Hello all, I thought I'd celebrate the coming 1st aniversary of my Sherwood anglo by messing around with a couple of tunes that I've known for ages, but have never heard on concertina. Most of my learning has involved sticking to melody lines when playing Irish music, or attempting the good old um-pah chording when working on morris tunes.

So working on Linden Lea, by Vaughan Williams and Bonny at Morn - which as far as I know is a Northumbrian tune which I play as a slow air - gave me a chance to play around with the harmony and do something different.

What I now want to know is does it work?!

Please feel free to be as critical as you like, it's the only way I'll learn. All suggestions/comments welcome.

Linden Lea link - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2qZ34q3GDrw

Bonny at Morn link - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=g4cRRdHHGUg

Thanks for your help and happy squeezing!

Carl,

Very nice playing. I could not do better (FWIW).
I'm sure you are on the right way.

Thanks for the encouragement Henk.

I still need to work to get things smoother.

Very nice and gave me encouragement with my grappling with chords and harmonies. I'm working on Farewell Manchester which we sang at school in the late 1940s, so the tune is ingrained. Brian Peters does it in various keys on Anglophilia but I'm sticking to C and G for now. Getting the right push and pulls is the challenge.

Do people sort out chords by ear or theory I use guitar chords first to get the sound but don't understand too much about how you choose minors and 7ths, although Roger Digby said at Whitby that Reg hall said 7ths had no real place in trad music.
Any help welcome

Again, thanks for the kind comments. I have sometimes started with the 3 chord trick, but tend to let my ears rule my head, if you see what I mean!

As for your comment on 7ths, it very much depends - purists would never use a 7th, but they can add to a performance no end in my opinion. If you are being really puritanical, we should all be performing unaccompanied folk songs and shanties and so need to kick our beloved angos into the long grass (never!!!!).

I like the sentiments of Martin Carthy in his 'Working with Folksong' essay in The Folk Handbook (available from EFDSS). "We, my generaion of instrumentalists, found a way of arranging traditional folk song. But that can't be the only way....You can't hurt this music. That's the most important thing. There's nothing you can do that is going to hurt it."

Without this attitude we wouldn't have the breath of fresh air that is Bellowhead or the Imagined Village or countless others.

OK Carl; I play duet and have no idea about the particular technical problems of the Anglo, but, since you asked, I listened to your pieces and I thought Linden lea will be very pretty indeed when you've got it smoother. (I think you already know that). You've done the hard work, the notes are all there, now you have to make it soulful. It's already pleasant to listen to, so congratulations.

I was less interested in the Bonny At Morn arrangement, it was rather plain fare for my taste, very much the three chord trick (sorry!). Some nice handling came across though; the delicacy on the high notes and the vibrato (or was that video nerves?). You do seem to close notes off with a last little trumpet at times and I didn't think it was needed here. (are you preparing yourself for a bellows change at these points?)

Any use?

Hi Carl,

Well; it all seems to be coming along nicely, and I found your videos before realising that you had posted this topic!

I "played around" with Linden Lea, some years ago (like you, it was a tune in my head). I tried it on Anglo, English and Duet, and decided that it sounded best on Duet (although a more proficient English player would make it sound equally good!).

So; seeing your video, I asked myself why it sounded better on the other systems. I concluded that since I play primarily dance music, and get "bounce" into my playing, this might not be the best approach to a song melody (ok - poem set to music!).

Picking up the Anglo, and playing "Linden Lea", I find that my natural inclination is to play in exactly the fashion which you have demonstrated; so it sounds pretty similar. Whilst it would require work, utilising some of the repeated notes on the "accidental" row, and the overlap between right and left hand, would smooth out some of the passages (i.e. remove some of the bellows reversals). This might mean having to re-think the left hand accompaniment, but I think it would be an interesting exercise, since whatever you learn could be applied to other tunes or song melodies.

Regards,
Peter.

PS - wish I had made that much progress after a year!

Very useful, thanks - yes, the accentuation is (I think!) due to bellows change - will go back and try to smooth the transition.

The vibrato was intentional (but not as controlled as it should be).

Thanks again,
Carl

Hi Peter,

Thanks - your advice makes perfect sense, I think that I went for the 'quick fix' using familiar fingerings with supporting harmony. Changing the fingering to reduce bellows change will be an interesting thing to do - I don't feel very familiar with the accidental row yet, so this should help me find my way around it.

Thanks for the advice,
Carl