First progress towards learning the piece "Ein Prosit"

This was my skill of playing the third day. Trying Ein Prosit, which is a popular short song that everyone in Austria would know.




But as I had mentioned the Gleichton was off, so I needed to get that fixed.

First time playing

This is my Steirische, directly after unpacking:

It's pretty amazing! On the right side you can see the helicon bass, which is the deep low sounding bass that makes this accordion extremely unique in sound.


I am taking lessons with Ziachfuchs in Austria, who has an online class, and there is also the button box academy in Austria I'm looking at to make progress.

This was the very first hour of playing (Gleichton is on the wrong button at this point though):

Trying to become familiar with the buttons and the style of playing. This should be fun! :)

Learning the Steirische Ziehharmonika (Accordion)

Long story short, I decided to learn the Steirische, which is a popular traditional accordion played throughout Austria. My dad knows how to play it, and we have one back home where I grew up.

Since I'm now living in the US it wasn't easy to actually find one. I had ordered a regular accordion (a Hohner button box), and it turns out that there are some pretty significant differences compared to the Steirische.

Little did I know when I started this endeavor about 4-5 weeks ago.... Most notable:

1. Gleichton - the Austrian diatonic button box does have a Gleichton, which means there is one button that plays the same tone on push and on pull. The Hohner I had gotten off of Amazon didn't have that.
2. Helikon Bass - the styrian diatonic button box I want to learn has an amazing helicon bass that is extremely unique and gives the Alpine music it's special sound

So returned the Hohner accordion from Amazon. But here it comes, I found a great dealer over in Michigan who had a Steirische made in USA - so really a unique thing! I goit from Castiglione - highly recommend for you accordion needs http://www.castiglioneaccordions.com/  They did some changes that I wanted to be made, and the instrument arrived 5 business days later, safe and sound!

Looks really nice I thought, and went ahead to start and practice.
This is when I decided I shot blog about the progress and commitment on learning this, and I recorded this short video (sorry, just in Austria German, but I don't really say much):

ps.: Since I am a newbie I didn't recognize that the Gleichton was off right away, but I'm getting this fixed. More about this later :)