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Seeking Simple Arrangements For Duet


citycat

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Not a duet player, yet.

But I am mighty intrigued by cords.

My music knowledge is pretty meagre so to improve

this I've been reading this music theory book.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Theory-Edition/dp/1592574378

I also got this cord wheel for the same reason.

http://www.amazon.com/Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Tool-Musicians/dp/0634021427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421848693&sr=1-1&keywords=cord+wheel

 

The cost of both purchased together was about $20 from Amazon.

I suspect that if you go duet you really need to be able to make your own

arrangements.( Not that I have a clue.)

Edited by maki
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First of all, warmest welcome to another Hayden player! And now to the point...

 

Chords on a Hayden duet and corresponding music theory is much easier than on non-isomorphic instruments. Virtually everything you should know to play chords on a Hayden is shown here: http://www.shiverware.com/musix/wicki/chords.html

Those are chord diagrams on this keyboard. Since it is isomorphic, all chord types in every key have a single "shape". You must only know the root note and type of chord you want to play and that's it. You can READ the chord structure from the keyboard itself, so there is no point in chord wheels or similiar detailed chord charts…

And when you'll learn chord types in your finger memory, it becomes natural to make your own accompaniments and countermelodies, as you'll be able to read harmony structure of a tune straight from melody line. Regardless of key, since the concept of a key on a Hayden is somewhat artificial and obsolete...

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Not a duet player, yet.

But I am mighty intrigued by cords.

My music knowledge is pretty meagre so to improve

this I've been reading this music theory book.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Theory-Edition/dp/1592574378

I also got this cord wheel for the same reason.

http://www.amazon.com/Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Tool-Musicians/dp/0634021427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421848693&sr=1-1&keywords=cord+wheel

 

The cost of both purchased together was about $20 from Amazon.

I suspect that if you go duet you really need to be able to make your own

arrangements.( Not that I have a clue.)

 

Thanks for the references! Very much appreciated!

 

First of all, warmest welcome to another Hayden player! And now to the point...

 

Chords on a Hayden duet and corresponding music theory is much easier than on non-isomorphic instruments. Virtually everything you should know to play chords on a Hayden is shown here: http://www.shiverware.com/musix/wicki/chords.html

Those are chord diagrams on this keyboard. Since it is isomorphic, all chord types in every key have a single "shape". You must only know the root note and type of chord you want to play and that's it. You can READ the chord structure from the keyboard itself, so there is no point in chord wheels or similiar detailed chord charts…

And when you'll learn chord types in your finger memory, it becomes natural to make your own accompaniments and countermelodies, as you'll be able to read harmony structure of a tune straight from melody line. Regardless of key, since the concept of a key on a Hayden is somewhat artificial and obsolete...

 

Ah, I think I'm not quite being clear, then ... I can certainly make chords. What I'm looking for is the best way to use them. What are the correct rhythms for the various dance or country tunes? How should they be broken down? What gets accented? These are the types of things I'm looking for in an arrangement. I have lots of books with chords marked for all the melodies, and I can play them, for sure! I just don't know all the other stuff, and so It's really helpful for me to have a tune with both hands fully written out.

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If you are looking for ways to create good dance music arrangements for the left hand out of those chord markings, rather than looking for duet sheet music with countermelodies, then you might be interested in the book "Interview with a Vamper" by Peter Barnes.

 

www.canispublishing.com

 

This was written specifically for the piano player in a contra dance band, where it is more of a rhythm instrument with melodic capability rather than really a melody instrument. So nothing to do with concertina really, but excellent instruction in building interesting harmonies when you are given only a melody line and a list of chords, if that. I learned some of these basic techniques years ago, partly from this book, and some of the ideas were therefore ingrained in how I think about accompaniment styles now. All of this long before I really even became aware of the concertina. I'm thinking I might want to dig this book out again though, and see if I can learn to apply the techniques to the Anglo.

 

I heard Peter play for a number of contra dances and English Country dances, and lead several workshops a couple decades ago now, and was delighted each time. He is a very skilled musician, very entertaining too, in a quiet way. The bad pun in the book title might be a clue. I haven't been to a dance where he played in quite a while because I've moved away from the northeast long ago, but I hope he is still playing. If you follow the link you will also see several books of dance tunes he has compiled as well.

Well worth looking for recordings of the bands he has played in too!

 

Edit: Thinking about it again, Peter's book "A Little Couple-Dancemusik" is interesting too. It not only has a quite an impressive variety of tunes-with chords, but the intro has a condensed version of accompaniment styles specifically appropriate for most of the different varieties of couple dances, including waltzes of course, but also polka, mazurka, and tango, etc.

Edited by Tradewinds Ted
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Here are links to 4 books I have scanned, I know that the titles refer to English concertina but I can't think of anything arranged for English that a duet couldn't tackle, hopefully you may find something useful.

 

Pete.

 

English Concertina Olio

Concertina Melodist 1

Concertina Melodist 2

Brandon's

 

EDIT:

 

The first three as PDFs!

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kkuu8bsp220i2w/EC%20Melodist%20Book%201.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/unt1j0ksyn6sg2u/EC%20Melodist%20Book%202.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ymxcnshgwmnsnv4/English%20Concertina%20Olio.pdf?dl=0

Edited by tallship
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Thanks! I admit, these are unfamiliarly notated ... and outside of the range of my instrument, but very interesting regardless. Was it standard practice to write both hands on the same staff lines? I've never seen it before. (My knowledge in this matter is extremely limited!)

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They're arrangements for English concertina. They don't have the same kind of left hand/right hand division of labour as a duet, but they do have nice relationship between the treble staff notation and fingering. So yes, it's pretty common for English concertina music.

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Hi Citycat -




First a disclaimer - I am completely new to all of this! I received my Elise just over a month ago, and have little to no previous music experience. So view all of my ideas as suspect, and be prepared to add salt.



I have recently stumbled across some sheetmusic arrangements on Jody Kruskal's site that have much more concertina specific notation and instruction that what I have seen on the more generalized music I dig up. Granted, it has been arranged for Anglo (G/D), but I would think that Jody's harmonic-style would translate well to the Duet - just ignore the fingering and bellows-direction information! Here is one of the sheets I found by googling Jody's site - he may well have a collection that he makes available:


http://jodykruskal.com/tune_of_the_month/february_09_assets/glise_umpa_g_d.pdf



With the Elise I have found that a lot/most tunes require transposing or octave shifting - I quickly found the value of figuring out the ABC notation and associated databases of tunes on the net. Don Taylor pointed me to a great (and simple) piece of software for working with ABC that makes transposing to another key a breeze:


http://www.nilsliberg.se/ksp/easyabc/



Glad you posted the request - I'm picking up some great info from the thread! Folks on this forum are incredibly generous with their time and knowledge -



  • Todd
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Thanks! ... What is ABC notation? (I have a LOT of musical training ... I've played cello for 30+ years, as well as a lot of early music instruments, but all of my music has been written on various staffs, and this whole chord marking business is new to me, as are all these notations.)

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Being on the absolutely opposite end of the musical training spectrum (falling off the other end!) when I stumbled across ABC Notation I just assumed it was an alternative to the standard staved notation. At the time I couldn't decide whether it was something that was worth learning, or if I should just continue on with trying to decipher the dots.


I'll credit Don Taylor with drawing a comparison that made it all make sense to me - it's a Mark-Up language for music like HTML is for page layout! Apparently it was originally conceived as a plaintext method for describing music that could be stored in simple databases and be emailed back and forth between musicians by simply pasting it into the body of the email.


As I understand it, no one actually "plays" from ABC, but rather it can be input into various applications - including online tools - that convert it into traditional sheet music or even midi files for audio playback with your computer.


If you haven't already, go over to thesession.org and check out their tune section: https://thesession.org/tunes

All of their tunes are in ABC and can be converted to sheet and midi right on the site.


abcnotation.com is the other big database of music. They also have a "Learn ABC" section. The ABC Primer written by John Chambers is really quite a comprehensive starting point.

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