Harmony And Chords On The Anglo

[Jody Kruskal]

Someone just wrote to me “I'm just learning chords and harmonies after 2 years of melody-line playing, and your music is inspiring!”

 

I wrote back -

 

“That's brave of you. You may find that to play the richest chords requires you to play your melody notes in the other direction than you are used to. That's the problem with adding harmony to melodies you have previously learned. One gets very committed to the fingerings and bellows directions that took so long to learn. If you want to play more harmony with your melody, try learning a tune with the full deal from the ground up. Try a simple one, because it is a frustrating exercise in patience and persistence.”

 

Would any one else like to offer their advice on how to figure this musical puzzle out? 

 

Jody Kruskal

[JimLucas]

Someone just wrote to me “I'm just learning chords and harmonies after 2 years of melody-line playing, and your music is inspiring!”

...

Would any one else like to offer their advice on how to figure this musical puzzle out?

Your advice to include the harmony from the start is right on. Another approach would be to practice tunes with as many different fingering variations as possible, so that they all become "natural", and available when you need them to go with your chords. Many tunes can also benefit from more than one set of chords, not necessarily in the same bellows direction at the same point in the melody.

 

Rather than thinking of the rows as being in particular keys, or thinking of one row as a "home" row, my own philosophy of fingering on the anglo is, "The notes are where you find them."

[Animaterra]

try learning a tune with the full deal from the ground up.

 

Another approach would be to practice tunes with as many different fingering variations as possible, so that they all become "natural",

 

Yup- in general, no matter what I'm doing, I find that it's those darn alternate fingerings that cause me the most trouble. I've been trying to follow Jim's advice (even before you gave it, Jim- well, time is relative and all that... )

 

But Jody's advice is good- there are a bunch of things I want to try, including hymns, morris tunes, and some of Jody's own- so off I go to bash some harmonies!

[Jim Besser]

Another approach would be to practice tunes with as many different fingering variations as possible, so that they all become "natural", and available when you need them to go with your chords. Many tunes can also benefit from more than one set of chords, not necessarily in the same bellows direction at the same point in the melody.

 

Amen, to which I add: experiment. Try every possible combination. Don't forget you're not restricted to single notes on the right hand.

 

Learn how to play in octaves; try playing tunes that way, and then gradually shift into bass, chords, harmonies on the left hand.

 

Listen to good guitar players who effectively use bass runs, and figure out how that technique can work with your concertina tunes.

[Alan Day]

I have already some time ago posted my approach to this subject but it will not hurt to repeat it.

Firstly I wrote down on paper exactly the layout of the notes LH and RH Push and Pull.Some of the notes on a multi button instrument will be the same on the push or the pull.When learning a new tune with full chords

two problems will arise one lack of air and chord direction. As Jody suggests start at the beginning of the tune and gradually work through it.For some tunes this can be a long term project, so do not be impatient.

If both air and chord direction is causing a problem consider grace notes or ornamentation in the opposite direction,some of which with slight use of the air button whilst playing these notes will drag in enough air for the next section of the tune. Some strange things occur for example when I play "Love is the Strangest thing" I have to play the same note three times, two of these notes I play on the push and one on the pull.

I can only say that when you reach the end of these tune projects the thrill is unbelievable.Having learnt "A Nightingale sang in Berkely Square" arranged by Iris Bishop,it took nearly six months to pluck up courage to play it at session,only to be joined by a melodion playing different chords and a singer who only knew half the words.

Having listened to Jody many times now I think he has developed the American Style of Anglo playing.I mentioned this to Jody and either modesty,or you do not know what you are talking about, prevented a reply.

Probably the latter, but I think I am right.

A new discussion if you agree or disagree with this comment.

Al

[Brian Peters]

Someone just wrote to me “I'm just learning chords and harmonies after 2 years of melody-line playing, and your music is inspiring!”

 

I wrote back -

 

“That's brave of you. You may find that to play the richest chords requires you to play your melody notes in the other direction than you are used to.

 

Everything Jody says is true. However, if your correspondent is new to chord playing, the first hurdle that he/she may need to overcome is that they will have to get used to learning melodies using mostly the right-hand buttons. So many people start out with a C/G box, work out where middle C is (half-way down the LH C row) and work out tunes from sheet music, so that most of the melody falls on the LH fingers. They thus graduate towards a broadly "Irish" style of playing whether or not this was their original intention, and find it hard to fit chords in when the LH is already occupied with melody.

 

Unlike Jim Lucas I would begin by working from the "home rows", and only adopt the "notes are where you find them" theory when the basics have been completely mastered. It is hard enough putting chords into tunes for the first time, even when the tunes themselves are very familiar, and to add another layer of uncertainty by making the RH fingering more complicated is to risk losing all rhythm and musicality of the piece. So begin with a simple tune in the "home" key (e.g. C on a C/G box), and one without too many notes in it. Lots of quavers usually mean lots of bellows reversals, which are hard to deal with when you're new to chording. Try something like Winster Gallop, where the melody notes fall mostly on the same beats as a left hand vamp, and avoid Speed the Plough type tunes where there's lots of "waggling" of the bellows. Learn the basics of the "three chord trick" (1,4,5) and work out how to find these chords on the LH - C, F and G, in the key of C. When you've got that sussed, try things like occasionally subsitituting D minor for F or G - no change of RH fingering needed.

 

Go through the same process for tunes on the G row and - I would respectfully suggest - only then is it time to try refingering things on the RH. Using the top-row button that gives reversals for G and A is a good place to start. This will not only allow for different chords, but also give you the chance to sustain chords by ironing out some of the bellows reversals. And of course no-one need be tied to an oompah-style vamp all their lives.

 

I do agree with Jim that it's a good idea to become very flexible about chord choices, and alter RH fingering even within one tune (folk dance tunes have so many repeats that there's plenty of scope for this). I just think that it takes time to acquire the skill and confidence to do this, and my experience of teaching chord newbies suggests that it's best to keep things simple in the first instance.

Brian

[hjcjones]

I find it helpful to let the chords largely direct how I will play the tune, and to fit the RH melody around them, depending on which bellows direction gives the best chords. You need to think not just about the individual chords, but how you move through the sequence.

 

Similarly with the right hand, especially when working out reversals you need to think not just about the reversed note but how you move through the phrase onto and off that note.

 

This usually takes a certain amount of trial and error, and you may have to accept a compromise to achieve something playable. With experience you will develop a portfolio of alternative figurings for common phrases that you can drop in without having to think about it too hard.

 

I also use a similar approach on the melodeon - I decide which chords I want to play and then try to work the fingering of the melody around that.

 

This sounds a bit disjointed, and in reality don't sit there just playing chords and then adding on the melody. I agree with Jody's original comment that you have to approach the tune as a whole, melody and harmony together. I usually start by busking the tune

and then develop it from there, but focussing particularly on how the LH chords work and how I can then alter the RH fingering to fit, including playing RH chords.

 

 

Howard Jones

[JimLucas]

I usually start by busking the tune and then develop it from there,...

Eh? To me, "busking" means playing for tips, e.g., on the street with your hat out. My dictionary agrees. In at least one Scots song "busk" seems to mean "get dressed" or "get ready". ("Come bonny lassie, busk and go.") But it's not clear to me what you mean by the word. Can you describe it another way?

[Rhomylly]

The "busking" term in this context is confusing for me, too.

 

Although, so is the entire thread, since I have not yet made the big leap to chords (I know, I know, way past time)

[m3838]

Can you elaborate the concept of "best chrods"?

As far as I understand it, there is tonic, subdominant and dominant chords.

Or you're talking more about intervals and inversions here? I suspect that Anglo doesn't really give much choice inversions wise compared to say, EC.

Or Substitution is big issue for the Anglo?

In which case, is there a quick rule of which chords can be substituted with which? Something like 1st-4th-5th type. Or parallel minor, which is third going backwards, Par.Min for Cmaj is (CBA) - Amin. Par.Min for Amaj is (AGF) - Fmin.

I'm a bit confused with all the melodeon talk about "press this bass plus this chord and you get such and such, which sounds good enough". Haven't been able to pick the pattern here.

Thanks.

[hjcjones]

I usually start by busking the tune and then develop it from there,...

Eh? To me, "busking" means playing for tips, Can you describe it another way?

 

By "busking" in this context I simply meant playing the tune straight through in the simplest way.

 

Can you elaborate the concept of "best chrods"?

 

Don't confuse me with music theory, I'm an anglo player...

 

By "best" chords I mean the ones that sound best to my ear. This may mean alternatives to the 3 chord trick or it may be a different way of playing the same chord. For example, on my 40-key I can play a full F maj chord on the push, but it often sounds better played on the pull because then I can include a low F. So I'll try to play it on the pull if possible, but if other considerations demand I'll play it on the push.

 

Howard

[Dan Worrall]

Chording is such an interesting topic.

 

You could also, as Brian suggested, occasionally unhinge from oom-pahing with full chords, and try a simpler approach, a la William Kimber's two row technique.

1) Play the tune in C, learning first this right hand scale: First four notes on the first three buttons of the C row, and last three notes on the first three buttons of the G row.

2) Play the same scale in octaves, adding the left hand in the same manner (first four notes use the 3rd and 4th buttons on the left hand C row, then down to the G row for the last four).

3) Add a note one third interval higher to each note played on the left hand octave part of the scale...ie, play the next button up with each note on the left side.

Voila, a very simple set of two note partial chords for each note. Then shake it up a bit by occasionally substituting some other left hand third interval pairs from elsewhere from the C or G rows (where needed to make it sound better), or add single bass notes, every now and then. And of course, only use these partial chords and bass notes for the first and third beats of the measure. For emphasis at the very start and finish of the A or B part, wham in a full three-or-more note fundamental chord, using both the left and right hands.

 

That is the basics of how he did it. Of course it isn't that easy...he worked on this method for over half a century...but it can be made to sound very nice, and only takes two rows and not much memory; you can experiment without memorizing chord charts. The old timers played via instinct rather than a lot of refined intellect, and I kinda like that. Dooley Chapman and Scan Tester played more simple octaves and many fewer partial chords than Kimber, but after that their basic technique is not particularly different from his....it is a two row style.

 

But I also like a good oom-pah now and then, and the problem of bellows direction is always there. Is it just me, or would others besides me like to slightly redesign the top row of the left hand? My take on those guys back in the nineteenth century (Jones especially), is that they were a bit obsessed with making the anglo fully chromatic, or at least nearly so. The ability to play pieces in nearly any key seems to have been a keeping-up-with-the Joneses thing with the English concertina and the classical types. Hence the top row with some little-used (for me) buttons like the Eb. I would guess that 98% of the keys played normally on a CG instrument would be F,C,G,and D. Irish-style melody players will do more of course, but chorders mostly will stick to C and G, with occasional forays to chorded tunes in F and D on a CG instrument (this said with a tip of the hat for that smashing many-keyed tune that Brian Peters does).

 

With that in mind, I find myself wondering if there wouldn't be a slightly better left hand design for the top row and extra buttons of, say, a 38 button instrument than the standard Jeffries/Wheatstone arrays....one that was designed more for chording ease in these keys, and less for chromatic melody-playing. Nothing radical, mind you...it seems close to Nirvana, just not quite there. The right hand could stand for an overhaul, too, for chording...adding a button or two to help keep playing melodies in G from needing to go over to the left hand for the lower bits, and of course notes on the top row geared to enable better unidirectional passages...preferably without jumping all over the place, like now.

 

Does any of this silly wondering ring true with others?

[Jody Kruskal]

By "best" chords I mean the ones that sound best to my ear. This may mean alternatives to the 3 chord trick or it may be a different way of playing the same chord. For example, on my 40-key I can play a full F maj chord on the push, but it often sounds better played on the pull because then I can include a low F. So I'll try to play it on the pull if possible, but if other considerations demand I'll play it on the push.

 

Howard

 

My approach exactly. The trick is to balance all of those musical needs to get the best you can out of this very limited instrument. There are two aspects to doing this. One is the ability to decide what you want, to choose what sounds best. The other skill is to make the instrument and your body work together to accomplish the task.

 

The way to improve the first skill is to listen, both to the players you admire and to yourself. Recording your playing and listening to yourself critically is the quickest way for growth.

 

The other skill is in the fingers, arms, shoulders and back. Isolating each musical function and practicing just that one only, that's my way. The more you can cut out the other stuff and just practice one thing at a time, the more you can figure out all that that one thing can do. Then when you put all the elements back together, the whole has more richness because you have more control.

 

Jody

[JimLucas]

The old timers played via instinct rather than a lot of refined intellect,...

That reminds me of a story about Cecil Sharp, English collector of traditional songs and dances. Supposedly at one point another noted musicologist told him he must have made a mistake in his transciption of a particular song collected from a rural "informant", because "no unschooled gardener could possibly know enough about music to sing a song in the Lydian mode." To which Sharp replied, "He has no idea that it's in the Lydian mode; he just knows that it 'sounds right'."

[hjcjones]

The old timers played via instinct rather than a lot of refined intellect,...

That reminds me of a story about Cecil Sharp, English collector of traditional songs and dances. Supposedly at one point another noted musicologist told him he must have made a mistake in his transciption of a particular song collected from a rural "informant", because "no unschooled gardener could possibly know enough about music to sing a song in the Lydian mode." To which Sharp replied, "He has no idea that it's in the Lydian mode; he just knows that it 'sounds right'."

 

Many years ago I entered the ICA music competition. For the general Anglo section the judges asked for a score. Being an "ear" player and not playing from a score, and unable to transcribe my own arrangement, the best I could do was to give them the unadorned melody line.

 

One of the judges complained that without the score she couldn't tell if the harmonies were correct. I wanted to ask if her if she couldn't tell form listening to the music.

 

Some "trained" musicians appear to forget that music ultimately isn't about theory or written notes, it's about making a noise.

 

 

Howard Jones

[frogspawn]

<snip>

Play the tune in C, learning first this right hand scale: First four notes on the first three buttons of the C row, and last three notes on the first three buttons of the G row.

<snip>

 

Dan: I think I understand the meaning of your post about Kimber's playing-in-octaves style, but would you be kind enough to spell out the advantage(s) of using the G row rather than just the C row?

 

Richard

[Brian Peters]

Dan: I think I understand the meaning of your post about Kimber's playing-in-octaves style, but would you be kind enough to spell out the advantage(s) of using the G row rather than just the C row?

 

Playing the scale entirely on the C row, you run out of fingers and at some point have to switch positions. Also you have that awkward little sequence on the last three notes of the ascending scale, where A and B require successive pulls on buttons 4 & 5, then you return to push 4 to give top C. Doing it on the G row means you get an unbroken sequence of pushes and pulls all the way up the scale, which allows quicker and punchier playing. This, however, creates another problem because top C is now a pull note instead of a push, so if you want to play a left hand C chord with it you have to devise one on the pull - and on a thirty-button instrument that is never going to be as strong as a pushed C chord. But that is one of things that gives Kimber's music its distinct sound.

Hope that made sense.

Brian

[Dan Worrall]

Brian,

 

You said it much better than I could. It is just the easiest way to play the C scale on the right hand. And as you pointed out, it has strong implications for the way the accompaniment sounds. This particular anglo cross row scale, by the way, goes all the way back to the 1850's; Carlo Minasi taught it as the way to go for chording (you can read his 1856 tutor on Bob Gaskins' www.concertina.com).

Brian and 'frogspawn' (a name only a mother could love!) are not alone in pointing out the unusual nature of the pulled C. Andy Turner in his review of my Kimber work thought it should have been highlighted. In that I learned to play harmonically first from Kimber (a pulled C is the only way to play the chords as he played them) I never thought it unusual. But come to think of it, Brian is right in that it forces some of the unique aspects of Kimber's sound.

 

If we number the five buttons of the middle row 1-5, and the bottom row 6-10 (left and right sides are numbered identically) then:

A push C chord would be PUSH R1+L3+L4+L5. Many of Kimber's tunes start with this full push chord, as many tunes start in lower reaches and later climb the scale (Old Mother Oxford, for example).

As the tune climbs, you end up in pull C territory, and a full Pull C chord is of course not available on a two row or even a 30 button instrument. So Kimber would play PULL R3+L9+L10 This is a partial C chord with the fundamental and the third, but no fifth...sounds high and a bit incomplete, which tends to pull at the heartstrings a bit. His ubiquitous use of third interval partial chords gets him into many other choices that don't fit the simple ''three chord trick" style that most of us carry around branded into our brains. Often these contain bits of minor chords instead of the major IV or V we seek. That is one of the main reasons he sounds so....how to put it... bouncy but a bit melancholy at the same time.

 

I hope this is not too detailed an answer to a simple question!