Why I Think Unaccompanied Solo Violin Music Is Unsuitable For The Conc

[Dirge]

WOODEN ORGAN

this thread is heading for a record no. of posts so I cant remember accurately if somone mentioned about an organ sounding 'wooden'. wot abaht this old piece which for me is one of the best smooth swinger toons from deep bass right up. Has a great effect particularly when u have a long line of people processing in step... they start to sway with the waves from the organ.

 

I wonder whether a 48 or 56 button job could not also do the business with this = with some powerful elec amplification of course. Or adding person with a bass tina to do the organ pedals?

 

wotever, it's great to listen to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIhgutjHOmU

 

PS I desperately want to hear but cant get Njurkowski's Vivaldi to load -- http://www.rowlhouse.co.uk/cello/VivaldiAm.mp3

Oh hello! I thought we'd probably driven everyone else away and there were just four of us left; I was wondering what obscenities or non PC statements I could test this with...although not yet because I'm still finding it all very stimulating.

 

Yes it was me; I said the organ was wooden due to it's huge mechanism, and ol' Widor's party piece (never knew it had a W; I'd have spelled it Vidor...) doesn't change my view. Yes it is fun, but it's still got that 'triumph of Man over machine' feeling, if you ask me, and I wouldn't pick it as a personal favourite. I'd have thought you could do it, although you'd need to trim the music a bit. I think it uses a lot of the extreme range of the organ. Perhaps it would make a good concertina band piece, alternatively?

 

Credit where credit's due; that's Danny C that did that recording, not Nick J. Both the link in Danny's post and the one you quote work fine for me so I don't know what you do next? It's worth hearing though.

[Dirge]

The more I listen to it, the more I like it, Professor...

[Kautilya]

It just decided to load instantaneously - it had been struggling for more than an hour going nowhere till I shut it down and then after reading yr note I hit the url again and bingo! Interesting but it brings me back to sthing very interesting which u just said.

 

I think your man over machine remark may be at the core of this whole discussion, tho praps not the way you meant it just now probably!

 

For me it is what feeling and hence impact on the listener which the player can get from his instrument that determines the result, rather than what some say are the limits of the instrument itself. U know, a bad workmen always blames his tools.

 

It's not that the violin cant do what the tina does or vice versa - it's what each one can do with (for want of a phrase) the same toon (at the most basic level). How far they work together also seems to be a bugbear in this discussion. I turned up early for a bash last June and the background quartet was on the steps of the castle with trombone, violin, guitar and trumpet. As no one else had arrived and the drinks waiters were just standing there, I suggested we tried jazzing up Ode to Joy with me on chromatic harmonica - it went amazingly well, and fast and slow ....it sounded 'just right'! All kinds of things got played later(they each played several instruments)along with a lot of singing from the castle ramparts till 0200....

 

At Witney melodeon Tim van Eyken played a long Swedish piece and sang a couple of verses of the lyrics early on (instead of all of them). The depth of meaning he produced in a very quiet way was quite stunning... it was the kind of performance which was "memorable" for what he got "out of the box" -- deep emotion (boy and girl folk song of course......). I dont think they recorded it.

 

Where that takes us I dont know. Probably just playing arouond with one long note on whatever the instrument and enjoying how much you can get out of the note every which way ...!

[Kautilya]

Ol Ol Widor (the grandfather) was Hungarian hence the funny vv - probably from Székesfehérvár which I know well (!)....The Soviet tanks rolled out of there to crush the Prague Spring in 1968.

 

and there is a quiet unpleasing very fast version of the toccata just after that Caen church one on a very fast organ and the organist explains he plays it like that coz he "got da machine to do it" and smaller churches allower faster bashing coz the reverb is less.

 

That said this 128 whopper takes us back to my single note fantasy.

 

It is not as impressive as the bottom note at Durham Cathedral which is also a banned note but I have stood next to the pipe and do you shake!

 

I dont think this (the only one I can find) hits the bottom:

 

and course the swell on the organ is just like a big squeeze on the tina

[Boney]

Very nice recording, Danny. It's amazing how this thread has become so thoughtful and useful.

 

Good points, Kautilya. I think the best players don't fret about the limitations of their instruments, they just get on with playing what they want and explore the possibilities -- and sometimes in doing so, redefine the instrument for others.

[Kautilya]

It was bugging me and now I just remembered

-

Violin and Harmonica - comments please!

 

 

and wot about the flute/clarinet in this along with the virtuoso and full orchestra:

 

 

It is those last two notes which make me want to hunt the "single voice"! You dont need to know how to play all the other buttons... one will do.

Edited November 28, 2009 by Kautilya

[njurkowski]

Boy, Danny...that's great! And very interesting. The effect is so different from a harpsichord or piano - very cool. I think there is definitely some promise there. This has been a fantastic thread!

Edited November 28, 2009 by njurkowski

[m3838]

<br>

<br>I don't say this to bash the concertina, but because I think the points here (and the ones I've made previously) actually answer the questions that keep coming up about why the concertina didn't end up more mainstream, why there are no virtuosi (imo), and why it will probably maintain its devoted amateur following for a long time to come!

<br><br><div>Excellent post.<br>

 

<div>About Duet's "Overpowering bass". It's not only duets' problem. I find the same problem on the English. The better the concertina - the worse the problem. My Jackie has less of it, probably because the notes have more "accordionish" overtones, but still the problem remains. Playing basses stacatto only masks the problem. What if I need to play sustained bass line? Nopes. And stacatto playing below middle C is very problematic, because the reeds are slow. Natural way around is to play slow music, which is fine with me, and on fast music simply forget about lower basses. </div><div>As far as Duet playing goes, the prove is in the pudding, and until I heard superb rendition of multi-harmony piece on Duet, I'm not convinced it has those abstract features we talked about so much.</div><div>I tried Duets. All of the systems. I found that all Duet systems are superbly ingenious, but the sound this machinery <b>naturally</b> produces is very dubious. I like Anglo's approach better as Anglo doesn't have fitting chords at all times, and it causes players to vary accompaniment: now we play chords and now we don't. The only advantage of English is it's unlimited Key spectrum.</div></div>

[m3838]

Having turned it over a bit I don't think the continuo idea is a particularly good one, incidentally. Nice idea but I think a major part of the harpsichord's role in the grand plan is percussion, and you'd lose that.

 

Well I had half an hour "spare" this evening so tried recording the first movement from a Vivaldi cello sonata (in Am) with cello on the solo part and bass, and concertina playing the right hand of a continuo realisation - so you can decide for yourself if it works! My verdict would be: kind of It would be perhaps more interesting to try a faster movement, but then I'd have to be able to play it on the cello - my recollection is that almost all of these sonatas have got at least one tricky bit in every fast movement!

 

Hmm.

Beautiful music, excellent performance, and it's true that concertina part sounds a bit annoying/funny been put against a cello. It feels like it shouldn't be backed by cello. In folk music Concertina blends with violin perfectly though. May be instead of playing different parts concertina is better used to add to the sound quality by playing the same line as cello?

[judyhawkins]

Overblowing/bending notes: depending on the size of the reed, you can bend the pitch quite a bit.

 

If you've got a good tuner, you can see it happen. Push hard on a low note and watch the pitch drop.

 

The reeds which are the easiest to bend are the "short scale" reeds. They're almost always low range reeds, made smaller to fit into concertina designs that are too small for "full scale" reeds. Stagi and Bastari use a lot of them. Short scale reeds are reeds that would sound at a higher pitch, but they've had a lump of something heavy (steel or brass ) attached to the end to make them have a lower pitch.

 

They have poorer sound, they're harder to get started playing, and it's really easy to get them to bend: the harder you force the air across them, the more the pitch changes, just like a harmonica. High-quality reeds won't bend much, but the short scale reeds can produce as much as a quarter tone of bend, some of them.

 

On my old Lachenal English, I have to be careful not to over-play the lowest notes. I got over-excited playing for a contra dance, once, and spoiled the voicing on my low A and had to beg for help to get it back to where it would even sound at all. So I'd say it's probably not a good idea to experiment too much with over-blowing, especially with a nice old instrument.

 

Judy

[Wolf Molkentin]

Judy, thanks a lot for - unintentionally - giving me a hint towards this rewarding "old" thread in the first place!

 

Regarding the dropping pitch on the lowest notes I know exactly what you are talking about. Even though my Lachenal ("Excelsior") has long-scaled reeds any "over-excited" playing has the effect that you described (and which I sometimes use to like, but in most cases try to avoid of course).

 

Intended bending can be forced by opening the valve to just a smaller extent as usual (i.e. pressing the button only halfway down). Rainer Süßmilch is doing this nearly all the time when playing jazz tunes...

 

Regards - Wolf

[Randy Stein]

I play Kreisler, Bach, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Debussy...etc etc etc. I performed with piano accompaniment and I can play solo. I play violin and cello music and transcribe some flute pieces.

Really the issue is that it is not accepted as the norm but as a novelty.

Whats all the hubbub...bub.

rss

[JimLucas]

I play Kreisler, Bach, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Debussy...etc etc etc. I performed with piano accompaniment and I can play solo. I play violin and cello music and transcribe some flute pieces.

Really the issue is that it is not accepted as the norm but as a novelty.

Whats all the hubbub...bub.

 

I suggest that before starting this debate all over again (reacting only to the thread's title?), folks read the first 101 posts. There's a lot of interesting stuff there, and your own thoughts have probably already been presented, opposed, supported, expanded, and quite eloquently discussed both pro and con. You might even learn something new; I know I did.

[Wolf Molkentin]

You might even learn something new; I know I did.

 

Those six pages definitely made my (yester-) day...

 

And I'd like to add that I greatly appreciate such both controversial (only if needed, I'm willing to learn!) and collaborative discussions in general.