Hello fellow free reeders!

Hello fellow free reeders -

Regarding learning the button box - I think the best thing to do is to just get the notes under your fingers and begin by learning tunes by ear -- Perhaps practicing C, G, D and E and the chromatic scale would be a good initial exercise -- just to train your ear and hands to hear the notes and get a feel for where the notes are -- you develop a sense for what notes are pull notes and what notes are push notes --
sing the notes along with what you are playing - ie: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D - or chromatically - singing each of the notes as you ascend and descend by 1/2 steps.for the left hand, I think you have to develop an ear for the basses and when you can throw them in.

I always felt kind of guilty about not playing accompaniment but I have realized since starting to play the piano accordion, the basses on a button box are extremely limiting because we are constantly pressing/drawing and with the basses you really need to have a system like the stradella bass system on PAs

I'm just starting to kind of get the drone style of using the basses that John Williams talks about -- the illian pipes sound -- good enough for me -- with the button box, most of the time you'll be playing with other instruments and you'll want to blend in with the fiddle or a flute anyways, so you really won't need the basses, except very sparingly
Take care!
Ted