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La Valse d'Amelie Accordion Tabs


I don't know if I told you yet, but I have picked up the accordion. Its a terrible thing to do right before starting grad school.

I ended up buying a button accordion, a GCF Hohner Panther because of the Local Tex-Mex flavor living Southern California. Also, this accordion is light, and I hear its easier to learn. This will be the first instrument I ever learn, despite owning a guitar most of my life.

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The reason I wanted to pick up the accordion in the first place is because of the Amelie soundtrack. The Yann Tierson Album is the only full album I've ever bought on iTunes. Unfortunately, Yann Tierson is strictly in the Chromatic tradition, and my button accordion is dichromatic. I couldn't find Tabs for the life of me. I was about to sell my accordion and give up.

Alex saved the day. His brain determined that if my accordion makes the same sounds as a piano accordion, then generating tablature was just a programming challenge.

The following actions led to this set of tabs.

1. He found a midi or music xml file that plays the song you want to play.
2. He wrote a python script that maps the song onto accordion keys
3. Since there are multiple ways to play the same note on an accordion, Alex wrote an additional script that choses the best combination based on the previous finger position. He also wrote a chosing function for push vs pull (because on my accordion, push and pull make different sounds). I told him I prefer to pull so he programmed a weighting function based on that preference.

We went through multiple iterations before we found a set of tabs that sounded right, had the right notation, and had an easy fingering.

He is a genius.

I'm not perfect at playing them yet, but I've gone through them a few times and found that it sounded right.

These are very simplified tabs. They don't use the bass or chord keys so they don't have the full sound that the yann tierson song has, but this is suitable for a beginner.

So without Further Ado, here are the tabs

The * means to play the note fast. A period means to play only that note and a ~ means to hold the note down longer. Parenthesis ( ) means push while holding the note, and no parenthesis means to pull. 

La Valse d'Amelie

1: C7~~.*G7.C6~.*C5
 2: C7~.*F6.*C7.*G7.*C6.*G7.C6~.*C5
 3: G7~~.*C6.G4~~
 4: G7~.*C7.*G7.*C6.*G7.*C6.G4~~
 5: (G10)~~.*(C9).(G9)~.*(F7)
 6: (G10)~.*(C10).*(G10).*(C9).*(G9).*(C9).(G9)~.*(F7)
 7: (C9)~~.*(G9).(C7)~~
 8: (C9)~.*(G10).*(C9).*(G9).*(C9).*(G9).(C7)~~
 9: C7.*C7.*G7.C6.C5
10: C7.*C7.*G7.C6.C5
11: (C6).*(C6).*(G6).(G5)~~
12: (C6).*(C6).*(G6).(G5)~~
13: C7.*G8.*G7.C6.C5
14: C7.*G8.*G7.C6.C5
15: (C6).*(C6).*(G6).(G5)~~
16: (C6).*(C6).*(G6).(G5)~~
17: C7~.*G8.*C8.*G8.*C8.*G8.G6.*C6.*G7
18: (G7)~.*(C7).*(F6).*(C7).*(F6).*(C7).(F4)~.*(C5)
19: C5~.*C6.*G7.*C6.*G7.*C6.G4.*C4.*F3
20: (F4)~.*(G6).*(C6).*(G6).*(C6).*(G6).(C4)~~
21: C7~.*G7.C6.C5
22: C7~.*F6.*C7.*G7.*C6.*G7.C6.C5
23: G7~.*C6.G4~~
24: G7.*C7.*G7.*C6.*G7.*C6.G4~~
25: C7.*C7.*G7.C6.C5
26: C7.*C7.*G7.C6.C5
27: (C6).*(C6).*(G6).(G5)~~
28: (C6).*(C6).*(G6).(G5)~~
29: (G10).*(C10).*(C9).(G9).(F7)
30: (G10).*(C10).*(C9).(G9).(F7)
31: (C9).*(C9).*(G9).(G8)~~
32: (C9).*(C9).*(G9).(G8)~~
33: C7.*G6.*G7.C6.*G4.*G6
34: C7.*C5.*F6.*C7.*G7.*C6.*G7.C6.*G4.*C5

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