Hello Concertina Community,

I'm a frequent lurker about these pages, and have been reading the commentary about Alan Lochhead's new book (which I have on order at a local store). I've been struggling with similar quandaries this past year, as I've been working on a book of original tunes.

One thing that's come up on these pages is the value of peer review, somewhat for the benefit of the community as a whole. As my system is different than Mr. Lochhead's, I thought I would post it here. If anyone has the interest to page though, I would greatly appreciate any feedback or ideas.

This essay gives an overview (.pdf):
Notation System

and there are two examples of tunes:
Don't You Want to Go to Heaven, Uncle Sam?
Muddy Heart

with a recording of each:
Don't You Want to Go to Heaven, Uncle Sam?
Muddy Heart

Thanks very much in advance to anyone who cares to have a look/listen, and apologies in advance if any of the links are broken (I'm somewhat bad at Internetting)!

Best,
Steven Arntson

Steven,
Since you've thanked us in advance, let's do something to justify that!

To be quite ( er... brutally?) honest, the document you linked to rather disappointed me after reading the title of your thread.

What you write about is not so much a notation system as an ANnotarion system. You still base your notation on the standard staff - even if you transpose it an octave to make the compass of the instrument fit the stave better, as gutarists and others do. This leaves me as an Angloist really no wiser than if I had some standard staff songbook with those tunes in it.
I'm not a fluent staff reader, but I can imagine that those who are might be put off by the lack of key signature (you seem treat all sharps and flats as "accidentals", even the F# in the key of G major - or did I read that wrongly?)

What I feel your "notation" lacks is the specific Anglo-orientation. The special thing about the Anglo is that a lot of notes are duplicated on two buttons, sometimes in the opposite bellows direction, sometimes in the same direction. This makes bare staff notation ambiguous. Any Anglo notation (or even annotation) should clear up this ambiguity. And that can only be done by identifying the button to be pressed. This you do not even atttempt to do!

There is, in fact, a very old-established way of identifying the buttons. On older German 20k concertinas, the buttons had numbers on them: the outer row of each hand numbered 1 - 5, the inner row 6 - 10. This can be used to annotate a staff score, placing the right-hand numbers above and the left-hand numbers below the stave. The outer row of a 30k anglo can be numbered 1a - 5a on each side (as in my old Anglo tutor!)
As far as publishing is concerned, music publishers have always printed numbers in piano scores for the fingerings.
And the bellows direction has been conventionally conveyed by putting a "V" over the button number for the draw, the press being default (we call it a "squeezebox", not a "stretchbox", don't we?) This character is also much used in music publishing, as a bowing instruction for violinists.

Your indicators for "initial bellows state" could be quite useful, but again, that's not notation, it's annotation (the kind of thing orchestral violinists pencil in on their sheet music at rehearsals).

I'm attaching an example from my tutor (never done this before - let's see if it works!)

Cheers,
John

In another thread I kind of came up with and ad-hoc notation system that may be useful with ABC tunes:
I would number the keys similar to the above, but it would be 1-5 for the C row, 6-0 for the G row and A-E for the accidental row. The reason for this would be to be able to include the button notation in a row underneath the ABC notation, and since most of the notes in ABC are only one character wide, the button notation should be as well.

example:

Or for the bellows line you could just use V on the draw. I left out some of the header stuff from the ABC, though; I'm pretty new at it. I'd match up the button with the name of the note, not with anything that modifies the note (like commas, accents or whatever).
Note that the example above only works on a Lachenal layout.
Maybe it's pointless; just tossing my two pence in the mix.

I had made some years ago a notation system that I used only twice, that was mainly for remembering chords positions.
It was for 30 buttons concertina buttons and was similar to
In a concertina in c/g, I put the note c, d, e, etc. and under the number and 30, and pulling indicated by __ under the number, as is usual in button accordion notations.
left hand right hand
row accidentals 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
row C 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
row G 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19


Félix

row accidentals 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
row C 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
row G 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Ingenious in itself, but without application.
I don't understand why you guys are still chewing on the tablature/notation for Anglo, when it's been done by the French for their 3 row semi-chromatic accordions, and the music they play is pretty thoroughly arranged.
Just look at Bernard Loffet site. Simple, easy to read, one learns to read the stave as well as his own instrument, and in case you have several concertinas in different keys, easy to play from the score on instrument in any tuning.
The only variation is the push/pull vs. row.
I prefer the system where it's like this:
The stave, where fingers are indicated by numbers next to notes,
G row, where push is indicated by the "." or "/\" above or next to the number of button
C row, .........the same as above
Bass row, where basses are indicated by letters.
There is really not much else you can do. Berthram Levy used to indicate the push/pull with up/down stems, but it's a compromise and there is no need for it.

John & all,

Thanks for your responses, and the information on other sources. I've been working on my own, in comparative isolation, and had wondered if there were pre-established strategies for the things I was struggling with. You've given me a lot to think about.

Best,
Steven

STEVEN: you might enjoy reading the following:

Maria Dunkel, "Buttons and Codes: Ideographies for Bandoneon and Concertina as Examples of
Alternative Notational systems in Nineteenth-Century Germany," THE FREE-REED JOURNAL, 2
(2000), 5 - 18.


it deals with notational systems that dispense with the staff entirely. . . .and tell the performer where
to put his or her fingers. . . . . .


as for what you describe as a "vibrato". . . .it is NOT a vibrato. . . .a real vibrato of the kind that one
gets on a string instrument involves a slight change of pitch in the note being played. . . . .one can
no more get a vibrato on the concertina than one can on the piano. . . . . .to be sure, lots of
concertinists use it. . . . .personally, i find it rather annoying unless it's used very very very sparingly
as an "ornament" of sorts...........Allan

Um, you can get a vibrato out of a concertina by changing the pressure rapidly, which does change the pitch somewhat. Noel Hill does it, and Mr. Edgley taught it at the Button Box Workshops a month or so back.

You can get a vibrato out of a piano, too, if you have a wrench and if you don't mind paying someone a lot of money to retune and possibly repair the thing afterwards. Most players eschew such a technique, though.

(I just wanted to use the word 'eschew' today. It's a good word, sadly underutilized.)

Dear wntrmute: in that case, i will eschew arguing with you about what is and what is not a vibrato..........allan

Hi
Maybe it's tremolo, vibrato involves pitch and tremolo doesn't involve pitch in my dictionary
chris (tremulously)

CHRIS AND FOLKS: it's not quite that either. . . . . .a real tremelo is when, for instance, a pianist alternately plays two notes -- let's say an octave apart -- as quickly as possible and in a basically unmeasured way. . . . . . .or when a string player plays the same note rapidly in an unmeasured way. . . . . .

what we concertinists do is annoy people................and Regondi pleaded with players not to do it. . . . .his pleas went unheeded. . . . .the Matusewitches did it a lot, thinking that they were producing a quasi-vibrato. . . . .you will hear Ernest Rutterford do it on English International at the beginning of this century. . . . . . .

again, i think one can get away with it if it's used very sparingly as an ORNAMENT of sorts. . . . . . . .allan

With one reservation. On the mandolin - where tremolo is more than just a decoration - we distinguish beween unmeasured and measured tremolo. Often, the tremolo consists of the same, even number of up and down strokes for each beat of the bar. The slower the tempo, the more strokes per beat. This imparts a sort of "micro-rhythm" to an already rhythmic tune. If, on the other hand, I'm playing a slow tune very rubato, the tremolo will usually be unmeasured.

Can you do that on a concertina? On an English or duet, I suppose you could hold down one button and move the bellows rapidly in and out. On an anglo, this would only work on the notes that have alternate fingerings (same note on press and draw), and these are by definition on different buttons, so it would be difficult to get the repetitions fast enough to qualify as a tremolo, and a whole phrase with tremolo would be impossible. (If that's what I want, I take use my mandolin!)

With the concertina, you can shake the bellows, or you can waggle an unused finger, both of which "pulse" the tone heavily or lightly, respectively. If this isn't vibrato (whether you like it or not), what is it? The effect is very similar to a violin vibrato, at any rate

Cheers,
John

PS: Do the accordionists call that very "wet" tuning with clear beats "tremolo" or "vibrato"? Or something entirely different, like "musette"?

Wet or musette tuning does lead to one kind 'tremolo' effect, which is a kind of beat in the tone which is caused by the frequency of the sound sometimes reinforcing itself or sometimes cancelling itself out. The overall frequency of the sound doesn't change, the amplitude changes.
A vibrato, by contrast, is supposed to be a rapid change in the frequency of the sound, but not the amplitude.
In a wind instrument the player would produce a tremolo with breathing and a vibrato with embrouchure.
With a concertina (or a accordion) by changing the pressure applied to the bellows rapidly what is being done is going to affect both amplitude and frequency.

Tremolo is an imprecise word with several applications, depending on the instrument.

I have been interested to read the comments relating to 'vibrato' and 'tremolo'. As I play by ear, entirely for my own amusement I receive no critical feedback from an audience or fellow musicians and I can therefore play purely for my own satisfaction. My dictionary suggests that 'tremolo' is an intrinsic quality of certain (musical) instruments, and the human voice, over which the performer presumably has little if any personal control...' a tremulous or vibrating effect'. I would expect singers would probably challenge this definition. The same dictionary describes 'vibrato' as 'a pulsating effect....a variation of emphasis on some tone. A throb. A wobble'. The general effect is, I reckon, very much the same whatever we choose to call it. I make frequent use of one or other of these techniques, with appropriate discretion, when and where I feel it enhances the music. I find it a simple and very satisfying technique to apply on my Anglo. I am happy to describe what I do as a 'throb' or a 'wobble' It cannot be directly compared to the not dissimilar effect produced by players of violins and related instruments who have to 'wobble' the string whereas I have to 'wobble' the bellows, and pianists can presumable only rely upon 'tremolo' as defined above. This is obviously a far more complex subject than I have suggested and I shall now wait to be told that I am talking nonsense !

Back onto the tablature discussion.
This has been discussed at length in the last 10 years (some suggestions even using colours) and concensus usually ended up that it is not that easy to create a "catch-all" tab for anglo.
The suggestions generally involved < and > for bellows direction, L and R for which hand and we had long arguments about what to call the rows. Front, Back, Accidental, F,B,A, were thought to be very confusing C,G,X (extra) were thought confusing to G/D players, and no tab could cope with people who had oddity anglos with more than 3 rows.
An individual may have their own version of tab which is only specific to their concertina as someone elses Jeffries may have a different key layout. Many people have more than one concertina - which are not identical in layout.

You can invent your own, but it may not be relevant to anyone else.

What can you use tab for? I have sometimes thought tab may be useful for scales in one direction, but for learning tunes or different fingerings, spend 2 weeks practising - you will eventually remember them.

Very astute thinking!

Let's face it: one plays the anglo because one wants to be able to play by ear, and by-ear players learn faster because they understand what they're playing.



Cheers,
John

I find it difficult to learn a tune from tab, although it can be helpful to work out fingerings for particular passages. Where I find it most useful is a a reminder: having worked out how to play a difficult passage, I can make a note in tab so that when I come back to the tune at some future date I won't struggle to remember how I played it.

When I use tab at all, which is seldom, it is as an aide memoire rather than a detailed transcription of a whole tune

This is off subject, but why do you think it true about learning faster with respect to playing by ear?

Well, that statement is just part of the running jokes that sight-readers and by-ear players make about each other. There are exceptions to the clichee in both camps.

Actually, by-ear players only SEEM to be quicker at getting a tune off by heart than sight readers. This is because, by definitoin, the by-ear player always knows the tune BEFORE he plays it for the first time. He's heard it often enough, and can hum or whistle it. To do this, he has to instinctively know the intervals between the successive notes. Being familiar with his instrument, he can translate the feeling of a third, a fifth, and octave or whatever to the instrument - as he does to his vocal cords or lips when humming or whistling. The first attempt may not be perfect, but with each iteration, the uncertainties are eradicated one by one, and there is less and less "educated guesswork" involved. At some point, he is no longer playing by ear, but from memory, which is the goal that sight readers must also pursue if they are to "get the tune down".
Sight readers also learn by iteration, but they have the disadvantage that they have to first get the notes, then recognise what the tune is supposed to sound like, and then put in the phrasing. The by-ear player has an acoustic model against which he can check his progress.
If a by-ear player's memory fails him, he can recourse to playing the "lost" passage by ear again - the sight-reader in this situation has to dig out his sheet music - or have it on his music stand, just in case ... which makes it appear that he hasn't learned the piece yet.

This description is rather folk-oriented, I admit. Traditional music is, by definitoin, music you've heard, not music you've read. Unlike "classical" music, it does not come to you as an unadorned sequence of dots representing a sequence of notes, but as a complete tune, plus the usual decorations, tempo, rhythm, etc. that the sight-reader has to work up himself - and pencil into his score.

Basically, I think that sight-reading is the better approach to classical-type music, and by-ear playing the better approach to traditional-type music.

Cheers,
John

Not quite so simple.
As a by-ear player I can usually join in with an average session tune tentatively after hearing it through once, sometimes less thatn that. By the time we are on to another tune after three or four repetitions I'm OK with it. Now it may be that I dont hear that tune again for weeks or even years so the problem then is whether it has gone into long term memory or not.

Robin Madge

There are lots of tunes I can only play in sessions - when someone starts them up, I know them instantly and can play along, no problem, but afterwards they completely slip out of the memory banks again.

All too often, when I'm struggling to think of something different to play in my local session, a tune will pop into my head and I'll start off. Halfway through, it will dawn on me that I don't actually know it, or else I know it but play it on a different instrument. I'm not sure which is worse, but they're both challenging situations!

Hi, everybody!

Altough i'm not good neither at playing or reading music, i don't feel that the tablatures are useful at all, since i use diferent fingerings for diferent tunes even if they are in the same pitch... the only thing i've in front of me when i'm playing is this, only with helping purposes... was made with stuff i found around the forum, so feel free to use it you find it useful

Regards

Hi Howard

Oh boy - do I know that feeling !

One reason I love sessions is the number of long 'forgotten' tunes that rise up to the communal surface. It never ceases to amaze me that they are still in the old memory banks and need just a gentle nudge from someone else to resurrect them ..... and all this from the same brain that often can't remember what I had for dinner half an hour ago

The most frustrating part for this totally musically illiterate ear player, is my all too regular failure to remember how a tune starts or to remember the name of a tune..... give me the first bar and I'm usually straight in....

wierd things these brain boxes

Dave

Howard, Dave,
I agree with you two. Amazing how I can temporarily forget someone's name if I haven't seen him for two weeks....and yet I have obscure tunes floating around in the grey matter than only need the first two notes played before they pop out. Something this morning caused me to think of Crabs in the Skillet....a jig from O'Neills...and I played it through at a moderate tempo with only a couple of errors, despite not having played it, I am quite sure, for right at 30 years. Now if I could just find my glasses!

By the way, I enjoy tunes whose titles suggest the tune, via (usually) a rhythmic association. The 'Curly-Headed Plowboy' is a good example. Or 'Davy Davy Knick Knack'.

Dan

Robin,
I can do that on finger-style banjo.

We're two of the lucky ones!

Of course, session playing is not really playing - just tagging along with somebody else

Cheers,
John

By ear players may be fast, but can you learn a tune at one hearing?
Providing they can memorise it, a dot reader can scan through the dots, commit it to memory and play it back.

I can pick up tunes at one hearing, but they are usually gone by the next day. I need to ask what the name was, write it down, then go and look it up online the next day.
I try to scan though a couple of pages of new tunes a day, and mark the ones I like. If I see a good'un I will play it a few times. If I can still remember bits of it the next day, that is a "sticky" tune and worth learning.

Like many of you commented, I have stacks of tunes I never bothered learning, but as soon as someone starts it, I can play it all. I am sure it is only because I have never bothered learning the name so it never gets filed away in the memorys index.