These free online accordion lessons are ideal for anyone who has completed our basic beginner course and wants to learn more, or for any beginner who can play the D scale and knows most of the right hand (treble) notes on the button accordion. This instrument can appear baffling to the complete beginner, with both the bellows and finger positions to master. However, top accordion player Conor Connolly builds on the elements that any beginner needs to know, with patient demonstrations of each of the fundamental techniques and lots of encouragement. Conor’s accordion uses the B/C system, which is the most common tuning. This course will build on your basic knowledge of the instrument and help you progress to playing a wide variety of notes and tunes.

The lessons begin with learning to play the first part of the jig, ‘The Rollicking Skipper’, a tune which is attributed to Roscommon woman Ann ‘Ma’ McNulty, who played the melodeon, and became a well-known performer in New York in the 1930s-1950s. Conor covers both parts of the tune over the course of two lessons, with notes provided in a downloadable PDF in the resource section of the course. The next topic deals with playing in the higher octave, which you will need to have learned before moving on to the slip jig, ‘Cucanandy’. This is typical of many Irish tunes that have the first part played on the lower octave and the second part on the higher octave. Conor devotes a lesson to teaching you the C Scale, which is played on the inside row of buttons, before proceeding to the final tune in this course, the popular jig, ‘The Geese in the Bog’. As with ‘Cucanandy’, Conor divides ‘The Geese in the Bog’ into two parts which he teaches over two lessons. The course concludes with an introduction to ornamentation, the special techniques Irish musicians use to add colour to a tune and Conor demonstrates how to ‘cut’ a note.

For anyone who is quite new to the Irish button accordion and wants to learn from a highly experienced player, this free online accordion course provides the perfect training. Our tutor, Conor Connolly comes from south Galway, where many of the great accordion players of the past such as Joe Cooley and Joe Burke lived, and where Traditional Irish music thrives today. From a musical family, Conor has been playing and performing for years and in 2019 he won the prestigious TG4 Gradam Ceoil Young Musician of the Year prize. By completing this course, you can avail of many tips that will help you develop as an accordion player. You can also gain certification by passing the end-of-course assessment. You may wish to progress to the next course in this series, Traditional Irish Button Accordion, Intermediate, where you will learn a barn dance, a jig and a reel and most importantly, how to ornament your playing for an authentic Irish sound. Begin this course and gain the knowledge and skills you need to take your accordion-playing to the next level.