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My Most Unexpected Musical Breakthrough

Mar 19, 2024
Are you ready for this? So I spent some time learning to play the accordion these days and believe it or not, this has led to some significant advances in my music, which has really changed the way I listen to music and how I play the piano, and that's a great statement, so let me explain to you, even though it hasn't been that long, it has made me pay attention to new things, things that I have been neglecting basically for the 25 years that I have been studying music, so in this video I am going to do everything I do my best to summarize my top three accomplishments, and if you stick around to the end, you'll hear my beginner's attempt at playing something I wrote using the accordion.
my most unexpected musical breakthrough
The first thing I'm going to mention is how to breathe the The accordion makes me pay attention to the airflow and breathing and this affects the phrasing because you have to prepare for what you are about to play and al

most

project this distance of volume and timing, so a couple of weeks ago I posted a video about fall leaves. This will be a contrast, so I hope to improve one day. First of all, why the accordion? Anyway, maybe it was going to happen since I became a big fan of Jan Tiersen's music, especially his score for Amelie, but in order to explain this.
my most unexpected musical breakthrough

More Interesting Facts About,

my most unexpected musical breakthrough...

I need to mention my friend Corey Pisaturo, who is a tremendously skilled accordion player and a phenomenal improviser, so Corey is very intense, not only is he one of the

most

versatile and accomplished musicians. I know the guy holds the Guinness World Record for playing the accordion. Over 32 hours straight and has won multiple world championships, he also has a unique ability to teach his skills to others and, having sensed that I was already curious about the accordion, he showed up one day with an extra accordion and gifted me my first and only accordion . lesson so let's go back in time to about a year ago we'll even make you do everything yeah this is what you learned not all of that yeah no before no again what about the left hand ?
my most unexpected musical breakthrough
Oh, it's all g and d seven. g and b seven one five one five aha now go back and forth exactly like that we'll make it a little harder oh you just want that okay now go to the next one I was wrong there oh god you're like that. a classical musician makes a mistake he should play it 150 more times and try to do the whole phrase in one direction you know not to do this this is what pianists do the piano does not require you to actively think about breathing due to the nature of the instrument when playing harder I'm pushing you, you pull harder right, the beauty is like an organ try to think like a bow, you know, nice and direct, not choppy, not choppy, not choppy, so obviously I'm very hard on this, but it's making me pay attention to this arc of sound so this was at Dave's accordion store where we were able to borrow the accordion for the lesson the worst yet you had it you had it you had it this is difficult so I quickly realized how difficult it is to learn how to play the accordion and unfortunately I wasn't able to pursue it until a few weeks ago when I borrowed this one from Daario, who I met through Corey.
my most unexpected musical breakthrough
Hey, I have this quarter box with me, he customizes the rack so you can see. The keyboard movement is obviously easier for me to touch this side because of the layout of the keyboard, but it is actually difficult because the angle is very uncomfortable for me, but it does not compare to the buttons, besides the layout, which is very different and particular. fourths and fifths I can't see these buttons when I'm playing, there's no way around them, you can't reach out and see anything, so getting used to this with the accordion has made me think more about physical confidence with the instrument, why that?
They all feel the same, they need to do it, why do all the white keys feel the same? Yes, but you have the black keys, you just get used to the spaces, you're picking them up and you're scared, look how I'm not. You really pick them up but look how they just slide because if you pick them up they just play the piano like I told you I've been playing the piano for 25 years and at this point of course I can play a lot of things without looking but there's something different between choosing not to look and not being able to look and on the piano it really freed me and made me embrace the sense of touch when it comes to navigating the keyboard, something that just came and went for me, it's just a very different perspective experience that I think it's very refreshing now, getting back to the buttons, the next thing I want to talk about is how the accordion has made me pay attention to the fundamentals of chord harmony; has really taught me to go back and listen to all my favorite standard classical pieces and many more, and I really appreciate how these chords make sense together, so with many chord progressions in Western harmony, the chords are very related to each other and when you play a lot of pieces on the accordion, actually I feel like physically on the accordion each note is surrounded by its nearest neighbors along the circle of fifths, so c is surrounded by f and g.
This is not as obvious on the keyboard, when going from C to F to B flat, it is not as intuitive. I really have to navigate the black keys, but having access and experiencing this button layout has really made me hear the closeness of these chords in a different way and it's been helpful, oh that's cool, so you get a boost when you play like a c7 to the right, a d7 and an e7 together, you actually get the whole tunnel with the 7th chords every two 7th chords right because you get the full tone. It's like the beginning of a movie scene in reverse.
It also helps you listen and understand why certain chords are considered far away. separated or certain key centers, for example this waltz by john tiersen that I really love, so the distance is extremely large and difficult to reach, those chords have a bit of an unusual relationship, that's why they are so beautiful and to be able to feel that. as you play it, it makes you hear it differently. I never experienced it that way while playing it on the keyboard, where it is there, so of course it's interesting to me in this way, but it's also the reason why these bass buttons are so difficult to play and why that.
This is absolutely crazy, so before I give this accordion back to Darío tomorrow I want to make some music with it and I'm going to choose a little piece for Julie, which is a piece that I wrote for my mom when I wrote something in To teach her piano, so in the spirit of being a beginner this piece will be appropriate and there is also the circle of fifths built into the baseline so let's try it and I hope you enjoy it please my beautiful a very special thanks to my sponsors . on patreon for helping me continue making these videos and for anyone interested in expanding their improvisational music theory or his accordion skills, i highly recommend checking out corey's cpes academy.
I plan to bring it back for a video focused on jazz theory in the future, so keep an eye out for that and thank you very much for watching.

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