Description
Online Course for Absolute Beginner DG Melodeon from expert tutor Mel Biggs
- Learn To Play By Ear,
- Learn The Musical Structure,
- Learn to Deconstruct, and
- Learn To Be Mindful!
PLUS…
– Personalised feedback from Mel on your progress at the end of the course when you send a video of you playing your melodeon
– ‘Helping Hand’ tutorials throughout the course for more detailed guidance on certain melodeon related topics
– Private Facebook group for course members for help and support
For full info on the course, check out this page which contains a full breakdown. Also, check out the Pick Up & Play YouTube Channel!
TRY BEFORE YOU BUY! Sign up for a 7 day FREE trial of Pick Up & Play absolute beginner DG melodeon online course, after which you’ll be charged £200 for 1 year’s access to the course.
NB No refunds will be given when you are charged after the free trial ends, so if you don’t wish to subscribe to the full course, please cancel your enrolment before the free trial ends. You can do this from within your user account which you set up at checkout when you sign up.
NB Tick the box at checkout to receive emails from me as important information will be sent out to you (check your spam folders!)
Andy Cutting (verified owner) –
This course is very good. Mel is a fine teacher, Personable, Knowledgeable and Enthusiastic. The pace of the lessons are great. It is clear that a lot of time and thought has gone into putting this course together. Each of the sections are clear and concise and allow you to work at your own pace. The whole course is packed full of useful tips and techniques to help you become a better player. Not only in the playing of the instrument but on your physical wellbeing. It is also well filmed and you can see everything you need to clearly. I thoroughly recommend this course. Well done Mel and the team. Andy Cutting
helen.renton (verified owner) –
The Pick Up and Play Course is an ideal introduction to the melodeon. Mel has a warm, friendly and encouraging teaching style and delivers the course in bite size chunks which can be followed at your own pace. Filmed with care, the demonstrations are easy to follow and play along with. Mel presents the melodeon as a fun instrument which she hopes her students will love as much as she does. She introduces each section by playing a new or traditional tune, showing what can be achieved by applying her watchwords Patience, Perseverance and Practice. Once you reach the end of the course you are invited to send Mel a short video of your playing so that she can provide feedback, which she does in a very thorough and helpful manner.
duckeringandy –
I started this course soon after buying my melodeon. I found the way the course is presented was really enjoyable – Mel presents in a very methodical and enthusiastic way. Going through learning a tune step by step really worked well for me and I intend to use this method for learning tunes in future. I progressed through the course and the teaching method helped me maintain motivation and interest throughout. I would definitely recommend the course to others.
Amanda Seedhouse (verified owner) –
I did the pick up and play course to help me get started with playing a melodeon borrowed from my Morris team. I found it very useful and enjoyable. It has enabled me to get to grips with the basics of the melodeon and to move forward with learning to play some of the dance tunes. I know some people on the team have found learning to play the base notes difficult and only play with the right hand but doing the pick up and play course has enabled me to play both. I have carried Mel’s methods through and can now play several of our dance tunes. Thanks Mel.
Emma Bradford –
I bought my first Hohner melodeon and simultaneously found Mel Biggs online course. Having never picked up a melodeon before, I had some hesitations! I can’t thank Mel enough, for providing such a clear, instructional, beginners course. The pace of the course is spot on. Mel explains everything so well and really does make things so much easier to understand, than I could ever have imagined possible! I’ve gone from literally not knowing a note, to playing an entire tune in a relatively short amount of time. This has enabled me to have the confidence to move forwards into the world of melodeons! I love that the course is broken down into achievable sections, which makes it a whole lot more fun and less daunting! Mel’s great! I can’t wait to learn more from her.
Roger Watson –
This is a course which in my opinion shows great respect in three important ways: It shows respect for the melodeon, by treating it from the outset as a complete instrument with two ends and two rows of treble buttons. By starting with the left hand, it emphasises the importance of using the whole range of the instrument’s properties and states that this is not just another way of belting out tunes. It shows respect for the learner, by allowing him or her to choose the pace of progress and the nature of feedback from the teacher. The progression of repertoire matches the student’s growing confidence and everything is kept clear and simple without becoming patronising at any point. It shows respect for the music by the choice of tunes and it demonstrates the nature of traditional music, by introducing tunes through their basic structures and encouraging the student to master these before adding variations and embellishments. This allows each player to develop an individual take on any given tune, in line with generational, regional and personal variations which are so essential to any living tradition. If I were starting now, this is where I would start from.
Frank Wigglesworth (verified owner) –
Great introduction to melodeon playing
Super teacher and patient to
sophie lichens (verified owner) –
This course was so well-designed. It was affirming and easy to follow and I had a lot of fun working through it. I tend to be impatient and want to just be able to Do The Thing, but the pace of the course kept me from getting too ahead of myself. Mel’s teaching style worked really well for my messy little brain, and the course is interspersed with a lot of fantastic tips. Mel answered questions before I could even think of them! Really helpful, and I’m feeling empowered to become quite capable.
Helen Adamson (verified owner) –
I completed the Pick up and Play even though I had already made a start on playing and was using my left hand from day 1. I learned a lot from it anyway.
The exercises are incredibly useful and well thought through and I think are useful for anyone at any time.
Mel is an excellent teacher. She is smiling and encouraging even when on recorded videos, and she wears aesthetically pleasing nail varnish, which helps me in a way I cannot explain 🙂 She thinks about how people learn and explains things in different ways to accommodate different learning styles.
The layout of the course is very helpful because while it shows you how far on you are, you can also easily move backwards and forwards through it to repeat exercises.
I am potentially a very grumpy, difficult, irritating pupil, though I try to behave. I also go into learning panic when someone is telling me what to do live in a paid lesson, so being able to access recordings and teachings and working through them in my own time really suits me as I can work in my own time, at my own pace and I don’t get brain freeze panic.
P.S. I am now a Mel’s Angel on Patreon – this gives me access to some amazing videos and recordings and potentially live zoom workshops – and I very much recommend this too.
Sue Whitmore –
I am tempted to leave a very lazy review and say that I agree with all of the previous reviews! Indeed I can only repeat the praise heaped on Mel and her course. I was an absolute beginner except for a weekend’s course. I found doing the online course at my own pace much easier than being in a class where there was such a range of capablities. I also found it much easier to think and learn without the sound of everyone else playing their melodeons at the same time! I had worried that I could have unsurmountable problems which would prevent me from continuing the course, but the course is so meticulously designed that this did not arise. Mel covered everything that I needed to know in a very clear way. The way that you can go back to sections, repeat them as much as you need, and even slow down the videos, made the course entirely accessible and helpful. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone who want to learn to play the melodeon.
Kay Jones (verified owner) –
After playing melodeon for 30 Years I got to meet Mel and have a face-to-face lesson. Going back to basics has been an eye opener. I have learnt so much on the Beginners Pick up and Play course. It is useful to brush up on all aspects of beginners work. It also helped me to understand Mel’s teaching style from the outset.
Jane Culpan –
I have been playing for about 8 years having bought a melodeon and moved to Scotland. Mostly self taught learning tunes from sessions and mixed instrument classes. This Pick up and play course was exactly what I was looking for. Self paced, to fit in a busy lifestyle together with the focus on the left hand. The very aspect that has being eluding me.
How have you noticed your playing improve since taking the course?
The bass chords are no longer a mystery, and can play a few simple tunes with both hands together. This feels like great progress. Really delighted.
Did you find the flow of the course easy to follow?
The course is really easy to follow. It makes sense and has some fabulous lessions with the air button that I suspect I will be coming back to for a few years yet.
Did I explain things well and comprehensively?
I enjoyed the presentation of the course from the format, conversational tone, and level of detail.
I recommend this course without hesitation.