Chord combining: How to play Cmaj7, Cmaj9, Cm7 and other chords on accordion

The simplicity of the accordion bass side is great for learning but can be a problem when trying to play your favorite song.

Since accordion sheet music is pretty hard to find for free online and most of my favorite music can be thought of as popular music, I learn most songs from guitar tabs I have found online. A problem playing guitar music on accordion is that a lot of composers like to sprinkle around thoose more advanced chords here and there to spice up their tracks. Since accordion only can play Major, minor and 7th chords some songs can be impossible to play.

It took me some time to find out about this but there is a solution.

Lets say we want to play a CMaj7 chord. A CMaj7 consists of C, E, G and B played together. There is no CMaj7 on the accordion but combining different chords we can find a combination that consists of exactly theese four tones.

Lets try.

A C chord consists of C, E and G. We need to find a chord that adds B to this. Luckily Em consists of E, G and B.

Lets add theese together.

C + Em = (C+ E + G) + (E +G + B) = C + E + G + B = CMaj7

Pressing the C chord button and the Em button att the same time vill give a Cmaj7.

Want to play a DMaj7? This time the accordion bass system works to our advantage. Only jump up two rows on the bass side with both fingers and we have a DMaj7.

Figuring out theese combinations by yourself is pretty complicated. Here is a great page that lists pretty much any combination you will need.