Aaron Bittel

The NorthEast Squeeze-In is looking for applicants for its Young Player Award. As noted above, this is a scholarship-type award to fund attendance at the upcoming Squeeze-In event, September 20-22, 2024 at Wisdom House in Litchfield, CT, USA. Applications are due June 30th. Do you know a concertina or accordion (any type) player under the age of 26? Then please share the attached flyer with that person! Are you a concertina or accordion player under the age of 26? Then consider putting in an application. (And even if you don't apply for the award, we hope you'll join us at the next Squeeze-In!) David said it before, but it's worth repeating: Commitment to becoming a better player is the primary criterion for selection. Advanced proficiency on the applicant’s instrument is not required. The YOUNG PLAYER AWARD offers FREE registration, lodging and meals to a young player who demonstrates a growing interest and engagement in music with a free-reed instrument. If the player is under 18, expenses of an accompanying adult are also covered. The applicant must: be 25 or under by Sept. 1 of the year of the NESI event for which the award is given; be a player of concertina, button accordion, or piano accordion; be identified in writing by a teacher or other adult free-reed player as serious about their advancement as a player of their instrument; if under 18, be accompanied to the event by a responsible adult who will remain on site for the duration of the event. More information and an application form can be found at: https://www.squeeze-in.org/YoungPlayer.html QUESTIONS? lynnh1947@gmail.com Young_Player_flyer_web.pdf

Yes, an interesting question! Here's my take. Initially, I limited myself to playing the core 30 buttons on my 40-button, but in the past few years I've really tried to push myself to get familiar with the entire keyboard, by playing in different keys, playing more chromatic music, exploring all sorts of complex harmonies. That said, the two buttons I pretty much never find any use for are those two bottom buttons on the right hand, hanging out by themselves. I would use the push D#5, except that on my instrument that note is repeated in place of the push F#5 on the top row -- which I only recently realized is non-standard, but turns out to be really handy. Kind of a little Jeffries-ization of an otherwise standard Wheatstone layout. I do sometimes wish I had that push F#5 somewhere, although I manage to get by without it. I've thought of having one put in where the D#5 is on the bottom button, effectively swapping those two notes from the standard layout. Otherwise, I don't have much need for a third pull A4, or a second push D5/pull E5, both in places that are hard to reach. But then I'm totally happy to have the melody bouncing back and forth between hands and work my accompaniment around that. If I played in a strictly right hand melody/left hand accompaniment way, I might feel differently about it. Like both of you, I wouldn't want to lose the pull D6. Believe it or not, I've occasionally found a use for the push C7, but I can't say I'd miss it that much if I didn't have it. I didn't use Bb5/G#5 all that much until recently, but now that I'm spending more time exploring the flat keys I find it kind of essential. So, I think my use case is sort of the inverse of Richard's... I like to play in lots of keys (or at least try to, can't say that I'm that good at it yet), but I'm not that concerned with minimizing bellows changes. And so in that case, I could easily lose the two bottom buttons. - Aaron

Sorry to have started the topic and then abandoned it -- it's been a busy few days! Adrian, thanks for writing out those examples. Personally, I find the treble-treble version easier to read, but I take your point about ledger lines. The treble-bass version, with both staves an octave down, throws me for a loop at first (especially the right hand) but I'm sure I could get used to it pretty quickly. From the examples and for all the reasons you mentioned, I can see why tablature would make sense for notating a part that's more of a realization, even if I personally still find the staff notation (either version) easier to process. But as you say, I was really thinking of music with two or three independent voices in counterpoint. (And yeah, four would be a real challenge, both to write and to read!) Meanwhile, the discussion of notating improvised/extemporized left hand parts is interesting, and is probably much more familiar territory for most concertina players, especially anglo players -- myself included! But that's really a different case than, say, Bach two-part inventions arranged for concertina. Has anyone here tried something like that? - Aaron

OK, you're right, I did misunderstand. The 8vb treble clef displays pitches an octave higher than they sound (the tenor in your example sings at the same pitch as the alto). That makes more sense for what Steve is doing, using it on the lower staff for G/D anglo, because otherwise the notes would display on several ledger lines below the staff. And now that I re-read your original post, Don, I see that's what you were suggesting too. And that definitely makes sense if the left hand is playing more in the bottom octave, at the expense of putting the highest notes on the left hand (on a C/G anglo anyway) way above the staff. A G/D wouldn't have that problem, I guess. It's all trade-offs!

I think that's a quirk of MuseScore -- it seems to use the transposed clefs in the opposite way, so I just went with that. (When I tried to switch to the treble 8vb clef it showed the pitches above the staff!) But yeah, the way you show it is the way I would normally expect it to be written. No kidding! 🪱 🪱 🪱 🪱🥫

Apart from the fact that it would be a lot of work to do all those transcriptions, my point is exactly that I'd rather be able to decide, for example, which G works best in this phrase, rather than seeing a 2a with a line over it and having to look that up on a diagram to figure out that that refers to the note G on top of the staff, before I can then decide what I want to do with it on my instrument. (Better yet would be to have both, which if I recall is how the melody line is handled in Adrian's book.) But you're right that if I'm playing a 30- or 40-button Wheatstone layout, and the tablature is for 30-button Wheatstone layout, and all I want to do is reproduce the the notes (and have recommendations for the best way to do it within those core 30 buttons -- which is definitely valuable; I don't want to minimize that!) without exploring my other options... then yeah, learning tablature is the most efficient way to go. And I understand now why Gary and Adrian would have decided that this represented the widest market for the results of all their time and effort. I just think that there's another, untapped, market represented by the first case. But I reserve the right to be totally wrong about that. - Aaron

Are you thinking of C#/D? C/C# is an older system that is much rarer these days, and in Irish music it's almost always played as a transposing box (e.g. using B/C fingering but sounding a half step higher -- an "Eb box" in Irish terms).

I went in the other direction, too. I think what I really wanted was an anglo concertina, but a cheap one-voice B/C accordion was what I could find locally that was affordable, so I started there. Pretty soon of course I needed to upgrade, and by then I knew I liked playing button accordion. I ended up with a less-cheap but very reliable C#/D, again because it was affordable and available. I don't remember the switch from B/C to C#/D being terrible, but then I didn't have that much to relearn. I played that C#/D for several years until I eventually took the plunge on anglo. That felt like starting over completely, although I suppose the basic kinetic knowledge of push-pull patterns and row crossing carried over, but that was about it. The most challenging thing, which still sometimes trips me up when I switch from one to the other, is that on the C#/D the D chord is on the push, while on anglo it's on the pull. (And the way I play anglo, I tend to play pull Ds more than push Ds, but that's another story.) So if I go from playing a reel in D on one to a reel in D on the other, it feels like my patterns have just been turned inside-out, if that makes sense. Finally, a few years ago I really got into Québécois music and switched my C#/D for a D/C#. That transition was more or less instantaneous and painless, and in many ways D/C# feels more intuitive because the accidentals are on the inside row, like on a piano, or an anglo. But I still sometimes get tripped up switching between accordion and anglo, especially if it's not a well-practiced tune on both. I've done a lot of listening to players of different button accordion systems, and like you, Jack, I don't hear much that recommends one over the others. Personally, I think the "B/C smooth, C#/D punchy" comparison is oversold. A good B/C player plays with plenty of punch when they want to, and a good C#/D player can play smoothly. And once you get into other keys, there's less difference anyway: G major fingering on a B/C is A major fingering on a C#/D, and E minor fingering on C#/D is D minor fingering on B/C. I've heard it said that you play a D/C# if you want to sound like Joe Derrane, but I think the thing that made Joe Derrane sound like Joe Derrane was... that he was Joe Derrane! What I hear in his playing is, I suppose, the result of starting on melodeon before switching to piano accordion for several decades. Impressive, but I have no desire to play that way, and I don't think I do. If I were starting over on box, coming from anglo, I'd probably pick B/C since those scale patterns (in D and G anyway) seem a little more similar to each other. But I wouldn't expect too much skill transfer. (Actually, I'd probably pick C/B since accidentals-on-the-inside-row makes so much sense to me... but that wasn't one of your options!) - Aaron

You're right, I should have included "none" and "other" options. Actually, I had "none" in there originally, and then when I filled out the poll for myself I saw that it included its own "all" and "none" options, so I took out mine since I thought it was redundant, and of course now it's no longer editable. Oops. If I'm understanding right, that was Steve's suggestion too. Here's what that would look like for comparison: Definitely much friendlier to read!

Good question. I should have included examples! All of the following show the same pitches. The upper staff/voice is for the right hand, and the lower staff/voice is for the left. 1. Single staff, different voices indicated by stem direction 2. Two treble staves, notes at sounding pitch 3. One treble and one bass staff, notes at sounding pitch (bass goes into the ledger lines) 4. One treble staff at pitch, one bass staff notated an octave below pitch (not so many ledger lines)

In another discussion, I expressed pretty strong surprise that Adrian Brown's book of Renaissance polyphonic arrangements for anglo, A Garden of Dainty Delights, puts only the melody line in staff notation, while all of the accompaniment is written (along with the melody) in Coover-system tablature. I was surprised mostly because I suppose that the cohort of concertina players who would be interested in, and capable of, tackling Renaissance polyphony on concertina would overlap pretty heavily with those who know how to read staff notation and know where the notes are on their instruments; whereas folks who only read tablature for anglo would be relatively less likely to attempt this kind of music in the first place. So even though my own use case would be playing on a 40-button anglo, staff notation would be equally accessible on 30-, 34-, 39-, and 50-button anglos, as well as, hypothetically, any duet system.* Well, I realize that unfortunately I don't (yet) have the data to back this assertion up, however intuitive it might be to me. To atone for my sins, I am putting the question out to you all: if you play any kind of polyphonic music any kind of concertina, what kind of notation system, if any, makes the most sense for you? This isn't specific to Renaissance music, or broader "classical" music -- it could include anything with more than one musical part happening simultaneously, where those parts would normally be written out somehow. - Aaron * I would assume grand staff notation, with a staff for each hand or each voice, totally falls down for English system players. But maybe I'm wrong about that?

Maybe I should clarify why, and why I think a grand staff version might be worth doing. Tablature is, by design, specific to one instrument -- and when we're talking concertinas, that's one layout among many. Staff notation is far from universal, but its strength (once you know how to read it) is that it's transferable -- you don't have to have a specific layout, you just have to know where the notes are on your particular instrument. My argument is that the cohort of concertina players who would be interested in, and capable of, tackling Renaissance polyphony on concertina would overlap pretty heavily with those who know how to read staff notation and know where the notes are on their instruments; whereas folks who only read tablature for anglo would be relatively less likely to attempt this kind of music in the first place. So even though my own use case would be playing on a 40-button anglo, staff notation would be equally accessible on 30-, 34-, 39-, and 50-button anglos, as well as, hypothetically, any duet system. (This obviously totally falls down for English system players, though!) I realize now that I don't actually have the data to back this assertion up, however intuitive it might be to me, and I'm grateful that Adrian and Gary are willing to consider it despite that. (Especially since "It's already a tiny micro sub-niche musical market!") So maybe it's on me to start a separate thread to try to gather some of that data. And to apologize to Martin for hijacking his thread! At the risk of taking things even further off topic: I'm not sure what you mean by this, but people read directly from staff notation on all kinds of instruments all the time, and whole choirs sing from it too. Granted just as many (probably more) outstanding musicians don't read staff notation, but that's not because it doesn't happen to correlate visually with their instrument of choice. - Aaron

Thanks for explaining that, Adrian. Of course it makes sense that folks would expect it to be laid out like Gary's other books. I was looking at it with the assumption that anyone who would be interested in learning Renaissance polyphony would already be pretty comfortable with staff notation, but not necessarily tablature, which is why I was surprised. But maybe I made the mistake of extrapolating my own situation out to an imaginary audience. It sounds like I was also imagining more complexity than there necessarily is. I'm somewhat familiar with Renaissance polyphony as a singer, much less as an instrumentalist (even though I'm primarily an instrumentalist.) Although I'd be comfortable with RH on treble clef and LH on bass, what makes most sense in my mind is two treble clefs, both notated at sounding pitch. That's what's in Gary's new edition of Alan Lochhead's Summer Symphony, for example, and it's how I tend to notate things myself. But I realize that may not work for everyone. Flipping through a couple of the recent Concertina World music supplements for duet, they all seem to be notated with the LH on the bass clef. I'd be happy either way! Of course! I realize it would be a lot of work. Hopefully some other folks will chime in so that it's not just me and my imaginary audience clamoring away. :) Yes, I'm pretty sure it's part of the standard pattern (middle row, adjacent to C/B).

One other thing, going back to the original question: I noticed that in the introduction to the book, Adrian says he plays the Jeffries 38-button system. Not to muddy the waters for you, but maybe that's a point (or ten) in favor of Jeffries?

Adrian's playing and arrangements are incredible, definitely a model for what can be done with classical music on an anglo. But one thing about that book to be aware of, which is not apparent from the Amazon preview, is that only the melodies are transcribed in standard notation. Adrian's realizations -- the harmonies, inner voices, etc. -- are transcribed in Coover system tablature only. I can't fathom why it was done this way, since it's not exactly beginner-level material, and the fact that the tablature is for 30/31-button layouts means you can't even really glean anything about the phrasings or fingerings Adrian uses. To play it (assuming you're using a >30-button instrument and want to make use of the extra buttons) you'd first have to learn to read Coover notation, transcribe it into standard notation, and then from there work out your own arrangements on your own instrument. Although that might be a valuable exercise in itself... (As an aside, I wonder if Gary would ever consider publishing a new edition with the realizations in standard notation, alongside the tab. I'd buy that in an instant, and I'd be excited to work my way through it.)

Glad all that was helpful! I'll just add one thing -- you're probably already aware of this but just in case: I've heard there tends to be more layout variation among >30 button anglos, although my own seems to follow the "standard" Wheatstone 40 layout except for that Jeffries-style D#/C#. Amen! Although I'd say it's more rational to attempt to play chromatic music on a mostly-chromatic instrument, than to spend big bucks on one only to insist that it only works in two keys. 🤷‍♂️ But that's just me. I figure if I paid for the buttons, I'm going to use them. Just don't go saying that a 30+ anglo is playable in any key, or that it's even possible to play atonal music on one. Folks around here might lose their minds.

I am an anglo player, and although it's not my main interest I do occasionally play classical music on both 30-button and 40-button Wheatstone-layout instruments. One major advantage of the 30-button Wheatstone layout is that it's fully chromatic from A3 to G6, i.e. almost the exact same range as a treble English. (And if you include the G3, it covers the same range save for the low G#, not to mention the extras below and above.) The chromatic range of 30-button Jeffries instruments, near as I can tell, tops out around D6 or E6. Those extra high notes on the Wheatstone, while not often used in trad music, can be really useful in classical if you're playing from violin or flute parts. Another possible advantage is that the Wheatstone has more duplicated (in the opposite direction) Gs and As, and I find those notes really useful as pivot points to keep my fingers from getting tied up in knots. They're also more likely to be needed in the chords that come up in the friendlier keys, say three flats to three sharps. What the 40-button layout gets you, it's often pointed out, is more choice, both for chords (full or partial) but also for melodic phrasing -- and if you're really good at it, which I'm not, counterpoint. In the case of my 40-button instrument, it includes the Jeffries-style "reversed" left hand D#/C# button adjacent to the C#/D#, but because it's on the added column (relative to 30-button) it doesn't break the Wheatstone pattern with those Gs and As I mentioned, meaning I get the best of both worlds. Finally I'll say that I got my 40-button instrument through a combination of luck and being willing to take a chance on a lesser-known entity, in my case on a South African instrument made by Koot Brits. Because 40-button anglos are relatively more plentiful there, and because they fall outside the range of coveted names that command top dollar in the global market, they can be found for only a little more than the cost of a decent 30-button accordion-reeded instrument... or at least they could when I got mine. I've never regretted the choice, and it's still my "desert island" instrument.

Gosh Randy, thanks. That piece (Janus Dance) is an unusual case for me, because it was written as an experiment in using the Anglo's strong suits (open fourths and fifths, parallel octaves, wide harmonies spread over several octaves) in a non-tonal context. Yes, it was very intentional, but I don't want to hijack the thread by getting into that here, since it sounds like we're really talking about arranging accompaniments to existing tunes. As Jim knows, when I'm playing trad tunes on Anglo I don't tend to create the same sort of chordal arrangements that he or Jody, or Randy on EC, do, although I still try to play to what I think are the instrument's strengths. In Bertram Levy's American Fiddle Styles for Anglo Concertina he goes into a fair amount of detail about his process for creating the arrangements in that book -- an approach he says he learned from his bandoneon studies. I believe you can hear the same approach on his two most recent concertina albums, too. The process he describes is quite methodical and centers around phrasing, ergonomics (especially hand positions), and emulating specific stylistic elements of old time fiddle and banjo playing, mainly in service of the rhythm. I should do more of that in my own playing but I'm generally just not patient enough.

Someone more knowledgeable may correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you'll need to provide them with a list of the reeds you need, by reed number (the row labeled ID). Unless someone already has this list handy, I can help you construct it. I had been meaning to get in touch anyway about the learning materials for Boer style you were offering, so I'll send you a private message.