The "english" Style Of Anglo Playing

[Chris Timson]

Hi all,

 

I was involved in a forum the weekend before last, run by Roger Digby at the ECMW with the subject "Some musings on anglo style".

 

He suggested (as he has elsewhere on this site) that the two great source players of English music on the anglo, William Kimber and Scan Tester, have had very little effect on the style of modern English players, and he wondered where the style had come from. We all waffled a bit but nobody really offered a conclusion.

 

I'd like to throw this one open to the forum as two questions:-

 

1) What actually constitutes English style or the English approach to playing the anglo?

 

2) What is its source or sources?

 

I have some thoughts myself, but I'd like to set the ball rolling and then contribute as the discussion evolves. My ideas are not concrete enough to amount to a General Theory, or even a Special Theory, of English style; except perhaps to point out that style cannot and should not be divorced from the music, so that underpinning the discussion is the paramount effect of English music.

 

Chris

[wes williams]

I'll have a stab at answering Chris! (and likely I'll get stabbed for it )

 

1) What actually constitutes English style or the English approach to playing the anglo?

Melody mainly right, accompaniment mainly left.

 

2) What is its source or sources?

Melodeon players for morris sides c.1950 onwards who wanted to try playing something different - and the anglo was the obvious easiest next step.

[Roger Digby]

Like Chris, I'll enjoy watching this one develop. I don't think all we did was 'waffle' at the ECMW! I prefer to look back on it as 'relaxed conversation'!

I said that the greatest influence on me was Oscar Woods (one row melodeon), but I don't think this is the same as the point that Wes is making. In fact I would want to see more evidence for Wes' idea.

I think a main factor was that, given the scarcity of recordings of Anglo players and the non-existence of living ones, we Anglos were stuck for precedents and so were influenced by the superb, readily available and active Melodeon players (Oscar, Bob Cann, and a host of great players in Suffolk to mention just the tip of the iceberg). It was a straightforward process to model Anglo playing on Melodeon playing and so off we went. With maturity and understanding we may have become more selective on the left hand and developed in other ways as well, but I think what I have described is where I started from.

The ACTUAL POINT I was trying to draw out at the ECMW was: If we accept that Kimber and Tester (Kilroy is not, I think, relevant here) are too different to provide the basis for a 'style', has the playing of the last 30 years (effectively the period of the re-awakening of awareness in ECM) now established one which can reasonably justify the title? And if so should it? How many years does it take to establish something which can with integrity be called 'traditional'?

Of course, underneath this, is my belief that the 'Tradition' is constantly developing and that those of us who may be contributing to the course of that development have an obligation to be knowledgable, sympathetic and understanding towards the tradition which is our starting point.

Another thread on this site is accepting the fact that players are now mostly middle aged. How many prominent Anglo players are over 60? If my generation is to be seen as the next best thing to real traditional Anglo players - the next stage in the venerable and important transmission of traditional music - then we must ensure that we take our responsibilty seriously and show total respect for the music we are continuing.

On with the discussion!

Roger

P.S. Isn't this a great website. Where else could we have such a debate?

[Chris Timson]

I don't think all we did was 'waffle' at the ECMW! I prefer to look back on it as 'relaxed conversation'!

...

P.S. Isn't this a great website. Where else could we have such a debate?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Unfair of me, I admit, but I didn't want to cramp style here. I like to think I wasn't as relaxed as a newt.

 

Chris

P.S. It is, isn't it?

[Henk van Aalten]

What a great idea to start this topic Chris!

I agree with the remarks of Wes on your first question. I have not the knowledge to say anything about the second question, but I would like to add a third question:

3. Why is it that the English style (not only Anglo, but in general) is not so very well known outside England?

 

Speaking for myself, it was a very pleasant and positive discovery when I joined a part of the the ECMW last year. And I wondered why I did not know or heard anything about it before. I was a great experience to see and hear all those musicians playing with passion.

[Alan Day]

Firstly I too would like to thank Chris for this topic and Roger for chairing the original meeting and kickstarting this discussion.

I agree with Wes on item one,a simple but precise description.

Item two is of course more difficult and I will have a go at it ,so others can join in,agree and disagree. Roger is exactly right as far as our age group is concerned and influences.We had tutor books to look at and we had very few recordings to listen to, but there was no one to actually teach any of us.No workshops or players doing classes and the majority of the current players are self taught. Concertinas were easy to come by and in plentiful supply.William Kimber did influence certain players,in fact it was part of Father Kens act and Scan Tester others,Will Duke immediately springs to mind.TheSalvation Army and old Morris musicians must have passed some of their information on and it was the Morris scene which started a lot of us off on concertina playing.The Folk Music revival soon to follow, saw groups like Rogers "Flowers and Frolics" Webs Wonders"The Hop"etc providing the dance music everybody loved. Of course

players like John Kirkpatrick,John Watcham, Andrew Blakeny Edwards,John Rod (where has he gone?) etc started coming forward as outstanding players.

John K has done some outstanding work as far as the Morris and Folk scene in general and has been a major influence on a lot of players who are currently playing.All these players played in the style mentioned by Wes, basic tune right hand with chords left and it most suited Morris music and English Country Dance music.English Dancers have a certain style they like to lift their feet off the ground,unlike the French or Breton style who have very little lift.The English dancers therefore require bounce to the music not the French flowing style.The above bands very much catered for this style of dancing.Morris music is the same the music provides the lift for the Morris leaping,many of you will remember "Old Spot" who could outleap any other team.

So re capping the dancing style set the way the music should be played and the English style of playing evolved from that.

Al

[Dan Worrall]

A fascinating question, and I share Roger’s enthusiasm for the site and this discussion.

 

If we take Wes Williams’ answer to question number 1 as a starting point (i.e., that the “English” style is “melody mainly right, accompaniment mainly left” (this is not necessarily a given, but more on that later), then we can say some very solid things about the second question, “What is its source or sources?”. Clearly, it is not sourced in the concertina revival of the last few decades, nor even in William Kimber. The origins reach back to the very earliest days of this instrument in England. Anglos, in the form of early two row “German” concertinas, began to be imported to England by about 1844. Several of the tutors from that same time include instruction in the “English” style (a la Wes’ definition) . For much the following discussion I am indebted, as are we all, to Randy Merris’ bibliographical research on these early tutors (see www.concertina.com); Randy gave me some copies of these early works, from which I have derived the following comments.

 

The earliest tutor published in England was that of Carlos Minasi in 1846 (“Instruction Book for the Use of Learners on the German Concertina”). This was in many ways a visionary publication; in it are instructions not only for the simple “along the row” melody line style, but an extensive discussion of octave playing, cross row fingering, and chord accompaniment. On cross row fingering, Minasi states that his method is “intirely (sic) new, and (is here) introduced by the Author who has found it not only better to use the different …keys (giving the same note), but it enables him to Modulate as well as to arrange almost any music to the Instrument with good effect”. Minasi was using cross row fingering not only for smoothness in bellowing, but to enable more efficient fitting of chords to melody. He also used cross row fingering for octave playing, showing for example that for the octave scale of C, one should play the first four notes on the C row, and the last four notes on the G row, rather than playing it all on the C row. He also demonstrates that the octave scale in C can be further refined to eliminate some of the bellows changes (see First attachment).

 

But it is in harmonic treatment where Minasi puts his main effort. Following a general and extensive set of chord exercises, he provides numerous fully arranged musical selections. These arrangements are almost all in the above-defined “English” style, where chords are on the left, and melody on the right. A first simple example, “God Save the Queen”, is notable for its interesting chords…these chords are not as plain as one might expect (Second attachment); you might wish to try it out for yourself. There are many other selections, and I attach here a Scottish folk melody (Third attachment); Minasi in 1846 was already thinking of using the Anglo for traditional music. Note the clear use of an “oom-pah” accompaniment, a la modern Morris music. It is likely that Minasi developed this oom-pah style, which is also used in several semi-classical pieces included in his work, from piano rather than from melodeon playing. Minasi’s tutor is brilliantly executed, and was released within a couple of years of the arrival of the first German (later Anglo) concertina in London. Yes, these German instruments were simple and clumsy….but in the hands of artists, they were already being pushed to the max. A high standard for the “English” style had been set.

 

An 1852 Tutor by Charles Coule (“Coule’s New and Improved Method for playing German Concertinas”), while not being nearly as visionary as that of Minasi, nevertheless provided further examples of the “English” style (please note that Wes’ terminology was not used by these early authors). The “Krakoviak Polka” includes a ‘melody right, chords left’ style of accompaniment (Attachment 4). Of this, Coule mentioned that “Learners will find it best where the notes are harmonized, to practice the top notes first”. This is not a great arrangement, and neither is this nearly as exemplary a tutor as Minasi’s, but the style was still clearly alive.

 

Better early examples are found in George Jones’ 1876 tutor, “The Chromatic Anglo-German Concertina Tutor”. The “Maid of Athens” (Att. 5) shows use of both the “English” style as well as a significant amount of octave playing…a predecessor to Scan Tester. “Men of Harlech” (Att.6) is entirely in the “English” style. George Jones, it will be remembered, devised the top row of the three row “Anglo-Chromatic” (now called “Anglo-German”) concertina in 1851 in order to make it more easily playable in different keys, for chording, and for legato playing (ie., cross row fingering). He got his start with this instrument in the early 1840’s, at the same time as Minasi, and he played extensively in the music halls of London in those early years. Some of the arrangements in his 1876 tutor are likely taken from that earlier repertoire. He was clearly playing in the “English” style that was first documented by Minasi.

 

Hence, and sorry to disagree with some of you, but this type of playing is clearly as old as the instrument itself, and it did not first develop during the concertina revival, much as it may seem so. As far as the leap to traditional music, clearly Minasi was already there in 1846, though apparently not a purely traditional player himself. Amongst the bulk of “traditional” players of the nineteenth century, we have no real records except for William Kimber Junior, as Roger has pointed out before on this site. It is well known that Kimber knew other concertina players and was even a member of a concertina club. It seems obvious that he (and/or his father) could have first heard such “English” style from a member of that club, or from a traveling musician, or from a trip into Oxford or London. None would be much of a stretch, and the Kimbers vigorously adopted it.

 

It is my opinion that Kimber and his father were most likely the first amongst Morris musicians to apply the “English” style (playing a chorded accompaniment on an Anglo concertina) to the Morris tradition, which hitherto had been played on melody-type instruments (pipe-and-tabor and fiddle). A full documentation of that thought will be in a book I have prepared on Kimber’s Anglo playing that includes sheet music transcriptions of most of his recorded music, to be released within a month or two by EFDSS. I would argue that Kimber is very much a proponent of the “English” style a la Wes’ definition…his music is absolutely and perfectly ‘melody right, chords left’. He varies from modern “English-style” Anglo players by using only two rows for his Morris tunes (like Minasi, he learned on a two row instrument, and never changed later in life), and by his sparing use of oom-pahs. As Roger points out, modern Anglo players use a lot of oompahs, which many attribute to the situation of anglo players hearing lots of oom-pah-heavy melodeons in Morris sides, where melodeons predominate today. But in their “English” playing style these modern Anglo players also echo Kimber, and many have said so in various interviews and notes.

 

Why don’t the Irish play in this manner, if “English” style is so ancient? After all, the Irish were importing German concertinas into Dublin by the 1840’s, and these tutors would have been there too. From what I have read and heard, Irish music was almost entirely a solo tradition until well into the twentieth century, and as such had little in common with classical or Western popular music. In such a strong solo tradition, the natural response would have been to keep the newly arriving concertina as melodic only, and I would guess that it has developed from that sort of beginning. Maybe someone else has another more learned take on that?

 

Finally, a comment on the term “English” style, a la Wes’ definition. As Roger has pointed out, other traditional players in England have been playing Anglo in other ways; Scan Tester plays mostly in octaves rather than chords, for example. Others have played melodies simply ‘along-the-row’ (Reg Hall, Scan’s biographer, noted that most of the local village contemporaries of Scan and his older brother played ‘along-the-row’, and that the Scan’s brother developed an octave style in isolation). Mainly for this reason, I prefer using the term “harmonic style” for the ‘melody right, chords left’ style of playing, rather than “English style”. Besides, there is already abundant use of the word “English” with “English” system concertinas, which have styles all their own; all this English-ness and Anglo-ness otherwise gets a bit confusing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2005 by Dan Worrall

[Robin Madge]

I think that I might be being a bit heretical here but I'm not sure that the English style of playing is to do with learning from dots or from other players.

 

For me the style I play is to do with the instrument itself and how it relates to the sound I want out of it.

I'll leave it to Chris and Wes to decide whether I quallify as playing in "the" English style ( plenty of debate to come about how many English styles there are, no doubt).

 

I just learnt to play without much, if any, influence from other players except by listenig to recordings, and mainly I was listening to entire bands, not solo performers. I found tunes that I wanted to play, found a way of playing them and did it. I found that I could play a lot of the tunes in octaves using both sides of the instrument, and filled in chords with the spare fingers left over. At first I didn't do much cross row fingering, but again that was as much a feature of the tunes that I wanted to learn.

So I have a style that can sound a bit like William Kimber when playing Morris, but not learned from listening to recordings of him, a bit like Alan when I'm playing "Rosbif" tunes, but only from listening to the group as a whole, and a bit all my own because I'm just too stuborn to change what others might see as mistakes and I consider as "features" of my style.

 

So I think that I am saying that the "English" style is partially inherent in the instrument and that this may have become disguised by people being too determined to learn things "exactly", by reference to dots or to tabulation or too much emphasis on which finger to use.

 

Have you noticed how at concertina weekends that the English system player form a band, the Duet players play jazz and complicated arrangements, and the Anglo players discuss how many different styles ther are to play the same tune?

 

Robin Madge

[geoffwright]

Why don’t the Irish play in this manner, if “English” style is so ancient?

Possibly because the Irish didn't have the training from playing anglo in bands (Sal. Army etc. and other marching bands (in the English sense)), that was available in England pre 1930s.

 

Personally, I find it a shame that fewer and fewer people want to play anglo in band workshops - is this a part of losing the band discpline mentioned above?.

[Clive Thorne]

Why don’t the Irish play in this manner, if “English” style is so ancient?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Possibly because a lot of Irish tunes (these days at least) tend to get played at such breakneck speed that it simply doesn't allow time for the insertion of chords on the anglo ?

 

Clive

[Chris Timson]

Why don’t the Irish play in this manner, if “English” style is so ancient?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would go right back to my original posting that started this thread. English music is dance music - and so (though many players appear to have forgotten it) is Irish music. So, for that matter, is French music, and anyone who has ever tried to dance a polska will know why Swedish music has its particular rhythms.

 

The answer to your question is that English style suits English music, which suits English dance; while Irish style similarly has its source in Irish dance.

 

Chris

[Chris Timson]

Personally, I find it a shame that fewer and fewer people want to play anglo in band workshops - is this a part of losing the band discpline mentioned above?.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

At the forum that Roger led, he quoted me as saying (quite correctly) that when anglo players get together they discuss variations in systems, how to get different chords, oh all sorts of things, but when English players get together they get out the music stands and start playing concertina band music. I think it represents something fundamental in the nature of the systems that appeals to different personalities.

 

Chris

[wes williams]

Well, my answers were 'quick and dirty' and never intended to be treated as 'definitions', or complete theories.

 

How can we honestly produce even a 'general theory' using only Kimber or Tester as representations of the English 'style' unless that style is inherently part of being English and our way of making music? Do the 1950s/1960/70s players represent the last generations to grow up within an environment where this "Englishness" was just hanging on, before the ravages of Jazz, Skiffle, Bill Haley, Elvis, Eric Clapton, Ozzy Osborne, etc finished it off? In my lifetime we've gone very much from home-made entertainments to home entertainment systems.

 

First Dan Worral:

.. sorry to disagree with some of you, but this type of playing is clearly as old as the instrument itself....

Its older. English popular music has been based on harmony and counterpoint since at least the days of rounds and catches, before we took it from voice to instrument.

Why did Wheatstone spend so much effort trying to create a duet system? Because 'duetting' is an important of our particular popular musical heritage.

 

It's also an answer to your question 'Why don’t the Irish play in this manner, if "English" style is so ancient?' - which you answer yourself by saying '..Irish music was almost entirely a solo tradition until well into the twentieth century..' - not only was it solo, but it was almost entirely melodic, with harmonic music being an

exception.

 

In terms of tutors, I agree with Robin Madge - just because its written down doesn't mean that it has influenced this esoteric 'style' we are trying to discuss. I'd say that it just reflects the 'style' that our popular music was played in, irrespective of instrument. How many times have we heard a phrase like ' Well I just took it up and made it sound like I thought it ought to' from a notable player?

 

It is my opinion that Kimber and his father were most likely the first amongst Morris musicians to apply the "English" style...

Can anybody point out any other genuinely traditional morris/ritual/dance musicians who played concertina that we could use as other examples? I've seen lots of melodeons in old photos of sides, but struggle to remember a single concertina

(Upton-on-Severn maybe? or was that - oh shudder ye of Morris Ring - a female dancer!! ?). The examples in photos I've seen usually seem to suggest a 'village band' or 'processional' situation.

 

Now Roger Digby:

I would want to see more evidence for Wes' idea (style= 1950s morris melodeon players)

 

I don't think I can provide any hard documentary evidence, but I would also point to the rise of the G/D anglo in 1960/70s England, as discussed in other threads, as another part of the same notion.

 

On one side its an extension of what I've tried to put over above - we play the way we do because its part of our Englishness - but on the other side consider how many in our lists of 1970s players came to concertina (any type) via melodeon and/or morris.

 

We talk about how easy and cheap (£5 - £25) it was to find a concertina in those days, but perhaps forget that it was even simpler and cheaper(£1.50 - £10) to find a melodeon. A concertina might need a few months wait, and even then you might get offered something strange (I got a Maccann first!). In the early 70s I could have bought a different melodeon every week.

 

So when the melodeon player changed instrument to the concertina, he took his Melody@right,Accompaniment@left technique for playing, and could play almost immediately; only later (or in some cases never) finding that his Om-pahs were considerably less restricted.

 

However, I can provide some evidence that a 'jerky' (non classical? rhythmic?) style of anglo playing was considered normal 1950/60/70, perhaps earlier, from various ICA Newsletters, and offer up another 'Anglo Great'.

 

Nov 1966

Tommy Williams tells us that he has a recording of Mr. Holland, of Crows Nest, Dorset, and has never in his life time of experience heard such excellent anglo playing. Hr. Holland is reported to have a perfect legato phrasing, quite devoid of the

jerky accents which are a characteristic of anglos. Tommy says the sound is indistinguishable from that of a good "English" player. Hr. Holland plays a 40 key Anglo and does not read music.

 

 

May 1968

Yet another Sound of Music came from Eric Holland, who proved to be an ANGLO-player extraordinary. His playing is characterised by a strong melody line, with a true legato rarely heard on an Anglo, and a background of delicate accompanying figures. While we had some reservations in respect of his almost continuous forte in the selection and a waltz encore, his subsequent folk dances had excellent piano effects. As a concertina player we rate him high; as an Anglo player very high indeed.

 

Sept 1977

Mr. Holland, of Swanage, Dorset, died on July 15th of a heart attack. Jim Harvey writes: He joined the I.C.A. in January of 1964, but I knew him long before. He was a great friend, and won the 'Ear' Players class at the 1975 Festival. He played the Anglo in his own style and produced music more like a Duet Concertina. We mourn the loss of a great player and friend.

---------------

Since many players of non-English nationality describe the 'style' as 'more like a duet', its interesting to imagine what Eric Holland could have sounded like.

[Chris Timson]

Hr. Holland is reported to have a perfect legato phrasing, quite devoid of the

jerky accents which are a characteristic of anglos. Tommy says the sound is indistinguishable from that of a good "English" player. Hr. Holland plays a 40 key Anglo and does not read music.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But then, of course, these reports came from an ICA that in those days valued an anglo only insofar as it could be made to sound like an English concertina, and indeed in general regarded the anglo as a second class instrument. (Here's a nice comment from John Kirkpatrick back in the late 60s that shows what I mean). I'm not sure that evidence from that source is worth a great deal, sadly.

 

Chris

[wes williams]

But then, of course, these reports came from an ICA that in those days valued an anglo only insofar as it could be made to sound like an English concertina, and indeed in general regarded the anglo as a second class instrument.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You've gone slightly wide of the main point I was trying to make, Chris. We've had the same kind of situation in recent years when a classical musician (I'll call him Mr. A) reviewed a Kimber recording without realising the nature of Kimber's style and how it related to dance (having had no experience of it) - which was strongly contested (in a firm, but friendly manner) by a certain ECM musician (I'll call him Mr. D). The ICA folk were in the same situation when they referred to 'the jerky accents which are a characteristic of anglos' - which I take to be an indication of this 'English style' that we are discussing, but in its 'popular music' context .

 

Although I accept what you (and JK) say as generally true, why was Ken Loveless the ICA President throughout this period if the anglo was so 'second class'? Perhaps we wrongly tar the 'old' ICA with the brush held by its more vocal members, rather than the silent majority. And that reminds me of not too long ago here!

[John Wild]

but when English players get together they get out the music stands and start playing concertina band music. I think it represents something fundamental in the nature of the systems that appeals to different personalities.

 

Chris

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That is not universally true. Many English system players enjoy playing tunes in sessions, or swapping tunes, or playing their individual party pieces. Personally, when I go to a weekend event such as the WCCP weekend at Kilve or Concertinas at Witney, I tend to avoid the band workshops, because there is no band to play that music with when I return home.

 

Sorry - this is a digression from the main topic.

 

- John Wild

[Alan Day]

I think we are forgetting that sadly two wars desimated the normal Father teaching son/daughter, or even Grandfather teaching son/daughter situation, two generations of concertina players were lost.If an English style was developed before say 1950 it was not passed on only with a few exceptions ,William Kimber`s recordings,Father Ken who learnt from WK ,and Scan Tester and possibly a few others who were unknown to most concertina players at that time.It is my personal view that the English Style has been developed since then by experimentation.I tried to learn from the two tutors I managed to find, but they took some finding.You could not walk into a music shop and buy them and the theory of the English style developing from old tutors I would dispute,but saying that Dans fine posting proves that there was no doubt this style of playing existed from a very early stage in the concertina playing development.This must have arison from the music required for dancers that we have already discussed,so it would not take long for players to re invent this way of playing from scratch with a bit of guidance from Williams record.

A brilliant discussion

Al

[Howard Mitchell]

...It is my opinion that Kimber and his father were most likely the first amongst Morris musicians to apply the "English" style...

Can anybody point out any other genuinely traditional morris/ritual/dance musicians who played concertina that we could use as other examples?  I've seen lots of melodeons in old photos of sides, but struggle to remember a single concertina

(Upton-on-Severn maybe? or was that - oh shudder ye of Morris Ring - a female dancer!! ?). The examples in photos I've seen usually seem to suggest a 'village band' or 'processional' situation.

 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I have placed, for your perusal, three old photographs of morris dancers accompanied by concertinas at:

 

http://www.hgmitchell.plus.com/mossley4.gif The Mossley Morris Men with at least 3 concertina players.

http://www.hgmitchell.plus.com/glossop.gif The Glossop morris dancers with 2 concertina players.

http://www.hgmitchell.plus.com/ol1.gif The Oldham men with 4 players.

 

 

Howard Mitchell