Accordion Postures and Techniques

This post will cover all postures and techniques of playing the accordion.

1 General

1.1 How to Wear an Accordion

Accordion can be played in two ways: sitting and standing. We talk about the sitting posture here.

Accordion sitting posture. Source: concert news from China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts

Key points for sitting posture:

1. Wear the accordion like wearing a backpack in front
2. Adjust the shoulder straps to a comfortable position
   • The accordion should rest naturally and loosely against the body—neither too close nor too far.
   • The right strap is typically slightly longer than the left.
   • Taller players may need longer straps.
3. Unfasten the buckles on both sides of the bellows
4. Insert your left hand through the bass strap (so that you can pull the bellows outward)
5. Adjust the roller above the left-hand button panel to control the tightness of the bass strap. A good reference for adjustment:
   • When pulling the bellows, the base of your palm should remain in contact with the bellows board.
   • When pushing the bellows, the strap should not detach from the back of your hand.
   • The strap should allow free vertical hand movement without being too loose or restrictive.
6. Adjust your position: the grill should rest on your left thigh, allowing the left hand to operate the bellows freely.
7. Adjust your position: the right thigh should press against the lower-right corner of the right-hand keyboard to stabilise the accordion’s front-to-back position (optional for smaller accordions).
8. Sit properly: Sit slightly forward (about 1/2 to 1/3 of the seat), making it easier to apply force. Better not lean against the chair back.

1.2 How to Place an Accordion

When you finish playing, you need place the accordion properly.

Key points for placing the accordion:

1. Release the air in the bellows and close it completely
2. Fasten the buckles on both sides of the bellows
   • This is to fix the bellows and prevent gravity from causing the bellows to open.
3. Place the accordion horizontally (bass strap side down). This is the most stable placement method.

Tip

It’s okay to place the accordion vertically (right-hand keyboard parallel to the ground), but only in temporary situations.

1.3 How to Tap the Beat

We usually use the right foot to tap the beat when playing the accordion, because your hands are occupied for playing, and left foot is holding the body of accordion.

Therefore, your feet should be placed correctly: remain flat on the ground—avoid tiptoeing or crossing your legs.

2 Right Hand Keyboard

2.1 How to Press Right Hand Keys

The right hand keys (piano keyboard) of the accordion corresponds to notes in higher pitch and are typically for the high melody part. It should be played by your right hand.

If you are familiar with playing the piano, you will probably find it easier to learn the piano accordion. For piano accordion, the right hand posture is similar to playing the piano, but still many differences.

Key points similar to piano:

1. The “holding an egg” hand shape: Maintain a natural, rounded hand shape. Keep the back of your hand aligned with the keyboard.
2. Use fingertips rather than fingerpads or nails to touch the keys. Avoid long fingernails.
3. Press the key vertically. No collapsed fingers: do not let the first knuckle collapse outward.
4. No striking keys: do not lifting fingers too high and hitting the keys forcefully.
5. No flying fingers: Keep unused fingers relaxed and close to the keys. Avoid lifting them.

Key points different from piano:

6. The right elbow and shoulder should remain relaxed and naturally lowered—avoid lifting the elbow, tensing the shoulder, or pressing the elbow downward.
7. The wrist can be slightly elevated to facilitate vertical movement, since the accordion keyboard is positioned vertically.
8. The accordion isn’t like a piano in terms of dynamics. Accordion does not respond to touch pressure for volume or tone variation. Instead, they are controlled through bellows operated by left hand. Piano players transitioning to the accordion should take time to adjust to this key difference.

2.2 How to Arrange Fingerings on Right Hand Keyboard

For any sequence of notes, we need to decide which finger to use for each note—this is called fingering.

Fingering should be planned ahead, can be marked on the sheet music and practiced. It can also be decided naturally during playing (which is particularly important when improvising).

There are no absolute rules for fingering on the accordion—every player develops their own unique approach. However, there are some general principles that help make playing smoother and more expressive:

No right or wrong fingerings for accordion, everyone has unique. but there are some general principles to follow, both to make it easier to play and to serve the expression, make it sound better and right to the music.

• Legato: playing connected notes when legato is marked. Avoid jumping between notes.
• Avoid using the thumb on black keys: the thumb is shorter and may not reach the black keys comfortably. Using thumb on black keys may also move the hand in a higher position, making it harder to play the white keys.

Fingering on the piano keyboard often involves the following techniques:

• Finger extension: stretching fingers to cover larger intervals between notes
• Finger contraction: compressing finger spacing for closely packed notes. This is to avoid potential insufficient fingers for some future long descending sequences.
• Hand shift: moving the entire hand to a new position to access a different range of notes.
• Thumb under: while playing ascending notes, you might sense you’ll run out of fingers (especially in a long ascending sequence). If you are playing the current note with 2nd, 3rd or 4th finger, you can slide your thumb under and use the thumb to play the next note. This kind of “resets” your fingering back starting from thumb.
• Finger over: while playing descending notes, you may sometimes find you’ve reached the end of the sequence. You can bring your 2nd, 3rd or 4th finger over the thumb and use them to play the next note. This extends your playing for extra 2, 3 or 4 notes.

Tip

To practice fingering, a typical approach is to work on various patterns such as scales, arpeggios, chords, and licks. These patterns usually encompass different techniques mentioned above. Such exercises are generally regarded as foundational skills for playing the piano — and so they are for the accordion. I’ll summarise them in a separate post (not finished).

These exercises are not just for playing the patterns themselves, which may sometimes appear in certain types of music (especially classical), but also for developing familiarity and muscle memory. Once internalised, you can automatically apply proper fingering while playing music. In short, fingering isn’t about theory — it’s about practice and experience.

2.3 Fingering for Scales on the Right Hand Keyboard

White keys:

• C、D、E、G、A、B: 123-1234
• F: 1234-123

Black keys:

• C#: 23-1234-1
• Eb: 3-1234-12
• F#: 234-123-1
• Ab: 34-123-12
• Bb: 4-123-123

3 Left Hand Buttons

3.1 How to Press Left Hand Keys

The left hand keys (buttons) of the accordion corresponds to notes in lower pitch and are typically for the bass and harmony. It should be played by your left hand.

The left hand posture is same as the right hand in basic principles. However, the left hand buttons are arranged in a more compact layout, which makes it harder.

Key points:

1. Natural rounded hand shape
2. Using fingertips rather than fingerpads or nails
3. Vertically pressing. Please note this is more strict than the right hand keys because you might press wrong buttons without vertical pressing.
4. No striking keys
5. No flying fingers
6. Naturally relaxed left elbow and shoulder
7. No dynamic control through touch pressure
8. Thumb is not used in playing the left hand keys. Place it naturally beside the index finger.

Tip

To make it easier to press the left hand keys, try to insert your left hand deeper into the bass strap until you can vertically press any button with your fingertips.

3.2 How to Arrange Fingerings on Left Hand Buttons

Same as right hand keyboards, For any sequence of notes, we need to decide which finger to use for each note. i.e. fingering. Fingering should be planned ahead, can be marked on the sheet music and practised. It can also be decided naturally during playing.

For left hand buttons, we don’t have many techniques to discuss, because it’s compact enough for fingers to reach with their normal shapes, doesn’t have long legato sequences and needs less hand movement. Left hand may look harder than right hand for many people, but it’s actually simpler in fingerings. The hard part is the layout and the way you play it without looking at it.

For Stradella system of left hand, the buttons are typically played in three ways:

1. Bass notes and chords: focus on chord buttons, with occasional bass notes. This is the main way of playing the left hand, which is primarily designed for accompaniment.
2. Bass melodies: bass notes only to form melodies.
3. Mixed bass melodies and chords: a combination of the two above.

For the first scenario, which is the simplest and most common scenario, the fingering has simple rules of thumb:

(I will give a figure to illustrate this later)

1. To play buttons in the same row: use the 4th finger for the root bass and counter bass column of the chord, and 3rd finger for major chord, 2nd finger for minor chord, dominant 7th and diminished 7th chord.
   • For strong and faster rhythm, you can use the 3rd finger for the root bass and counter bass of the chord (because 3rd finger has more strength), and 2nd finger for major chord and minor chord (avoid 7th diminished unless you can stretch your 2nd 3rd very well).
2. To play bass buttons lower than the row in which you chords are, use the 4th finger as well. If the buttons are too far, use the 5th finger.
3. To play bass buttons higher than the row in which you chords are, use the 3rd finger.

For the second scenario, only the root and counter bass columns are used in Stradella system. We can use all fingers (except thumb) to play it, which requires more fingering planning. Again, we need to practice various patterns such as scales, arpeggios, chords, and licks to develop familiarity and muscle memory so that we can automatically apply proper fingering while playing music.

For the third scenario mixing bass melodies and chords, only one rule you need to remember:

• Don’t fall on the 2nd finger at the end of the bass melodies, because you won’t have finger to play any chord buttons below (except the major chord a row below).

4 Bellows

4.1 How to Operate the Bellows

Bellow, the air storage, is like the lung of accordion, and its movement is like the breath. You can always think in this way when playing the accordion. (Though the difference is you don’t produce sound when you exhale lol)

Bellows are very important in accordion music. It is a unique element of accordion music expression. It not only controls the dynamic of the music, but also the articulation and phrasing.

Bellow movement is controlled by the left hand. Pulling the bellow is like inhaling, and pushing the bellow is like exhaling to release the air.

For beginners, we first learn the fan-shaped bellow movement: only the upper part of the bellow opens and closes, forming a fan shape. Try pulling against the bass strip to open the bellow, and pushing against the bass strip to close the bellow.

Key points for bellow movement:

1. Before playing, make sure you adjusted your position: 1. the grill rests on your left thigh, 2. the right thigh presses against the lower-right corner of the right-hand keyboard.
2. Steady movement: Keep the bellow movement smooth and steady. Make sure not to shake or wobble the bellow.
3. Stable body: Your body should not sway left and right alongwith the bellow.
4. Parallel motion: The bellow should move neither forward nor backward, nor left-backward like you are stretching.

5 When to Change the Bellow Direction (Bellow Planning)

You have to change the bellow as you play the accordion, similar to changing your breath, because the “lung” cannot hold infinite amount of air. The bellow change should be happening at the right time, instead of when it’s “out of breath”.

Key points:

1. Change the bellow direction when you finish a note, and start the next note at the same time.
2. Do not change the bellow direction in the middle of a note, it will break the note.
3. Keep the bellow change smooth and quick. The force before and after the change should be consistent.

For a complete music piece, we need to plan the bellow change. We could plan it in advance and mark it in the music sheet (see my other post), which could be a hard labour work to do, but it’s even better if you can get the feeling and plan it naturally during playing, according to your experience and principles.

Here are some principles for bellow planning that you can follow:

• Try to think it as your breath, it’s very useful;
• For pieces with a clear rhythm, you can plan the bellow change according to the beat.
• For complex pieces, we need to plan it more carefully. For example, for pieces with a clear phrasing, you can plan the bellow change according to the phrasing.
• Do not change the bellow direction too frequently (small bellow movement), it will make the music sound choppy.
• Do not change the bellow direction too randomly, for example, changing the bellow direction in the middle of a phrase.
• When you push the bellow, it’s better to close it exactly. Try to anticipate the force you need in advance. If the bellow has too much air, push it a bit harder to close it exactly. If you the bellow doesn’t have enough air, save some force.

6 How to Play Accordion with Both Hands

Like the piano, the accordion is a musical instrument that requires coordination between both hands. The right hand plays the high melody, while the left hand plays the bass and harmony, creating a full sound. The coordination between the left and right hands is essential for playing the accordion.

The general practice method for coordinating the left and right hands is:

• Practice each hand separately, then practice together.
• Start your practice at a low speed and gradually increase the speed. Do not rush to play fast from the beginning, as this is very inefficient (I have personally tried it).
• Try to relax your body and hands. Tension will make it harder to coordinate your hands.