Hey folks,

Over the past few months I got back into the accordion stronger than ever, and I've had the best time with it. Buying myself an actual book with sheet music in the genre that I want to play turned out to be the best investment ever. So it's nice to observe I'm making progress.

Several months ago I wanted to learn Waltz of the Monsters by Yann Tiersen, and found it impossible to play. A few days ago, I decided to give it another shot, and within an hour or so I managed to play it fluently. Encouraged by this I, today, to also give La Noyée a shot, because I've always loved that song and it would feel amazing to play it. And nope, I still sound like an absolute beginner playing it. There are two things that give me problems.

Firstly, the syncopated rhythm. The left hand plays this off-beat note per measure, and then the right hand also feels (I believe it is called) syncopated, i.e. the notes are a bit off rhythm. Which is precisely what gives the song this moving feel, but it also make me sound like I just picked up the accordion two days ago (when in reality it's two years ago). So I'd really like to get better at this. If you have any tips on how to practice this, let me know! I've already tried going really slow at it, but my brain just messes up when I try to play this and feels paralyzed.

The second problem I have is that quite soon in the song, the right hand plays these dual-note melodies, e.g.: e-g, f#-a, g-b, f#-a, etc. I find this really difficult to achieve. I have zero issue to play several notes at once at single points in a song, but to have that be the main part of the melody, and so fast in eigths, I find this really hard. Interestingly, I have not much issue playing with fingers one and three (thumb and middlefinger), and also not much with three and five (middle and pinky), or even two and five (index and pinky), but anything involving the ring finger in the right hand is always a burden to me. Not just in multi-note patterns, but I feel like my ring-finger is systematically less precise than my other fingers. Does anyone else have this? And what would you recommend to get better at this?

This post got pretty long, but I really enjoy discussing these things. The accordion is such a favorite of mine, and in some ways is even dearer to me than the guitar, which I've played for half my life. By the way, if anyone also has a recommendation on how to be less infatuated with a $5k Accordion that I want, I'll gladly take all recommendations there, too. My heart is currently lost to it.