Bulgarian Accordion Tutorial

Bulgarian Accordion Tutorial - Summary of Basic Technique

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee

The techniques described in the previous lessons constitute the basics of Bulgarian accordion. Well executed, they are sufficient to play, for example, about 95% of Boris Karlov's recorded repetoire (I'll clarify that statement in a bit). Good execution in a matter of practice - lots of practice. Lots. To facilitate such practice, I present below a summary of the "basic" technique.

Basic Bulgarian Accordion Technique

Maintain good posture, arm and hand position.
Use the clarinet switch (single, middle-range reed) for practice purposes (as well as for most of Boris Karlov's repetoire).
Depress keys with fingers 2-5 with a gentle closing motion of the hand, as if lightly squeezing a tennis ball.
Depress keys with the thumb using by drawing it directly aways from the keyboard, progressively angling it so that the wrist slightly raises. Prepare this by inserting the thumb into the keyboard before the stroke.
Pralls are fingered 232, counted 1-2 and use the half-step auxillary. Count 1: depress the base key with finger 2. Count 2: lightly brush 3 on the auxillary, briefly raising finger 2, which then immediately redepressed the base note.
During prall-triplets, insert the thumb during the 3-2 brush-change in preparation for key depression. During the thumb stoke, roll the hand forward to be in position for the next prall.
Choose smooth or sharp pralls as per your taste. Sharp pralls are executed by pushing the 3-2 brush-change earlier in the ornament.
Position your hand before a prall start, arcing fingers and angling the hand as fits keyboard geometry. Further adjustments may be made in different keyboard octaves.
Use fingers 1, 2 and 3 most of the time, and 4 and 5 only occasionally.
Maintain Bulgarian legato at all times. Switch fingers on repeated notes (except between double drop notes).
Relax the hand to achieve larger 1-2 and 1-3 spans.
Use double-note onset for all holds.
Alter drop note timing to bring out melody.
Trills provide a smoother alternative to prall-triplets, but take more practice to master.

Performing Boris Karlov's Repetoire

Boris Karlov's recorded repetoire has some characteristics that make it playable with only the basic technique above. Understanding what they are will help you understand when a tune you want to play requires additional techniques. Those characteristics are:

Uses keys with a few sharps. Flat keys (popular with clarinet players) are avoided.
Augmented seconds used are most often C-D# and F-G#. Double-black note augmented seconds common elsewhere (especially Bb-C# and Eb-F#) are usually avoided due to fingering issues.
Ornaments are sparse compared to other Bulgarian styles. In particular, consecutive pralls or trills are avoided since that requires fingerings other that 2-3.
Frequent use of drop-note ornamentation compared to other Bulgarian styles (especially bitov tunes). Drop notes are a natural fit with prall-triplets fingered 232-1.
The thumb is rarely placed on a black key. The only exception is that F# is often dropped to from B, which is slightly easier than others due to keyboard geometry.

NOTE: I'm not saying that the real live Boris Karlov only used the basic techniques above. I have no firm information how he played, only suppositions based on my studies of technical mechanics and of his recordings. I've heard some general sayings and speculations about his technique from various 3rd or 4th hand sources, which I considering interesting but undefinitive.

Furthermore, I'm not saying that your performance of Boris Karlov tunes can't be improved by incorporating some of the techniques that come. In fact, there are some spots where I think finger glides, 121 pralls and mordents (all covered later) are well advised. However, you don't need to use these techniques to play Boris Karlov tunes perfectly well.

What I am saying is that, in line with the Bruce Lee quote at the top of the page, your playing will be better if learn a few techniques well rather than many techniques poorly. You should feel no necessity to proceed to more advanced techniques before you have a good grasp on the basics.