"What do you do when you meet another EC player?"
Apart from having a drink that is. I am looking for music to play with two ECs. Can you guys help me out?

I am browsing through the (mostly Flemish) folk music I've got, looking for things to play in duet. Most stuff is written for violin or clarino (a kind of trumpet) and is well in the range of treble EC.

Music for two ECs on my site

Any contributions (arrangements for 2 concertinas or general melody instruments) are very welcome, especially not too difficult but beautiful ones...

Michel

in the Northumbrian pipers tune book series, there is a Northumbrian Pipers duet tune book. Many of the pieces are suitable for two concertinas.

- John wild

Get Bach's easy Flute Duets. Fit EC perfectly, sound good, easy to play, easy keys - brilliant.
You can also get Easy Mozart Flute Duets, but they tend to be a bit more elaborate. But nothing especially bad , if you use two ECs. Close to impossible on one.
"All American Concertina Album", written for Anglo.
All you'll need to do is transpose F cleff into G cleff, or octave up.
But I looked up your site, you've got tons of music. Do you play it all? It's years worth of work, why worry?

The Mendocino English Country Dance multipart tune book on
http://www.larkcamp.com/mendoengdance.htm
should sound good with two EC's too. We play several of these with fiddle and EC.

There are also two books (or one book in 2 volumes) called Airs for pairs.
these are described on the cover as tunes from around the British Isles arranged as duets for two melody instruments.
They have about 20 tunes in each volume.

Regards

John Wild

Thanks.
Just ordered.

There's also Scottish Airs For Pairs, also by Matt Seattle. Another tune book, 'Lincolnshire Collections' has in addition to single line tunes, almost thirty arrangements for two and three instruments although the lower line in each instance is written in the bass clef.

Ben Paley has written Swedish Fiddle Music: An Anthology which has about 50 tunes written out for two fiddles - and some of the tunes are great. I guess they'd work as well as anything else on two concertinas. There's a recording he made with his dad of some/most/all of the tunes (I forget the details). Unfortunately the book is out of print, I think.

Actually, I recorded some of them for practice purposes just recently after rearranging them (and working on some other stuff) for fiddle+cello, and to help me see what worked and what didn't I recorded some of them on concertina (since I don't fiddle and my fiddler wasn't around at the time) and cello - listen here if you like.

One thing - you have to avoid two concertinas playing the same note at the same time - it tends to sound really dire (presumably because the concertina sound "defines" the pitch so exactly, and you get nasty phase effects).

Thanks for the info about 'Lincolnshire Collections' - may be useful

Thanks. Something for inspiration.
Great work with dynamics!

Interesting. When Anne and I play in unison together, as we do sometimes (her on Aeola, me on Jeffries anglo) the effect has been rather bell-like. Quite a nice sound. Maybe when you were playing, Danny, one of the concertinas was very, very slightly out of tune with the other. That would have the effect you describe.

I do agree about Swedish music. A lot of it is written in two parts for fiddles, and as such falls quite nicely into the range of the treble English.

Anne has written quite a lot of music for concertina, and we have put some of it up on a web page. The first two pieces were composed for two or more concertinas, and you will find both score (as pdf's) and recordings (as mp3's) here.

Chris

Many thanks. Especially for the Mendocino tunebooks and the 'Airs for pairs' tip. I found I could order the 'Airs for pairs' online at www.mally.com, which I did a few days ago. And today they were already in my mailbox, from UK to Belgium in just a few days. Fantastic service. Now only finding the time to figure them out.

Thanks also for the 'don't play the same note' tip. To me, it always sounds like an error, as if the arranger didn't find a way out there... I avoid this when I make my own second voice, but I left them in the original music to be authentic.

Correction! many of the arrangements for two instruments are written in the treble clef in both parts, for two melody instruments.

Oh horror!
I'm finding that with my Tenor single line sounds better. I found it with my Jack as well, but was thinking the Tenor, been higher pitched, would be fine harmony-wise. Nope! It sounds very sufficiently just playing melody, and counterparts and chords simply muddy the picture.