Base Hand

When Should I start the Left Hand? The left hand accompaniment can be one of the most pleasing aspects of accordion playing for button accordion musicians. It can fill out the sound underneath the melody, it can behave like a melody is being accompanied by a piano vamping and lots of players nowadays have brought the base hand to new levels.

When Should I Start the Left Hand?

Having said the above, it can be a major distraction for an accordion player, if they venture into it too soon or if they haven’t received the proper teaching or training involved in playing the base. My opinion on it is, and what I have practised as part of the content of my teaching, the left hand should be left until your playing is at a comfortably advanced standard of intermediate level, or even when you begin to hit the advanced levels of playing. In other words, your right hand should be able to achieve all the teaching content in the Improver course of this site, comfortably.

Knowledge of chord structure

A huge help in your left hand accompaniment is knowledge of chords, chord progressions and generally music theory. I have come across so many great accordion players in the past, but their left hand takes away from their overall playing. This is such a pity. It is clear that the players weren’t shown some basic music theory.

Rhythm

On this site there will be a base hand course available (January 2023). It will start you off on the rhythm to the base hand. One might have thought that it started with notes of the base or drone techniques, but I found that the rhythm needs to be solid first for a successful left hand. It can be very challenging to get your mind to suddenly think about two hands playing together. This is my reason for a very solid foundation in the right hand gained first.