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Does anyone know if accordion music typically includes chord symbols?

Yes.

By "chord symbol" you mean the chord name, e.g. "Am" or similar? That's what I'd expect. The player could be expected to improvise a bass line from those, usually mostly featuring the root, major 3rd and 5th which are conveniently at hand.

The wikipedia Stradella bass system article goes into the alternative, where the left hand stuff is written out on a bass clef staff. See "Notation".

The only LH chord buttons they have are the majors, minors, 7ths, and dims. So any other extensions have to be played on the RH keys. A few can be obtained by combining two buttons.

aqualung wrote:The only LH chord buttons they have are the majors, minors, 7ths, and dims. So any other extensions have to be played on the RH keys. A few can be obtained by combining two buttons.

Quite a few can be obtained with button combinations. There are a couple of rows of single-note buttons, in addition to the chords. Of course a player who has not had much need for them, won't be familiar with them.

Curmudgeon wrote:The op posts a valid question

Would have been more valid with enough content or context to provide some clue as to the point of the question. Bloke's challenge is a valid way to elicit clarification, however unlikely it was to succeed.

As the OP, I will clarify my reason for asking: I want to get "Up" on my German music repertoire, and I was wondering if accordion music would be an appropriate "fake book" for me.