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This video is intended for anyone learning the song "La Nopalera" on the diatonic
accordion.
Especially those of you who have purchased the "Tex-Mex Accordion" DVD or CD put out
by Homespun Tapes and also featuring Tim Alexander and Flaco Jimenez.
So, "La Nopalera" is in the key of G.
So, it's important that you know the scale of G.
And for those of you who are very new to music, that would be... the scale starts on G and
goes A, B, C, D, E, and F# and G.
And also, it's probably more important that you know how to play the scale in thirds.
And that's two buttons at a time. Two buttons
that are, for the most part, together so: G and B, and then A and C, C and E... all
the way up to G and B.
And I will show you how to do that right now.
So, I'll show you the scale first in thirds, and then I will show you how to play the first
part of "La Nopalera."
And then I'll do a separate video for the second part.
And... for the scale, I'll let you know when
I'm pushing in or out.
When I do the actual song, you can look at my bellows and you can see when
I'm pushing or when I'm pulling.
So, to start out, we have the two buttons here. This is your G row. You're outer row
is G. And I'm going to start here where my two fingers are.
When you push in it's going to be G and B.
And here we go.
Pulling out it's going to be A C.
And then, up here, still pulling out... B and D.
And then, over here, it's going to be C and E, sorry.
And then D and F. These are split. D and F#,
sorry.
There's D at my index finger and F# down here, at my ring finger. Pulling out still.
And then pushing in we're going to have E and G.
Pulling out we're going to have F# here and A.
And then we're going to go back to G and B,
but one octave higher, by pushing in these same two buttons.
So, quickly again.
[music scale playing]
And go backwards.
[music scale playing]
So practice that. And once you feel comfortable
with that, you can start learning the song.
Again, when I play this first part of the song, I'm not going to tell you "in" or "out."
I will do my best to to keep it obvious where my fingers are.
So, I'll try to hold back some of my other
free fingers, especially when I do the split.
And again, look at the bellows to see if I'm pushing or pulling.
But I will tell you that I will start by pushing
in on GB, just like the scale.
[music playing]
Okay, now I'll try to play it at more of a normal speed.
[music playing]
Okay, hopefully that was helpful.
If you have any questions, leave them in the
comment field below.
And, again, look for the second part of that in a separate video, and I'll show you the
upper octave of the G scale in thirds.