Welcome to old and new friends who are interested in discussing Cajun and other diatonic accordions, along with some occasional lagniappe....



CAJUN ACCORDION DISCUSSION GROUP

 

General Forum
Start a New Topic 
Author
Comment
View Entire Thread
Re: Thumb strap

UPDATE, UPDATE

I read back over this thread today after much contemplation and having to move one of my accordion's thumb straps, and I do believe Orville and Bryan are on to something. I had said earlier that if the thumb strap is correctly located on the keyboard, that your 4 fingers should fall naturally on buttons 5,6,7,8. What if that is WRONG?!!!!!! Nobody challenged me when I typed it got dammit!

What if your 4 fingers should fall naturally on buttons 3,4,5,6? After all, buttons 3 and 6 on the push make the "C" chord on a "C" accordion. That would be considered the home position on a "C" accordion for playing in the key of "C" on the push. (The First Position).

Look at the old HA-114 Hohners. Look at where they place the thumb its freakin high and has an upward slant like the hour hand of a clock pointing to 2:30 o'clock. Savoy's Acadian accordions also have this same 2:30 upward slant and the top outside end of the strap falls even with the bottom of button 3. I say the "Germans" got it right, and so did "Savoy". They knew something that most of us didn't.

"That a correctly placed and correctly slanted thumb strap will allow optimum playability and finger reach to all 10 buttons when playing in all the 6 different positions or keys of play!!!"

This epiphany came to me when trying to play Slim Doucet's "Chere Yeux Noir" exactly like he probably played it. Using all of the 10 buttons. The high pitch buttons for one part of the song(mids on down) and the low pitch buttons for the other part of the song (mids on up to button 1. I was able to play it easier on my black "KING" accordion "D" which has a higher thumb strap setting. After I changed out and corrected the thumb strap on my "C" accordion to match the "KING", voila! Played it very easily like a Champ!

Ponder carefully what I have said here. It means the difference of a "good player" and a "Champion Player".
After all this time, you'd think it would be common knowledge.



Jamey Hall's most excellent Cajun Accordion Music Theory

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

LFR1.gif - 1092 Bytes The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week

augusta.gif - 6841 Bytes

Listen to Some GREAT Music While You Surf the Net!!
The BEST Radio Station on the Planet!