Derek here. It is Sunday so that means I'll be going to my accordion class at 2 this afternoon. I've been attending this class for about 7 or 8 weeks now, learning how to play the 3 row button accordion, conjunto style. I feel pretty lucky in that I've found an excellent teacher, Rodrigo Gonzalez, a young, mid-twenty-something, who, it turns out is an excellent accordionista and comes from a family of accordionistas, well known in Houston conjunto circles. It's a group class consisting of myself, "el gringo viejo", and 5 Mexican compadres who are in their twenties. Though spanish is mostly spoken(a couple of my classmates do not speak english), Rodrigo, thankfully for me, runs a bilingual class.
The first few classes were spent with learning basic scales, chords, and finger positions. I came into the class already knowing a few scales, but soon learned that I had been playing them with poor finger position technique, so it was practically back to square one from the outset. Proper fingering technique is essential to be able to play with the speed required on the 3 row.
After about a month of the basics, Rodrigo began to introduce us to a few tunes, the first of which was a polka, entitled, Tampico Hermoso. He sent each one of us home with a CD that he had burned two tracks of the song on. The first track was a version that included the accordion, bajo sexto, and drum that illustrated how the tune should sound and be played. The second track was a version that consisted of just the bajo sexto and drum that we could play our accordions along to. These CD's that Rodrigo has created are turning out to be a great learning tool. The next week when we returned for our lesson, Rodrigo asked everyone how they had done with the polka and when he got around to me I admitted that I had found that the tempo was somewhat brisk. He assured me that I would eventually get used to the pace. I sheepishly asked if there might be a slower, "gringo tempo" for learning. My question brought a roar of laughter from my classmates. Even from the ones who supposedly could not speak english. Go figure.
As I was informed by Rodrigo, there is no "gringo tempo". And, he seemed to hammer that point home with the next tune, a huapango, entitled, El Lucero, which is even faster than Tampico Hermoso.
So, the challenge is ahead of me. I have much to learn and, it seems, never enough time for practice. But, I'm having alot of fun with it, enjoying the class and my fellow classmates(who, at first were somewhat leary of el gringo viejo but now have accepted me with open bellows
) and there is definitely progress being made. We have since gone on to other tunes, as well, including, Las Mananitas, the traditional birthday celebration song, and Las Tres Tumbas, a corrido. I hope to master these by the end of the year, as well as, one of my personal favorites, Volver, Volver, the great ranchero.