Does anybody know of any good or even fair-to-middlin' books of tablature for a "C" accordion. I went to the zydecoach web site and there are a couple there. Ms. Ann Savoy's book is real good for gettig the music to the lyrics, but to get the accordian part you have to listen to a recording of the tune over and over until you get it right. Just the basic melody tabs would be great, and all the triplets and bounces and other imbelisments could be added in after getting the melody down. I already got the Dirk powell DVD and the Steve Riley DVD, plus I tune in to Big Nicks site at least once a week. Need help. Too impatient.
JB

Get the old version of Transcribe. I have not tried the new version. Transcribe slows down any song and can change keys. You can highlight any note and determine the what the note is. Notes are referenced above a keyboard at the bottom of the screen labled with all the notes. I put a piece of tape on the screen over the keyboard and lable it with the 10 keys of the accordion (both push & pull). This is really easy to tab out each note,the trills, blends, etc. I have tabbed out several songs on the learning CDs and other cajun music accordion CDs. You should be able to download Transcribe for a free trial. Just search "transcribe". I use the old version.
Tabbing is a personal thing. They don't share easily because you also need to have the exact song you tabbed it from. You will also develop your own personal tabbing nomenclature for pauses, triple keys pushed at once, etc.
Tabbing has helped me alot ,giving me a reference point to a piece of music which I may not have played in a while. After you spend so much time learning a piece and the nuances ,you don't want to have to repeat the process when you can quickly refer to a tab. After you got this down, you can forget about the tabs and just play.
Too many people ask for tabs and they need to do it themselves. You will also be surprise how much you will learn and you can tab anything you like.

Thanks, Al.

Great information. I knew it would not be as easy as I wanted it to be, but your method sounds like it is workable . How do you get the music into Transcribe, by burning a Cd into my music?

larry miller has a tab book and so does eric martin of france...... here is a link to eric's ebay auction of it....its a great book and comes with a CD of him playing the tabs slow and normal...i bought one but never have attempted to learn anything from it lol...maybe one day

http://cgi.ebay.com/Accordeon-diatonique-Tablatures-Cajun-par-Eric-Martin_W0QQitemZ7423178003QQihZ016QQcategoryZ104652QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

Any music you store on your computer (either throught copying a CD, download, or recorded by mic or direct line in) can be accessed by Transcribe. It will then make a seperate Transcribe File of the original and store that next to the original. It will operate off the transcribe file. It also has its own record button so you can go straight from a DVD lesson or CD and record it into transcribe. This is helpful to transcribe Powell or Riley lessons. One responder mentioned Eric Martin's material. I found it helpful but probably will not have the music selections you want. Keep up the enthusiasm, and enjoy. You have some real masters on this forum (I am not one) who are willing to help. For some unselfish reason, they even gave me the time of day as a beginner and that really impressed me.

Besides the books of Larry Miller and Eric Martin,
there was also a book of Allie Young with a tape and also a book of Yann Dour with tape. The books are a little bit old. I don't know if they are available. The book of Allie Young was a great help for me in the beginning.
I have made some tabs by listening to songs and written the buttons down.
That's a lot of work.
Nowadays we have a lot of help from clever slowdown programs. With this programs you can also change the pitch of the songs.

Many thanks to all of you for the help. Great info. I discovered Youtube (Utoob?) last night, and that is also a great learning medium. Stuck here in the house due to the terrible icey weather we're having here in South Texas, so making the most of it to practice and learn. Maybe that;s why the guy in Quebec is such an accomplished player... lots of cold, nasty days.
JB

JB--I am in Brownsville and it hasn't frozen yet.

Good. Maybe there will be a little Orange Juice this year after all. Let me know if you are ever headed up to San Antonio in the future. Our Cajun French Music Association De Fa Tras Cahpter has a dance every month, usually with a band out of LA. The music is usually pretty good. Trying to get a jam session going before the dance, but not too many musicians in the group, just dancers.
JB

I downloaded a free version of Audacity a while back. It doesnt give the notes, but you can speed up or slow down a song to hear the notes better. I have never thought of using it for this until this thread, but it sure makes it easier.