Playing the accordion for the first time can be a daunting challenge but with the proper help and dedication to succeed it is very doable. The first thing you should consider is what type of music you would like to play. This instrument can be played in many music genres such as Irish, Italian, French, Cajun and jazz.

I play a lot of Irish traditional music myself and also have a keen interest in French musette and jazz and discovered the best way to find my favourite music was to buy a few CDs.

If you are interested in French musette or want to know what this kind of music sounds like there are a few CDs available online such as Café de Paris and Bal Musette 1927-42. My favourite Irish accordion albums have to come from the master himself, Joe Burke, from county Galway, Ireland with Galway’s Own and Morning Mist amongst my favourite recordings.

Once you have decided on the kind of music you like it would be worthwhile to book beginner accordion lessons with a local tutor if possible.

The alternative would be to purchase an instructional book accompanied with a DVD and there are a few great tutor books available on sites such as amazon.com. It is very important that you get the instructional DVD with such books as they will demonstrate clearly on how to get started.

But if I was to choose between the two I would definitely go for lessons as your accordion teacher can give you valuable feedback on your good and bad points. However, I would like to stress that accordion lessons alone will not help you become a great musician. You will need hours upon hours of practise and the willingness to succeed.

Becoming a good accordion player is not impossible but it takes time as well as practise and lessons do help to speed up the learning process. When practising try to focus on a particular piece of music and keep playing this piece until you know it off by heart.

Don’t stumble through the parts you find difficult to play. Instead try to play them slowly. If you do this for all your accordion practise sessions you are guaranteed to master any kind of music. When I started to focus during my sessions I notice an improvement in my playing and it was definitely beneficial to my whole learning experience.

I think in my opinion why most people give up learning music in general or not become outstanding musicians is because they don’t enjoy the music that they are learning and also lack a bit of persistence.

The same can be said for anything that you want to achieve in life, whether it is obtaining good grades in college, learning music or getting better at a particular sport, you will have to work hard for it and in most cases really hard. It all takes time and the same principle applies when learning accordion music.