French Music for Accordion Volume 1
Product Description
One of the most melodic and romantic genres of music is that found on the streets of Paris as played on the musette. Larry Hallar has artfully crafted keyboard accordion solo arrangements from 25 favorite French musette compositions. These are wonderful solo pieces for any accordionist, and convey the lyrical beauty and romance characteristic of the genre…. More >>
I bought it. I lost it. I will buy a new copy if I can’t find it.
Rating: 5 / 5
I have thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Hallar’s arrangements. They are well done. Not at all watered-down, as one reviewer pointed out. Yet they are within reach for an intermediate player. I was so impressed with this book that I bought Vol. 2 as well. Vol. 2 is even better – maybe a notch up the difficulty scale with more modulations to unfamiliar key signatures and so on. But every piece has a nugget of worthwhile learning or two for you mind and your fingers as well as being fun to play and enjoyable to hear. Intermediate players – buy this book (and Vol. 2) and your listeners will thank you. Teachers – check this book out and thrill your students with some fun pieces to work on.
Rating: 5 / 5
my first objective was to find a book of tunes with a very classic French cafe sort of sound, and this book is great as such. the copyright dates on a lot of the tunes are from the 50’s or earlier, and some more recent… all the tunes have that classic sound, and there’s a good number of waltzes, though i’d be happy to find another book of more waltzes (volume 2? not sure if it exists…).
even if you can’t play accordion the melodies can be useful and the chordal accompaniment is not hard to determine and adapt for instance to guitar or piano, though a basic understanding of how chords are indicated on accordion music is needed (not hard to find on line).
i just started on accordion and my left and right hand coordination is not up to par for these pieces at all yet. the individual parts are not too hard if you already read music and have a bit of piano experience, but combining the parts on accordion is gonna take some serious work for me. i’ve practiced the melodies slowly and enjoyed them but i guess an experienced player could make a nice show of some of these pieces, they don’t seem watered down at all. i can enjoy just playing the melodies or working on just the left hand chords though, and this collection gives me plenty to strive for and also can be useful for other instruments wanting to play French cafe style melodies. nice price too, and if you’re looking for some classic old French cafe vibe, you found it.
Rating: 5 / 5