[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

I play ITM on a G/D concertina. I'm very much the learner, but I chose G/D because of some physical limitations I have with the left hand; it's an advantage to me to put more work on the right hand.

 

I find I go to the middle and outside rows a lot on D tunes. I can't help it; it gives me more options for phrasing, air management, and "punch."

 

Oddly, I find that when I borrow a friend's C/G concertina, a lot of work falls on the weak fingers of my LEFT hand, especially the pinkie; maybe I'm doing it wrong? Or perhaps C/G players are so used to it they don't notice, anymore? I certainly don't notice the work my right pinkie does on a G/D anymore, not like when I first started.

 

I find tunes in A and A minor a snap on the G/D; you wouldn't think so, but that's the way it works out.

 

I don't find the tone of my G/D "deeper" or "more sonorous" than that of a C/G, providing I'm playing in the same octave as everyone else. A440 is A440, in my experience. I can see, of course, if a C/G player picks up a G/D concertina and uses the same fingering he or she is accustomed to, the tone will be deeper; he or she will also be in the wrong key, but transposing has it's benefits.

 

If Irish players had originally started with G/D concertinas, I agree that Irish concertina music would sound different than it does today on the C/G. It would still sound "Irish," I think, because a lot of different instruments are used in ITM, and they all sound Irish. That particular "concertina" sound would just be a little different. For G/D to become a standard (like the B/C accordion), or even a secondary standard (like the C#/D accordion), some brilliant player will have to come along (the Joe Cooley of the concertina) and make his or her music on the G/D concertina, and then a lot of new players will ask "what's that sound" and rush out and buy G/D concertinas. That's what happened with the banjo, guitar, and bouzouki, and it could happen to the G/D concertina, but it's not necessary, in my opinion, since the C/G is doing so nicely for so many.

 

If you want to play ITM, I recommend getting a C/G concertina. You'll have more resources available to you for learning, as others have mentioned. If you have a physical limitation, like me, or a G/D is the best instrument available to you, go for it. In the end, I believe music is in the head and heart, not the equipment.

 

If you want to play ITM on a G/D concertina, you certainly can. Whether you can play it brilliantly it totally up to you.

 

Thanks a lot mutt. Your experience and info will be very valuable for my decision.

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

True -- and the G/D, unlike the 30-button C/G, also has the low F# in both directions.

 

I think that you will probably do ok with either a C/G or a G/D. Your best bet in making a decision might be to try to get the opportunity to try both out, though I realize that geography may make that difficult for you.

 

Thanks for your input Daniel. My decision is becoming difficult

This "strong fingers" thing might be an issue... but on the other hand we have our fingers in a fixed place (almost) all the time.

True about that high A. But instead we would have the low E on the pull... which we don't have in the C/G, do we?

 

Yes, geography is a problem for me. But I have a cheap C/G at home and I can practice both systems in it alone to help with my decision.

Thanks for all the info!

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

And I'm US-based, in contact with lots of serious ITM players though they're mostly not Irish people. I play both C/G and G/D. I play lots of Irish tunes but don't use the "official" fingering system.

 

I think that it's quite possible to play ITM outside the "system" in a way that sounds perfectly acceptable to ITM players who play non-concertina instruments. It's only the concertina players (especially the disciples of Noel Hill) who think that other approaches don't sound like true ITM, though they'll usually make exceptions for players like Kitty Hayes and Mary McNamara who are too solidly grounded in the tradition to dismiss. I don't know if this rather constricted approach to the "right" way to play applies to any other ITM instruments -- certainly Irish fiddle players, for example, use a huge variety of approaches to their instrument and so far as I know this is not seen as a problem.

 

On the issue of C/G vs. G/D, there's no intrinsic reason why a G/D won't work for ITM. It's even possible to play a G/D using the "system" -- it's comparable to just playing a tune in a different key on a C/G. (A D tune, for example, could be fingered on a G/D exactly as it would be if it were played on a C/G and transposed up a fourth to the key of G.) There's a fine ITM concertina player in my area, Sabra Daly, who plays a 26-button G/D and sounds great, though I don't know whether she uses the "system".

 

I mainly play my Irish tunes on a C/G, because I only played C/G during the decades that I was learning most of the Irish tunes that I know. I have tried playing some Irish tunes on my G/D too and I enjoy it, especially for the easier left-hand chording possibilities. The main problem I've run into is the one that Graham mentions below -- there are some limitations at the high end, both because one uses the weaker fingers up there and because the high A on a 30-button G/D is only available on the push.

 

Daniel

 

Thanks for your input Daniel. My decision is becoming difficult

This "strong fingers" thing might be an issue... but on the other hand we have our fingers in a fixed place (almost) all the time.

True about that high A. But instead we would have the low E on the pull... which we don't have in the C/G, do we?

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

Hi Cesar,

I'm not irish and probably as isolated as you from other concertina players.

When starting I asked myself the same question... Eventually I purchased both

a C/G and a G/D.

I think both are perfectly suitable for irish music but will result in a different style.

 

With the C/G you are able to play most of the melody with the left hand, leaving your

right hand free for playing complicated ornementation. This has lead to the very ornemented

style currently favorised by most players. I also beleive this is one of the reasons Noel Hill

eventually returned to C/G.

 

With the G/D you will be playing essentially along the row, resulting in a more "vintage" style

(like Kitty Hayes, Mary McNamara, etc..). As someone has pointed out those "elder" players took

the habit to play in C instead of D because the most availible instruments were C/G 20b.

with a G/D when playing this style along the inner row you will end up playing in D which

is the standart session key in most places.

 

As for the difficulty, I actually think it is simpler to play in D "along the row" on

a G/D that with a cross-row "system" on a C/G. The main reason is that you have a "natural"

fingering that will work in ALL situations. On the other hand with cross-row systems

there are always cases where you will have to depart from the "system" to avoid playing

two consecutive buttons with the same finger.

 

Finally, if you consider playing other things than Irish and you are interested by chorded

style, a G/D could be a good choice as well.

 

Having said that, at the moment I play much more the C/G than the G/D for the main reason

that my C/G is a MUCH BETTER instrument (linota versus stagi)

 

David

 

Thanks David. It's exactly this kind of info that I wanted to know.

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

That's exactly what I think. If the available instrument at the time would have been a G/D instead of C/G, likewise, Irish players would have adopted D/G and developed techniques that they would now call ITM. My point being that there doesn't seem to be any particular advantage of C/G for ITM, it's just "the chosen one" for historical reasons and habit.

 

That statement assumes a lot. For example nobody ever had a go on a G/D. (What about the old German concertinas?). That once a system was established everybody put the blinkers on and resisted change (the fact the German concertinas were dumped en masse in favour of the three row Anglo would suggest a different attitude).

 

Yes, I see your point Peter. But there's also no evidence saying that the G/D would NOT have achieved a similar success...

Is there any concrete advantage for playing cross row C/G instead of D row G/D, for ITM tunes?

 

I've seen your videos on YouTube where you play with Kitty Hayes; Is she playing on the D row of a D/G? If yes, did you find anything "bad" in her music that could be attributed to her method of playing? Do you think her choice of method made it more difficult for her to evolve? Or perhaps more easy?

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

I'd say it sounds like you know what you want to do, so go for it! It'll be "different," but it sounds like you're musically knowledgeable enough to figure out and teach yourself the tricks you'll need to play well on a G/D. (Though I'm glad I'm learning on a C/G because I have the benefit of learning from all the techniques that have been developed for playing in G and D on this instrument.)

 

Thanks. Though I'm still not decided... it's a big endeavor

 

There are lots of techniques used on a C/G to do certain parts of certain tunes fast and stylized in a certain kind of way, but I'm sure you'll come up with different techniques that work well for those tunes on a G/D.

 

That's a good point... I guess I would be on my own Nobody would help me

 

One limitation of a G/D that I personally wouldn't like is that it would be more difficult to play in F, while F is one of my favorite keys right now on the C/G. (The patterns for playing in F on the C/G would give you the key of C on the G/D instrument.) Think about how much you like tunes in F before getting a G/D.

 

My main concern with keys is to be able to play the tunes in the keys they are played at the sessions... F is not very common (at least as far as I am aware...)

Thanks.

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

Fairly sure i have this story straight: At concertina Camp we asked Noel Hill about playing ITM on a G/D.

I believe Noel said he spent 5-6 years playing mostly G/D to see where it would take him. I don't remember exactly why he stopped. I recall him saying some of the tunes lay very nicely on a G/D but in the end there was really no clear advantage to it.

 

I'll welcome corroboration or correction of this memory.

 

Greg

 

But was he playing the G/D in the 1st row (D row)? Or he playing it in the usual way as if it was a transposed C/G (meaning that tunes in D become tunes in A and tunes in G become tunes in D)?

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

I believe that the C/G was adopted by Irish players because that is what was available originally. Since then people have done what Peter says and copied what was common practice. Because of the limitations of this way of playing on the particular instrument, some very stylized techniques have been developed (...)

 

That's exactly what I think. If the available instrument at the time would have been a G/D instead of C/G, likewise, Irish players would have adopted D/G and developed techniques that they would now call ITM. My point being that there doesn't seem to be any particular advantage of C/G for ITM, it's just "the chosen one" for historical reasons and habit.

 

If I would now start using a G/D to play ITM, using only the bottom row, the most advanced players (perhaps not so many) would eventually notice that it doesn't sound as they expected. It doesn't sound like what they got used to call ITM. But:

a) It doesn't mean it sounds worse;

It doesn't mean i will not be able to evolve as quickly (perhaps i'll evolve even more quickly).

 

Do you also think like this?

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

Anyhow, as I see it, the first choice you'll have to make is finding an answer to the following: do you want to go out and re-invent the wheel or would you build on the experience and expertise of thousands of players that chose one system over the other?

 

Boxer. The question you suggest is also very relevant. But before deciding upon that, first I would like to find an answer to my original question.

[Is C/G Anglo actually better than G/D for ITM?]

Hi everybody.

I am new to these forums so first let me introduce myself. I am a whistler for almost 4 years (as a hobby), I love and play ITM as often as I can here in Portugal. Recently I have also grown an interest for the anglo concertina and have been gathering a lot of info and studying the potential of this amazing instrument.

 

I have posted the following text on thesession.org but I guess here is where I may find a bigger quantity of experts

 

MY POST IS:

 

I know that it is not new to ask whether I can use G/D for Irish music, instead of C/G. But what if we don't use "the system"?

 

Consider the following situation:

- A begginer in anglo concertina (so not yet used to "the system" which means there is no difficulty in changing to another fingering)

- Wanting to play mostly Irish tunes in the keys of D and G

 

In what way playing a C/G according to "the system" is better than playing a G/D using a more "single row" fingering?

 

I have seen people saying that with G/D I have one of the following problems: a) either i am playing lower notes and may not be heard during a session or to play in the same octave as others I am playing almost everything with my right hand.

 

But this is not true if I don't use "the system" way of fingering!

 

Consider this diagram that is useful to reference which octave I am talking about:

http://www.concertina.net/ms_finger_layouts.html

 

The majority of irish tunes I know are in D and G, and range from note D2 up to B3 (see diagram).

 

With a C/G concertina we typically use "the system" by playing cross row. We play D2,E2,F#2,G2,A2 on the left side and B2,C3/C#3,D3,E3,F#3,G3,A3,B3 on the right side. That's 5 notes on the left and 8 notes on the right.

 

Now with a D/G concertina I can simply use the bottom (D) row (and one button from middle (G) row if I need the Cnat for the key of G). I play D2,E2,F#2,G2,A2,B2 on the left side and C3/C#3,D3,E3,F#3,G3,A3,B3 on the right side. That's 6 notes on the left and 7 notes on the right.

 

So this means that I can play the most common keys and notes in irish music in the same octave as usual (not lower notes) and I don't play more with my right hand (on the contrary, there is one more note on the left).

 

Moreover, if I want to sometimes play ALL notes on the draw (pull), I notice that all the notes I mentioned above (from D2 to B3) are available on the draw (pull) except for one: A3. I think in a C/G I dont even have so many notes available in that direction.

 

Given this situation, in what is a C/G system better if I want to play just in the keys of D and G? Can someone tell me? I searched all threads here and in concertina.net and I cannot find a reason for prefering C/G system either than historical reasons or habit.

 

Please tell me what am I not seeing right.

Thanks.

Cesar