Your keys are the same width as my Crucianelli. That's two steps down from full size, I believe.

You will be somewhat limited by the fact that you don't have many basses, and from what you've said, it sounds like you've only got about 18 keys.

But I'm thinking that you could probably play a lot of Irish pieces with only a couple of octaves. You might need to do some transposing on some pieces if they don't fit into your range in the key in which they're normally played.

The other problem is the width of your fingers. If you can fit your fingers onto 5/8th inch width keys and maneuver them around without any problems, you should be ok in that regard. 5/8th inch is a bit narrow for many mens' hands.

The other limitation is the small number of basses, but it seems to me that basses aren't used as much with Irish accordion music as with other forms of accordion music (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that).

So, I guess if you can make it do what you want it to do, you've got yourself an accordion.

As far as lessons are concerned, I don't know what to tell you about that. I'm mostly self taught myself (and I'm still very much a beginner). I've gotten some good advice and information from the Mudcatter I told you about in the other thread, but he's too busy these days to spend any time in the Mudcat.

The best thing he did for me was to send me a tape of himself playing. He plays a bit more in the Scottish style than in the Irish style though, so you would probably do well to get as many recordings of good accordionists who play in the Irish style as you can, and listen to them constantly.

Good luck. Keep us posted on how it goes for you, ok?

Carol