

For example, D minor 7th ( Dm7) combine a D bass note and an F major chord, let’s explain why:
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Jazz and pop music, for example, are usually written on a single staff with chords symbols so, in my opinion, it’s important to learn how to play as many different styles of accompaniments as possible because sometimes the score doesn’t give you any information about it.Īccordion counter bass notes are often underlined with a little dash so you can distinguish them from bass notes.Ī combined accordion bass chord is a chord that combines a root note (bass or counter bass) and a bass chord (major, minor, 7th, or diminished) from a different root line. Once you know how to arrange a rhythmic pattern, all you need in order to play an accompaniment for a melody is to know the chord progression.

This is why the accordion notation is so less detailed than piano notation. On a piano, you can choose to play different inversions of the same chord or you can play a bass note at a lower octave but on the accordion, there’s just one octave for basses, and chords can’t be changed, you can’t play chords inversions on a standard bass accordion. This means that you can alternate roots and 5ths very easily on the accordion and therefore it is very easy to play all those rhythmic patterns in which there is this alternation of bass.Īccordion notation for the left hand is very simple since all chords are written as one single note. These are all fifth intervals and in fact, accordion basses are arranged in a circle of fifths. Regardless of the time signature, you can see how bass notes follow the same pattern: In this example, there are 4 chords: C Maj, A min, D min, and G 7th. Here you can see the same melody written for accordion, for piano, and for any other instruments (“Just chords”). There’re many other common time signatures but let’s focus just on 4/4 (marches, ballads, fox-trot, and polkas for example) and 3/4 (waltzes, mazurkas, minuets, and dances). The most common rhythmic patterns are in 4/4, in 3/4, and in 2/4 (which it can be written in 4/4 as well). The Stradella bass system was designed to play traditional and popular classical pieces, waltzes, mazurkas, polkas, marches, etc. (Fingering for major chords is 4-3, for minor, 7th and diminished is 4-2 ) The Stradella bass system

The lower is a C bass and the higher is a C chord. As you can see in the example below, the notation for major, minor, 7th, and diminished chords is always the same: there’re two C notes, an octave apart. The lower note is a bass and the higher note is a chord. Since there are 4 different kinds of chords on the accordion (major, minor, seventh, and diminished), you will find a letter, a number, or an abbreviation near a chord-note: it defines the nature of the chord (“M” for major, “m” for minor, “7” for dominant 7th and “dim” for diminished chords). The standard accordion bass notation is quite simple as basses, counter basses, and chords are all represented with a single note on the staff. Chords are on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th row.īass and counter-bass are in a lower position on the staff than accordion bass-chords. On accordion scores, usually, in the lower position, you’ll find a D and in the highest, a C.
