vivdunstan

Got a nice reply from one of the Maugein staff who I'd emailed (carefully written in French!) to say just how much the chromatic button accordion seems to be helping me recover some better neurological control of my right hand. Which has been poorer since I had effectively a stroke in 2004 when my cerebral vasculitis relapsed suddenly and dramatically, and I was a lot weaker for a very very long time down my right side. She says they have other clients who have had strokes, and whose doctors have insisted that they must keep practicing the chromatic button accordions. Which are a particularly intricate form of accordion to play. But a wonderful exercise for limb and hand control, plus mental gymnastics. Mine seems to be helping my hand control more generally, including helping me play my piano accordion much better and for vastly longer. Quite an incredible result - I only started learning the chromatic button accordion in mid June.

One really lovely thing about my accordion practice this afternoon is my right hand - and specifically my fingers - was cooperating really well. This is the hand that plays the melody on the piano keyboard side of my accordion. When I had a huge cerebral vasculitis relapse in 2004 (effectively a stroke) I was suddenly a lot weaker down my right side, and falling over a lot to that side. I regained a lot of hand/finger control by teaching myself an enormously difficult piano tune over the next 12 months. But many years on I'm still weaker down that side than I'd like. And especially during disease flares/relapses. A year or so ago I was very sad about it, fearing I was losing the ability to play completely. Well things are looking a bit better at the moment! I still have other neurological things to contend with accordion wise, like light headedness, falling asleep mid play (!) and losing my usually automatic bellows control. But honestly it's so much better than it might have been. So I expect I should be able to enjoy playing my accordions for some years to come. Which is just lovely.