Introduction
 
Welcome to my melodeon book. It's full to bursting with useful ideas, hints, tricks, tips, techniques and great tunes to improve your playing style, speed up the learning process and to give you a better understanding of the instrument. It's been a massive project, but it's been well worth it, I've learned such a lot by writing it. When I got my first instrument there wasn't a single D/G tutor book on the market, and even now, fifty years on, you'll be lucky to find a dozen, so acquire every book you can. If you are new to the instrument, use this book in conjunction with simpler tutors. The lessons start at rock bottom, but the degree of difficulty rises steeply. Above the music, in addition to the fingering instructions, there are icons with names you might find corny and mildly amusing. However, they are essential to describe the fingering patterns, and a useful handle to help you apply them to other tunes.
 
You might think this book is a bit too complicated to be called “Beginners”. Yes, that may be so, but if you want to become proficient, you must practise, and without guidance you can easily find yourself practising unsound techniques. It's no use waiting until you've formed bad habits before you think you are ready to tackle these lessons. Once you've learned a tune thoroughly, it can be very difficult to change the way you play it, after discovering a superior fingering pattern. Presented in this book is knowledge that has slowly trickled in during half a century of study. It's my hope and desire that it will inspire players, boost their progress, propel their playing to excellence, and spur them on to perform with far greater skill, dexterity and aplomb, than I have been able to achieve.
 
Instant Melodeon, Absolute Beginners and Tunes and Techniques are three melodeon tuition books designed to be used simultaneously, not in any particular sequence.
 
Contents
 
Foreword by Saul Rose
Introduction
The D/G Melodeon
The Treble and Bass Layout
Supporting and Playing the Melodeon
Musical Notes
Musical Time
The Musical Ladder
The Circle of Firths
The Circle of Fourths
Full Diamond
Hal Diamond
Quick Cross
Snappy Bellows
Changing Hand Position Along the Row
Changing Hand Position Using Row Crossing
The Bass Buttons
Chords
Creating the Harmony Line
The Chord Symbols
Playing the Accompaniment
Overcoming the Limitations and the Missing Minors
Traditional Music
TUNES
Country Gardens
Little Brown Jug
Polly Wolly Doodle
The Market Rasen Quickstep
Not for Joe
The Leeds Polka
Percy Brownʼs Polka
Albert Farmerʼs Bonfire Tune
The Morisco
Moston Rushcart
My Love My Love
One More Ribber
The Rogueʼs March
Captain Lanoeʼs Quick March
Whose Jig?
The Squirrel in the Tree
Burning Bridges
The Lollipop Man
The Rose Tree
Lord of the Dance
Mount Hills
Dark Girl
Up and Away
Fred Pidgeonʼs Polka
Iʼll Go Enlist for a Sailor
Jack Robinson
Owenʼs Jig
The Hills of Glenorchy
Paddy Carey
Tripping to the Well
The West Kerry Polka
Many a Wild Night
The Scartaglen Slide
Moyglass Fair
Joe Cooleyʼs Jig
The Blackthorn Stick
Up Leitrim
The Streets of Laredo
The Cumberland Waltz
Séamus McManusʼs Waltz
Red Haired Mary
Fairlop Park
Sir Philip McHugh
The Dusty Miller
The Rusty Gulley
The Old Lancashire Hornpipe
Rig-a-Jig
The Spirit of the Dance
The Farmersʼ Jamboree
Woodland Flowers
Postmanʼs Knock
The Little Burnt Potato
The Bodmin Riding March
Moonshine
Colored Aristocracy
The Yarmouth Hornpipe
Valentine
The Auvergne Mazurka
The Old Donegal Mazurka
Much Wenlock Stick Dance
Jennyʼs Bawbee
Marching Through Georgia
MacNamaraʼs Band
If There Werenʼt Any Women
The Stack of Oats
The Shannon Waves
Glise de Sherbrooke
Durham Rangers
The Hesleyside Reel
Monaʼs Delight
The Old Polka
The Portheinon Whim
Sheehanʼs Reel
Da Mirrie Boys oʼ Greenland
Three Jolly Sheepskins