david fabre

The M O'R recording is amazing, thanks for posting it ! However he is playing the tune in D, so probably not using the "old style" which is more suited to C. Unless he is playing a D/A ; maybe you remember. As Dan pointed playin in octave in D on a C/G is much more awkward. On his website, A.C.Norman is proposing a 20 button, double-reeded, 7inch instrument. I don't know if is octave-tuned or tremolo-tuned ("organ" or "celestial", to follow the old nomenclature). If I had money to spend on another couple of concertinas, one of them would certainly be one of these in D/A tuning, to experiment with playing the "old" style in the "modern" key.

I also have difficulties to follow you... translating from G/D to C/G and vice-versa is a bit brain-knotting. I was thinking about the extra button you just described on your G/D, at the bottom of the left top row (position 0a). I understand for the pull low A, which is the equivalent for C/G of the low D that we are discussing from the beginning, but I was questionning the utility of the push C you choose to put on the same button (would be F for C/G). Do you use it ? About Suttner's vs yours : buttons 1a and 2a on the right are actually consistent (but Suttner uses pull/push convention...). The difference I noticed are : 1/ right, extra button at bottom of middle row (position 1') Suttner indicates g# on pull (which for G/D would be d#) while you indicate E ; 2/ left, extra button at top of middle row (position 5') Suttner indicates b on push (which for G/D would be f#) while you indicate f. I think Suttner's chart is eroneous for the latter point as b is already present on the left. I see you point for the possibilities of "sliding up" from the note a half step below. On my instrument I have a push eb but the position does not make sliding up to e that easy. David

Thanks Jody for precisions. About your extra C/A button, do you use a lot the C ? I was thinking a C#, or D#, (which are both missing) could be more useful. Right. I would add a third one : pull E (on C/G ; for G/D translate into : pull B ). Personnally, I find this one even more useful than pull C (or G). On both my instruments, I have put this note on the third button of accidental row (3a). On the C/G 40b the initial note (D#) was displaced somewhere else. On the G/D stagi the initial A# was lost (compromise...) I use this note a lot in chords and find it very handy at that position. I see you have this note with the jeffries 38b, and the location also seems practical. If you want to have a look, the layouts of my instruments are on myspace : http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=493448799&albumId=234280 Not even sure : There is a layout for a 38b jeffries on Suttner's website and it slightly deviates with yours ( for buttons 5' and 11') Bandoneon players have tried to design a "logical" way of numbering their buttons. The result is all but logical... (see there : http://www.inorg.chem.ethz.ch/tango/pic/pdf/AA_142.pdf )

About the duplicated c# on the left : I have it on my instrument at the same position. I once used it quite ofen. Recently, I've modified my layout to have c# in both directions on the right on the same button (as in your project). Now I find myself using much less the one on the left. About the cross-row style : I've precised my views on the other thread.

I think we're all missing one important point : we're constantly opposing playing "on the rows" versus "across the row". But from a historical point of view the real distinction should be between "playing in the home keys" and "playing outside of the home keys". Playing in the home keys means playing in C or G on a C/G instrument. This is of course the only possibility on a two-row instrument. But this does not mean playing only along the rows. As Dan Whorall showed in his excellent book, during the heyday of the anglo-german concertina, the dominant style in ireland was not along-the-row, but a cross-row, double octave style. And I guess that at that time, many of the 3500 tunes in D that I mentionned before were very likely played in the key of C. And those musicians did not care much about which key they were playing in, as at this time a single concertina would often play alone for dancers. In some parts of Clare, players like Mary McNamara or the late Kitty Hayes have continued this tradition of playing in C some tunes that are generally played in D elsewhere. I beleive that those players (especially Mary McNamara) do not play strictly along the row, but also use quite a lot of cross-rowing to smoothen some passages. I know there are also a few players who play the D/A. I'd be curious to know if they play only along the row or if they also use some cross-row in the way I'm describing. On the other hand, when playing "outside of the home keys" (for example playing in D or A on a C/G as you all seem to favor), cross-rowing is the ONLY solution. I think the real historical accident was that at one time, players wanted to play with others musicians for sessions (instead of playing alone for dancers as in the former period), with the instruments thay had at disposal (C/G), which were not designed to be played in the keys imposed by other musicians (such as D and A). I do not deny that Irish musicians have soved this puzzle very brillantly (especially Noel Hill). I'm just wondering why there are not more musicians who have chosen the first approach. To me, playing in home keys (for instance in D on a D/A) seems to offer just as many possibilities for smoothing and ornementation compared to playing a C/G a la Noel Hill, with, in addition, the existence of a "natural" along-the-row fingering for the key of D which works in ANY situations. This seems to me a big advantage over the C/G for which there is NO such universal fingering. Learning on this system would be a lot easier, as you can begin with the natural fingering and progressively explore other possibilities. On the other hand, on C/G, you have to jump directly among in the three rows.

Where did you get this 48%? Some D tunes don't have C#, so you'd also need a filter on individual notes to get an accurate stats... Those tunes without the C# are actually in "Dmixolydian" and I've counted them in the "1 sharp" category. The distinction between major and mixolydian is often subtle, as some tunes have both C and C# ; as is the one between minor and dorian. And to complicate you have those pentatonic and hexatonic that are do not fit in the classification... So the statistics have, of course, to be taken as indicative. Well, I don't really agree with this. I mean, in theory, yes, but in real life, even players like Mary Bergin will use a 'C' whistle or other keys to play some tunes that don't directly fit on a 'D' whistle, even if the notes don't go below. It's doable, but not done as well. The lower notes, you can 'simply' transpose to the higher octave, although the effect won't always be that great. My former teacher Jacob Fournel (one of the best whistlers in france) commonly plays in keys such as A, Dminor, Gminor, etc... He also plays jazz in a chromatic way on the whistle. Hear him there : http://www.myspace.com/jacobfournel

A two-row C/G can play 48% of the repertoire. A two-row G/D can play 80% of the repertoire. A two-row D/A can play 47% of the repertoire. A good whistler can play about 100% of the repertoire. The main problem is not the accidentals, which can be obtained with half-holing, but the tunes going lower than D...

The style played by, for instance, John Kirkpatrick, Jody Kruskal, Brian Peter. Something foreigner from the irish world. Well, I do play Irish Music, and I have experimented with both cross-row style (but not Noel Hill system as I'm not initiated to it), and along-the-row style (like for instance Mary McNamara). I see benefits to both approaches, but I'm still wondering why the first one is favoured by most players. What I'm sure is that the cross-row is more difficult to learn than the along-the-row style : I've experimented with transposing some tunes in D or Emin one step down and the fingering is definitely simpler. The drawback of along-the-row is, of course, that you can't play in D on a C/G, so you have either to play alone, to get a G/D or D/A, or go to a "C" session (I know there are such things in Ireland, but not in may area).

I have been thinking about the lack of a low D on the C/G for a long time and have come up with a solution that works very well for me. I would not gladly give up my low F as some here suggest, but to get the low D on my 30 button C/G Anglo (A on my G/D) I put it as a draw in button 2a. That's the second from the lowest button in the accidental row of the left hand. That button in the draw (A3 push always) is something of a wild card pitch anyway with my various boxes having differing pitches there. Also, I found that I rarely if ever played draw on that button, but now I do, frequently, because in the harmonic style I favor, that pitch is often needed and the 2a button is in a very good position to play um pa chords with the pitches D1 - D2,A3 on buttons 2a - 3,5. I have been using this alteration for three years now and never once missed the pitch I gave up to get my low D. Perhaps you Irish session players use the pitch of your 2a draw button, but I doubt that you often play melody down there and the "regulator" chording that some of you like would benefit from that fine low D. The Button Box had no trouble replacing that pitch for minimal cost and it sounds great. Thanks Jody for this precision. As far as I'm concerned, I quite often use the Bb on button 2a ; especially for french or breton "sad" tunes in the key of Dminor. For instance, to make a BbMaj7 chords with the notes Bb,F,A on buttons 2a,4,5 (one of my favorite chords). So I would not want to lose that note either. One solution I have thought about is lowering the Bb to D and displacing the Bb on the sixth button of my third row (say, button 5a') where I have a pull C# which I've never used. But this is quite an outrageous thing to do on an old instrument (and Colin Dipper frowned upon me when I talked to him about that). By the way, Jody, I'd be curious to know the full layout you use, as I understand you have done a few other customisations. I have an order for a 40b G/D with A.C. Norman and have not made my mind yet about the layout. Your advice could be quite helpful. Thanks if you can post it ! David

To fix our ideas about the specific question of keys in irish music, I did a little statistics over the 9350 tunes on "thesession.org", which I'm sure all will agree is a good source for session "tunes". Classifying with key signature here is the results : 1 sharp (Gmajor, and related modes: Ador, Emin, Dmix) : 3800 (41% of total) 2 sharps (Dmajor and related modes) : 3659 (39%) 3 sharps (Amajor and related modes) : 722 (8%) No accidentals (Cmajor, etc..) : 654 (7%) 1 flat (Fmajor, etc...) 341 (4%) Other keys : 223 (2%)

Hi, Two other remarks : 1/ You're designing the instrument considering what you are playing now. Are you sure your needs will be the same in 10 years ? If for instance you want to play harmonic style in the key of C, you will have trouble with your layout as the three main chords (C, G, F) are all on the push. 2/ Why not transpose your idea one step up and have a G/D/A ? This seems to me to make much more sense considering what you want to play. You will have to change you approach of the instrument for this, but anyway you are disposed to learn a new system, aren't you ? David

Your idea is interesting. My advice would be : go for it and tell us if it works As Jim, I'd suggest to include the missing notes he pointed (especially the D3). Maybe, if the instrument is not already in construction, you could go up to 36-38 buttons. Or you would have to alter the regularity, but this would go against your fiddle analogy. David

Ross, thanks for these excellent news ! It seems that in this interesting discussion we all agree on the point that Noel should publish his method. So, this should close the debate. I'm sorry to learn that he was stolen the manuscript. Really pathetic. David

I agree that the collection of tunes indicated by m3838 does not correspond to what we call session repertoire. However I beleive his advice make sense for someone (like me) who is not exclusively concerned with irish music but wants to explore the full possibilities of his instrument. In that case it would be a good advice to first learn to play it in the way it was designed to be played, and in a second step in the tortuous way into which irish musicians have deviated it. This one ? (not sure as google was of no help to locate it) http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8476&st=0 Could you please make a digest

Actually an answer to a beginner would be just to use in-the-row fingering and later, when there is a need for smooth passage, or phrasing, or fetching for the F# (for example) from a G row, or fitting the bass/chord on the other side - a beginner will certainly find his way to cross row fingering. Only then specific fingerings will start making sense, because now a not-such-a-beginner will learn that fingering serves secondary role and is adapted and changed as needed. I think this approach makes sense if you begin with learning to play in the key of C, then progressively explore other keys. This is how things are presented in "generalist" methods (for instance B. Levy's one). However, beginners who want to learn the Irish style want to play directly in the key of D, for which there is no natural solution on a C/G instrument. So the issue of fingerings is not at all secondary, as every beginner has to face very early in his learning the puzzle of playing in D, and has to find a solution, either his own or the one taught by some authority. Noel Hill is certainly the one which has the most (if not the best) conceptualised this into a system. I beleive that if history had selected an instrument more suited to playing in D (G/D, D/A or other), or if the concertina had been influential enough to convert other instruments to play in C instead of D (and I beleive it has been the case at least in some parts of Clare County), there would be much less discussion on this forum about fingering systems, if any.

I understand that the agreement in question was on printed material only, but it seems to me that it has been interpreted in a more restrictive way by pupils who signed it. I've been watching this forum for a few year now, and I have observed several times that when a beginner showed up and asked "hey, could somebody explain me Noel Hill's cross-row system ?" He would get only vague and embarrassed answers, and would be warmly advised to go to a workshop to learn directly from the master. So, "non-initiated" persons were reduced to conjectures about this system. Hence the atmosphere of "secret" I was evoking in my earlier post. The fact that NH made no objections of your publishing of the article shows that this idea of "keeping the secret" about his methods is certainly a myth. The reasons of your choice to remove it were clearly and honestly explained at the beginning of this thread. However, a side effect of this removal is that it can be interpreted as a come-back of the "secret", as a beginner asking about NH's system is no longer able to get a simple anwer to this question.

Missed ! Maybe I'll try my chance again after hearing the CD another dozen of times... David

Hi Jody, For the "cool tunes"CD, after listening a lot to it I'd bet that most of the tracks are with the Dipper, but at least the first one is with the Jeffries. It sounds a little more "rugged" and less round than the others. Am I right ???

I had a look on the russian article : it definitely deals with the elastic vibrations of free reeds without mention to an air flow. So I think Dana's explanation is right and explains the misunderstanding : when vibrating on its own a free reed will produce an irregular spectrum, but when excited by a flow in a real instrument it displays a regular series of harmonics. Since we are again discussing about consonant/dissonant intervals I will again advertise for Helmhlotz' monumental book. Helmholtz showed that the impression of dissonance/consonance results from two main factors : (i) matching/mismatching between frequencies of upper partials, and (ii) differential tones, with frequencies corresponding to the difference between those of the main notes, resulting from nonlinear interactions. Point (i) is particularly important for tones with powerful partials up to about the 8th (such as concertina). Point (ii) is also particularly important for free-reed instruments as the nonlinear interaction are intense because the reed are mounted on the same pan. This explains why concertinas are among the less forgiving instrument with respect to consonance of intervals. More about Helmholtz in these former threads : http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8777&view=findpost&p=96165 http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8762&view=findpost&p=86207

Fascinating... I also learned some russian a long time ago but forgot alost everything. I'll have a look at all this stuff to see if I can extract something from it...

So why would I need a low D ? As Mike SW anticipated, mostly for harmonic playing (in bass-chord style, and also for bass runs on accompaniment). For melodic playing (irish or other), as Marien states the large majority of players (and of tunes) don't need to go so low. For Irish style using chords for emphasis, as some players do and as I try to do also, a low D would be more useful than the low F, and if I were to play only Irish music I would definitely do the trade as on Mike Reid's instrument. However, I want to play a variety of things, including tunes with chords in the keys of C and F, and I would miss a lot the low F if I had not it (and also the low Bb, and actually all other bass notes). If I had got my instrument new, I would have requested a low D and a low F# (another missing bass) instead of one of the buttons I use less (for instance the button with Fpush/G#pull, or the one with F#push/C#pull). The construction of the instrument would certainly let some place for two additional big reeds, with enlarging the corresponding chamber. Unfortunately, I was not here in 1907 to specify this, and now I can not do anything without risking to ruin the instrument (and Colin Dipper, who did the renovation, strongly dissuaded me of doing such modifications !) About other instruments having this low D : I remember some of them were discussed recently, but they were enlarged instruments with 42 buttons or more. Also, I beleive Jody Kruskal has a the equivalent of this note (he plays G/D so it is a low A), as I can hear it distinctively on his records. I don't know where this note is located on his instruments. About the "drone" C : I have seldom experimented with using it. As stated above it is not useful with irish tunes as they are rarely in C (however, try it with "the geese in the bog" and "the fisherman's lilt"). It is a more useful with french tunes (bourrées or other). I also sometimes use this button, not as a drone, but to have a C on the pull (for some tunes in C or F). Anyway, I would not trade it for a "drone D" as I got used to playing the D in both directions on their respective buttons. David

Personally, this low D is the note I miss the most. For instruments with 20b or 30b the reason is certainly historical. On the other hand, I can difficultly understand why it is also missing on most instruments with 38 to 40 buttons. Apparently the persons who designed these instrument prefered to duplicate some rare notes (such as G#, C#, D#) to have them in both direction instead of adding much more useful (for me) missing notes such as this low D. When my 40 button Wheatsone was renovated, I made some modifications of the layout, but I found no solution for this low D : I need all the other bass notes, and for the notes I was ready to trade, the gap was to large to be reasonable. David

@ D. Levine : "The only sect is in your own perception." The word "sect" was a bit excessive and provocative... Yes, it is my perception, not based on my experience of NH's courses, as I have not attended any, but on things I have read on this forum and elsewhere. I have not written and don't think that NH considers himself as a guru, but it seems to me that some of his pupils (certainly a minority) are considering him as so.... "Noel doesn't impose silence on his students." I remember reading on this forum, years ago, a person who stated that he could not explain NH's fingering as he had signed an engagement while attending the workshop. Maybe I understand badly; or maybe Noel changed his politics about this. " 2. ...Other excellent players have chosen to write a method -- Then Noel should do the write-up, and profit from it, not me. " I totally agree, and If Noel ever writes a method, I would be first to buy it ! Not to follow slavishly his system, but to study his approach, understand its logic, and compare with other approaches. My point was that if he wrote such a method it would certainly not reduce the attractiveness of his workshops, as not everyone has the opportunity (and funds) to attend a workshop. David

Personnally, I've always been a bit puzzled by the sort of "secret" hanging around NH's technique. I understand that he is making his live on teaching his method, but I wonder if imposing such a secret really brings more pupils to his classes. Do students go there with the hope to "learn the secret fingering" ? To me, it sounds a little bit like being initiated into a sect, if you see what I mean. Other excellent players have chosen to write a method to divulgate their technique, and I don't think this dissuades people from going to workshops when they have the opportunity. David

Ardie, I am a bit confused by your arguments : [since free reeds produce more irregular/disharmonic overtones than harmonic ones...] I've always thought that instruments in which sound is continuously excited (bowed strings and wind instruments, including free reeds) produce only pure harmonical overtones due to phase-locking of the partials, contrary to hammered or plucked ones that generally contain disharmonical overtones. On the other hand, if two notes are sounded simultaneously, additional tones are produced due to nonlinear interaction (in particular the so-called "differential tones" ) and with equally-tempered instrument these tones are non-harmonic. Is that what you have in mind ? [i think this may be experienced when playing in the top octaves of concertinas where despite the tone being a bit squeaky harmonies as such may seem more "pure" than in the lower octaves. ] My perception is opposite : I think that thirds are worse in the extreme upper range than in the middle range (at least on an equally tempered instrument like mine). As you say, the upper partials are less perceptible, but the differential tones have frequencies in the middle range of the instrument and are particularly apparent. You can verify by yourself : if you sound simultaneously c'-e' at the top of the C row, the corresponding differential tone is about midway between C and C#, and can easily be heard (especially if you sound a C before the chord to help localise the differential tone) David