Subject: RE: Tech: Accordion Harness
From:
The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 03:05 AM
Gargoyle is absolutely right about perfect posture, both when sitting and standing. Do NOT lean forward, when sitting or standing. Do NOT hunch your shoulders or back. If you start off with a bad posture, it is much harder to correct it later, when the medical damage starts to be noticed.
When standing, the weight pulls you forward, off balance, and you have to get the weight back thru your centre, usually by leaning slightly back. Well Endowed Ladies will understand this... ;-) Violin players have to do much the same, but the weight is nowhere as near as much.
Open Mike's idea is a good one - but the traditional reason that cross straps have not been used, is that the ease and speed of getting the instrument on and off would be compromised by the cross straps - you would need at least one of them to be unfastenable, in order to get a large heavy instrument on without even more difficulty or potential back strain. The one over the right shoulder should be fixed perhaps, and the one over the left shoulder be permanently attached at the top - for safety sake and ease of carrying the instrument, with a fast connect gadget - even perhaps velcro, at the bottom right hand side. I would not recommend both straps having velcro - if it lets go, you will drop the box on the floor, and most likely cause damage. I have thought about cross-straps myself in the past - just got used to the standard method. And the traditional straps do something else important for easy playing, and preventing injury due to a bad posture.
With the current two straight straps, you MUST have the left one shorter than the right. Good sets are made this way, you will notice. This seats the accordion toward your left side, making the keyboard roughly center itself on your chest. This protects your right arm & shoulder by not placing them in a strained back position but in a natural rest posotion, and actually makes it possible to see the keyboard and register switches on a large instrument. You take most of the weight of the Bass side on your left shoulder and arm.
You have to build up the muscles in your left shoulder and arm, not only to just hold the isntrument, but to handle the Bellows Shake Techniques.
BTW, accordion floor stands are also bulky and heavy to transport, and that's just another bit of heavy junk to lug around, especially if you are using amps!
Gargoyle, I'd certainly like to hear you play on the Paltalk session sometime.
Robin
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sj
