How to Play Accordion With the Right Hand

Playing the accordion is a balance between using the bass buttons with your left hand and playing the keyboard with your right hand. Learning to play with your right hand is a large part of basic accordion playing. You'll need to know how the two hands interact to do this successfully. Here's how to start using your right hand to play notes on the accordion.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Start with expanding and contracting the bellows with your left hand. This action is what powers the wind section of the instrument and gives all of your notes their sound.

2. Choose keys for your right hand that fit with the key of the bass buttons you have selected for your left hand. A lot of coordinating two hands on the accordion is choosing complementary notes in the same key to avoid dissonance.

3. Pay attention to rhythm and length of your keyboard notes played on your right hand. You'll need to sync up your right with your left in terms of tempo, rhythm and how long you play each note.

4. Treat the accordion keyboard like a piano. Yes, you're playing vertically, but besides that, the music theory is the same. There are no hidden tricks: the accordion keyboard is a piano keyboard, with twelve half steps to an octave. You can easily translate simple piano riffs onto the accordion as long as your accordion model has the necessary range.

5. Maintain good posture while playing the accordion. This last tip will affect your play almost as much as the others. Be careful not to "lean" on the instrument, but keep up an even rhythm on the bellows while tapping out your keys with your right hand and keeping track of bass buttons with your left to produce great harmonic sound.