Sunday, June 8, 2014

How do you get an accordionist to play in time? Get them to play by themselves. ! How do you make two accordionists play in time? Shoot one of them. ! Minutes of OAC Meeting June 8, 2014 ! Our June meeting was held in the church music room. ! • arbara Duer called the meeting to order. She told us that Karen West and Maggie Abel have made a To Do list for the August 10 concert. They are also putting a program together. ! • Karen had her picture in the OKC paper recently when she played her accordion at Will Rogers Park. The occasion was a plant sale sponsored by the Garden Club. ! • William Dalton (a guest) has a Scandalli accordion for sale. His father played it with a band in Mustang for many years. Bob Mansfield performed "La Vie en Rose" on the Scandalli. ! • Then we rehearsed for the concert. Tom Phillips and Myke Dixon played "The Indian Song" and "Lightly Row." ! • Myke played a solo: "La Donna e Mobile." Bob gave him some helpful suggestions. ! • Karen West played "I Wanna Be Around." ! • Bob played "Sway" ("Quien Sera"), accompanied by Karen with maracas. ! • The music continued with Bob performing two button box solos: "Blue Bottom Button" and "Jambalaya," with vocal. He told us that a button box is limited in what it can do - unlike an accordion, which is much more versatile. ! • He also entertained us with several accordion solos, including "Lunch Time Boogie," "Base Scootin' Blues," and "You Belong To My Heart." ! • Barbara Duer played "The Merry Widow Waltz." ! • Anne Lopez played a few of her favorite songs, including "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," "Blue Skirt Waltz," and "San Antonio Rose." ! Our next meeting will be Sunday, July 13. Join us for an afternoon of accordion music as we rehearse for the concert. ! Respectfully submitted, Lois Roth for Secretary Maggie Abel May Minutes Lois Roth for Maggie Abel I love the summertime -- it's invigorating. What I don't love is to open an accordion and find that it has sat in a hot car while the owner just had a few small errands that wouldn't take much time at all. All accordion reeds are set in place with beeswax and rosin. It doesn't take much time to melt the reed blocks wax. Within minutes, the temperature in a car can rise over triple digits. The worst thing you can do is take your accordion out of a HOT car and try to play it. You have just blown several reeds out of the reed blocks. The same holds true for cold weather. Cold makes the reed block wax very brittle. Again, playing a cold accordion can also blow out the reeds. The rule is simple: "If it is too hot for you, it is too hot for your accordion. If it is too cold for you, it is too cold for your accordion." It doesn't take much time at all to cause severe damage to your accordion. The repair can be very costly. Save your money by following the above rule. How Hot Is Hot? Dick Albreski !Page ! July 2014! The Oklahoma Squeezins 4

Do you play a musical instrument but want to get better? Do you find yourself practicing the same thing over and over and not improving? This guide will help you play your instrument to your fullest potential: 1.! Identify what you need to practice. This could be a specific piece, a set of scales, or even something general like reaching high notes. Read through the piece and make sure you understand it. Review the piece with someone who plays the instrument well, or a teacher. 2.! If possible, listen to the piece played by someone you know or a professional musician. This will give you an idea of what the piece should sound like, what kind of feeling the piece gives, and how fast the piece should be. 3.! Don't jump right in to the piece you want to work on; warm up with a series of scales or other warm up exercises. There are books you can buy for your instrument with warm ups and scales. 4.! Run through the piece once, pausing to circle your mistakes with a pencil. If this is your first time encountering a particular piece, start at the beginning and work slowly forward. Be aware of your mistakes, and go back and correct them. 5.! After getting more familiar with the piece, target the areas that need work. Don't start at the beginning of the piece and start playing until you reach the problem spots, but begin with those problem areas. Then go back and play the whole piece again once you've fixed the difficult parts. 6.! Even if you think you can play the section faster, start slowly. Build up the tempo while paying strict attention to pitch, tone, rhythm, dynamics, and phrasing. There's no use in practicing something the wrong way. 7.! Make sure to play the piece more than once, even if you think you played it right. You'll get the hang of it better if you practice it without mistakes to a slow metronome (max 100 bpm) for five to 30 minutes, depending on your patience. 8.! After the problematic areas have shaped up, go back to the beginning of the piece and play through it, keeping an eye out for the measures you worked on previously. If the sections you worked on are still shaky as you encounter them throughout the piece, go back and patch them up again. 9.! The same steps can be taken for scales, an exercise, or various techniques. Begin slowly and listen for mistakes. At this stage, you want to be picky. 10.!Make sure you're focusing on your mistakes! Studies show that few students quit because they're not practicing. Rather, they quit because their practice time isn't spent progressively. When one makes a mistake, his or her brain is constantly ahead of what he or she is actually doing. When a mistake is made, you must go back a few notes (or better yet, a whole measure) before your mistake and play it over and over again (ideally, you'd want to play it more than ten times). How to Practice Effectively Barbara Duer !The Oklahoma Squeezins! July 2014!