Playing Chords on the Bandoneon with Pivoting

A useful movement strategy to simplify chords’ sequence

Welcome to this new article dedicated to the Bandoneon technique.

In this article, I’ll talk about pivoting: it’s not really a technique, but a useful strategy to move on the keyboard when you have a sequence of chords where one or more notes are maintained.

Unlike other videos and articles, this is for those who already have some familiarity with the Bandoneon and have started playing, feeling comfortable with posture and bellows control. If these concepts are unclear, I recommend reading the related article.

When playing the bandoneon, you don’t see the keys (but your hands do)

One of the main features of the bandoneon is that you don’t see the keyboard while playing. Or better to say, you don’t see it with your eyes, but with your hand you memorize angles and distances, turning your hand into your eye on the keyboard. Hence, it is necessary to develop smart strategies in order to simplify the movement and the memory of the keyboard without visual assistance.

Pivoting is a specific help for a specific context, such as a sequence of chords where one or more notes are maintained between one chord and the next one. Pivoting can be used also in the case of or in the case of overlapping melodic lines, as in counterpoint.

Pivoting allows you to use one or more common notes as a pivot, that’s to say a fixed point to move around or start from and can be divided into 2 specific cases:

• Rotation: the maintained note becomes the center of rotation around which other fingers pivot to reach the changing notes of the next chord.
  
• Translation: the maintained note is the starting point, and the hand moves linearly to reach the other notes.

Examples

Now, let’s look at an example for each specific case.

Let’s start with a rotation example: right hand opening, transitioning from a G major chord in 2nd inversion to a C major chord in first inversion. The common note is the G and you can use it as a pivot for rotation.

Next, let’s see a translation example: left hand closing, transitioning from A major chord to E minor chord in first inversion. The common note is the E and you can use it as a starting point to reach the other notes with a translation movement.

At last, let’s see an example of pivoting between opening and closing. In this case the pivoting is not on the note but on the key, because the C key opening is going to be the B note closing.

Conclusion

In conclusion: pivoting is a useful strategy to simplify the movements of your hand on the keyboard. There are many other movement and memorization strategies that I will discuss in the upcoming videos and articles in this blog. If you have curiosity, questions, or want to share your experience, feel free to do so in the comments.

I trust this article will help you in your musical journey: thank you for reading and share it if you enjoy it.

A estudiar y a tocar!