.

All or most of you have storm doors in addition to your wooden or steel front or back doors right? The storm doors are made of glass and metal right? Well play your accordion to that glass storm door jam by the door handle or knob. Sing directly at the glass from a few inches away with your wooden or steel door opened behind you at a 45 angle. You're putting yourself into a small space with all kinds of reflective surfaces and corners. It works, trust me on this. Now you will be able to hear exactly what you and your accordion sound like to the world. It will be going out and bouncing right back into you. Your playing ability, hearing, and feeling will amplify more and more and feed off of each other. Hell, don't be surprised if you start to actually play your accordion at the same time while singing or humming! This is the mark of a true master! Now,...Go Grass Hopper.

No need to thank me, for it was not I that invented it. It is a result of the laws of nature. I became aware of it as a little boy. I had a great aunt who was blind. She would sit facing the corner of her kitchen with her back to the main door of the house. We'd try to sneak up on her, but even before we'd get to the door from outside in the yard, she'd start saying loudly, "Who's there?" in French. I asked her one day why she sat facing the wall because I felt that it looked sad and I wanted to let her know that her chair was facing the corner. She said that she did it on purpose so she could hear everything! She even knew what car or truck was passing on the road and who it belonged to with a lil help from my great uncle telling her just a few times! I only became aware of this awesome thing by happenstance and have given it freely unto you. Enjoy!

Re: The Blind Accordion Master

Oh, I forgot to say something else that's also very important about Iry Lejeune. He sung the majority of his songs in an exact match to the sound that the accordion made when he played the tune. He'd also yell and holler in the same pitch and key of the ending phrases of his accordion tunes, and he did it all with the perfect timing that came from his foot taps, his base side button rhythm, and his stressed treble side (drop beat) button presses and bellows pressures, which consequently, were all feeding his heart and soul. Woo Hoo!
And to think...some of you thought I was all "bull $h!t". LOL

Re: The Blind Accordion Master

And now I return for a final time with the "twist" and to drive an older point home.

This echo vibration that I was talking about can best be heard coming from the old accordions such as Sterling, Monarchs, etc. Them gat dam Germans really knew what the heck they were doing with them old accordions and reeds I tell ya. You can also hear a very similar echo vibration when a Hohner HA-114 is played. Those HA-114's had "Tupelo" T-Marked German reeds in them back in the day. Very sweet sound when wet tuned. Iry Lejeune played or recorded on both a "C" and a "D" accordion. Both were wet tuned! I guarantee you that he chose this type of tuning over any other because of the reach these wet tuned accordions had. He was able to hear and feel their vibrations much better than a dry tuned accordion. 15 cent wet. That is the wet setting his accordions were tuned to. As I have mentioned several times, I own a Louisiana built accordion with Tupelo Ha-114 reeds in it and I had it tuned to an exact match to Iry Lejeune's "C" accordion folks. I can assure you that the feeling you get when you strike a note on that accordion cannot be achieved with the modern day reeds. And the distances that accordion can reach is more than my other accordions. It can be heard farther away even with those little Hohner Tupelo's as they sing their song very powerfully! Remember that feeling you got when you heard or played an old Sterling or and old HA-114. You knew it was different. You knew it penetrated you down to your soul. Then you went and had an expensive accordion made in Louisiana and tuned the way the builder thought it should be... and for some reason, it was missing something. Oh it was awesome at first, but after a while, it fell short of your expectations. It failed to feed some of you and you wanted more. Some of you kept buying accordion after accordion in hopes of finding that missing something, but it wouldn't come. So you learned how to think deeper and you started experimenting to try and achieve that missing sound. Does this all sound familiar? It should. Because it has happened to every last one of us as we went forward with our accordion quest in ignorance! Now, the next time you go with your accordion to a builder or tuner, you now know more than you did a while ago. Good luck my friends. I'll see you on the circuit. I will be the guy everyone is staring at with their jaws hanging down to the floor as I play them an Iry Lejeune tune that they will never forget!

Re: The Blind Accordion Master

Greezy , you wrote that we don't have to thank you, but this was very interesting about Iry Lejeune.
Read it with pleasure

Re: The Blind Accordion Master

Mr. Greezy you may have outdone yourself on this, your potentially last post. And you include a final reference to your excellent accordion playing of Mr. Iry's work. I get the mirrors but when do I start making the smoke?

Re: The Blind Accordion Master

Ha, Mr Guy. "Smoke and Mirrors". I know about that somewhat, but this post has no smoke. It was not meant to obscure my thoughts or strain understanding. I distinctly remember one place that I played a few songs as a "stand in" accordion player for a local Cajun band. I played those songs on a 9 button wet tuned Martin "D" accordion, which was the "go to" accordion of that bands accordion player. That accordion player died tragically at a very young age. He was my friend. Had he lived, he and I could have done a lot with the Cajun music. The place was a bar and dance hall completely constructed of cypress and pine. No gat dam concrete or stucco! There was nothing soft in that place except for the clothes the people had on and maybe the voluptuous backsides of the few women that were there. There were corners and angles in the construction of that building that you just don't get in modern buildings. There was no low slung ceiling. We could look up and see the gabled rafters and the all wooden roof from the inside! The sound in that place was top notch for our instruments and the Cajun music. I can remember that it made me play so much better than I would normally play the accordion. I could really feel the music that day. Those 9 button accordions are known for their vibrant and light feel, especially the wet tuned ones. Combined with those old wooden dance hall floors, walls, and cathedral ceiling, it produced a sound that automatically made my then "novice" skills increase significantly and instantly. I could actually feel the sound and it made me play better and with much ease! And unfortunately, like so many other good things of the past, those old buildings have been torn down or destroyed in one way or another. Go ahead and try to go and purchase one cypress plank. You'll find that they want to charge you an arm and a leg for one freakin plank. Forget ever building a whole room, house, or barn out of the stuff. It's just not going to happen anymore unless lots of money is involved. And this echo vibration will not happen as often either as it naturally happened so often back in the day in those wooden homes and dance places of the old times. You could say that there's your "smoke" of all this. The things that used to be, but barely exist or not at all. Such as the existence of a puff of smoke.

Oh hey Meloderon, thanks to you brother for always being kind. I'm glad you enjoyed the topic. I hope all the things I've talked about help you to become a better musician. After all, they are the ponderings of a developing accordion player who was "self taught" for the most part. The masters I knew either didn't take the time to teach Cajun music in detail or they died before I could get most of the "guarded information" from them. They knew some good stuff, but I guarantee you this. Many or those Masters didn't know what we've come to learn and will learn on the Bravenet. Or did they?



Jamey Hall's most excellent Cajun Accordion Music Theory

Brett's all new Cajun Accordion Music Theory for all keys!

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