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Classical on English vs Duet


Selah

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May be narrowing the potential buy to 57k Maccann and 48-56k tenor treble -- both of course parallels my history of liking the "difficult to find". Anyone got measurements/wt for the above Maccann??

 

Information provided on another thread somewhere regarding measurements of a 57 Maccann concertina, hexagonal sided - height approx 6 1/2 inches, width closed around 6". An Aeola or an Edeophone will be progressively larger Weight of the hex shape is 700g, or 3lb 12oz if you're into Imperial measures.

Edited by Irene S
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Oh yes - well found!!

 

Here's a direct link to the Gigue that I reckoned would be especially challenging to the duet, due to the way it intermingles the different parts!

Well at the risk of having you say 'come on then, prove it' which I have no reply to because I am not going to do it, I'll tell you now, it doesn't look tricky at all having just played through it slowly. Most of it divides into L and R quite nicely, often keeping the parts intact, as it were. Making good use of the dreaded overlap of course; none of it's overly complex.

 

Interesting to hear (well, read)! Actually, looking at the music now (I was remembering it from "way back" before) I can see that would be the case. It would be interesting to hear it played - I certainly don't recall hearing anything like this kind of music on duet.

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[ It would be interesting to hear it played - I certainly don't recall hearing anything like this kind of music on duet.

 

 

Hence all this stuff about oompah music on duet. Can't blame me for that, nor the instrument for the limited imagination of its exponents.

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[ It would be interesting to hear it played - I certainly don't recall hearing anything like this kind of music on duet.

 

 

Hence all this stuff about oompah music on duet. Can't blame me for that, nor the instrument for the limited imagination of its exponents.

 

Instead of talking about small single reeded Duets and their unfulfilled potential for glory, lets look at another family of Duet concertinas, which exponents don't suffer from limited imagination.

Bandoneons are used in all kinds of music, rarely oompa though, mostly for complex arrangements in many genres.

However, as far as I know, Bandoneons have important feature, they have low AND high notes on both sides, besides overlap. Very clever.

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Gorblimey! When I made my throwaway Youtube videos I had no idea they might be deployed as evidence in a debate.

 

The argument that it is poor taste to take a composed piece and play it on a different instrument is often made, but in formal music it's common to do this nevertheless. So I'd say that if anyone playing a duet tina wishes to try playing pieces made for other instruments, they should go ahead and do so. I've found that it's a lot of fun, and I'd also say that the classical guitar and perhaps the simpler end of the harpsichord repertoires are good sources.

 

Hopefully, some of the remarks made in this thread won't put people off giving these playable but often challenging types of music a try, and I hope also that people won't be discouraged from sharing their playing via Youtube.

 

I look forward to hearing some great performances over time...

 

[edited for grammar and for sense!]

Edited by Gavin Atkin
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[ It would be interesting to hear it played - I certainly don't recall hearing anything like this kind of music on duet.

 

 

Hence all this stuff about oompah music on duet. Can't blame me for that, nor the instrument for the limited imagination of its exponents.

 

Instead of talking about small single reeded Duets and their unfulfilled potential for glory, lets look at another family of Duet concertinas, which exponents don't suffer from limited imagination.

Bandoneons are used in all kinds of music, rarely oompa though, mostly for complex arrangements in many genres.

However, as far as I know, Bandoneons have important feature, they have low AND high notes on both sides, besides overlap. Very clever.

Blast your bandon**ns. They sound awful.

 

(edited to remove more extreme swear word.)

Edited by Dirge
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Gorblimey! When I made my throwaway Youtube videos I had no idea they might be deployed as evidence in a debate.

 

[edited for grammar and for sense!]

 

Sorry Gavin! That would be my fault - Maccanic said he had never knowingly heard a Jeffries, so I looked up your vids since I knew you'd put them up! Didn't expect what ended up as a result of that :unsure:

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For a PA player all ECs are small, their size differs little and if you are playing sitting (as you should for classical music), weight matters none.

 

This isn't true. If the concertina isn't particularly good and the reeds speak slowly/unevenly, then all you can do is open/close the bellows and press buttons - then the size/weight doesn't matter too much, as you say.

 

However, if the concertina bellows are air tight, the reeds are responsive and even, then you can use the lightness of the instrument to make fine changes to the pressure as you're playing each note - giving an impulse to the start and tailing the note off - even for music that moves fairly quickly (e.g. 200 notes per minute). Actually this is probably the one and only musical advantage of the concertina over an accordion - articulation of each note.

 

(My recollection is that) I've found it much harder to do this on bigger instruments (like baritone-treble or baritone) even when playing the same note as I would on a treble/tenor-treble.

 

I wrote some things related to this a long time ago here.

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However, as far as I know, Bandoneons have important feature, they have low AND high notes on both sides, besides overlap. Very clever.

 

The Rheinische Tonlage bandoneon, used in South America, much like a typical large duet, has an overlap of about one octave (from A3 to A4) between the sides.. See, for example,

 

http://www.inorg.chem.ethz.ch/tango/band/band_node13.html

 

Each side has an almost continuous range (some notes are missing cerrando in the bandoneon of 144 buttons).

 

ocd

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However, if the concertina bellows are air tight, the reeds are responsive and even, then you can use the lightness of the instrument to make fine changes to the pressure as you're playing each note - giving an impulse to the start and tailing the note off - even for music that moves fairly quickly (e.g. 200 notes per minute). Actually this is probably the one and only musical advantage of the concertina over an accordion - articulation of each note.

 

I'm not sure of this. My very heavy Bayan with single copper reedplates is extremely responsive. Being placed on once knee and strapped to the torso, the wait is not felt at all. In the matter of fact, one of the reasons I had to quit is because it was giving away ALL my slightest mistakes and it was very frustrating and painful to listen to recordings of my own playing. (thing of the past). And considering the extend of articulation to which bayan playing has developed on high levels, your argument is not holding.

I'd say one of the main attraction of concertina over accordion is portability and easiness of tuning. Perhaps ergonomics too, but I'm not sure.

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Blast your bandon**ns. They sound awful.

 

biggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gif

Oh, come now. Regardless of how they sound, if concertina playing school was developed half of bandoneon school, we all would be much better off.

True, you know I agree with that one.

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The argument that it is poor taste to take a composed piece and play it on a different instrument is often made, but in formal music it's common to do this nevertheless. So I'd say that if anyone playing a duet tina wishes to try playing pieces made for other instruments, they should go ahead and do so. I've found that it's a lot of fun, and I'd also say that the classical guitar and perhaps the simpler end of the harpsichord repertoires are good sources.

 

 

Gavin,

I agree. This idea of something being "music for instrument X" is a very classical thing. In the Renaissance, music was just music, and you could play the same 4-part music on viols, recorders, Krummhorns (whole consorts), a mixture of these, or some of these with an admixture of cornetts, rackets or what have you (broken consorts). The chordal continuo could have been lute or virginals, or even cittern. There were even Elizabethan collections of polyphonic works sub-titled "Apt for Voyces and Viols".

The main thing was to make the abstract music audible, not to write to the timbre of a particual instrument or family.

Later music still has a lot of this "abstract music" or "music in itself" about it. Bach's organ music on Moog synthesiser or bayan (played competently, of course) is still 99% Bach, because it's his harmony and polyphony. Haydn string quartets are also pretty "pure" music - he didn't use many violinistic tricks like pizzicato or glissando, so any homogeneous ensemble (e.g. saxophones) can render a lot of his quartets. Sounds different, but the musical ideas come across.

The more we get into the Romantic period, the more specifically "instrument X" we get. The Romantic piano composers use a lot of pedal, making their works difficult or impossible for other keyboard instruments, and Romantic orchestral works exploit the differnt timbres of strings, woodwind and brass. Even transcriptions for symphonic wind band are a severe compromise.

 

In short: early music on the concertina should be no problem (if you play competently enough). Classical music in the sense of Haydn should be usable to a large extent. With Romatic and modern classical music, I think the concertinist must be very selective, choosing pieces that are strong on harmonisation and less fixed on the timbre of one particular instrument. Or he must take the melodic/harmonic basis of a piece, and arrange it to suit the concertina. This is probably still more interesting than the attempts of an average player to produce a really sophisticatred composition! wink.gif

 

Cheers,

John

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First let me say that I am very jealous of the closeness and camaraderie of the concertina communities throughout the UK, Europe, and parts here in the the US. I seem to have never connected and only recently discovered so many players and find it exciting and comforting to know the music tradition of young concertina players thrives.

I went back and read the postings and I think that the instrument needs to best suit the musician. As a trained musician I selected the EC and now play it exclusively. So as a musician I seek to play my instrument in as many musical venues as possible. I play the classics from Bach, Debussy, Kreisler, to Weill on onward. I play tarantellas, mazurkas, waltzes, jigs and reels, and tangos, boleros, sambas, etc etc etc. I play with other musicians who play folk, jazz, and experimental atonal "stuff". I arrange and play for solo polyphonic pieces. My instrument is the EC and it allows me to play what ever I can in any venue with all it's uniqueness and limitations. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But one needs the basic of music to truly play many types of music and accomplish the arranging and playing of any one musical medium.

Select an instrument not only based on price and comfort, but on a willingness to learn the basics of music notation and theory so you are able to adapt to what ever musical genre you desire and your ability is capable of allowing.

And for goodness sakes practice!

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Edited by Randy Stein
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Blast your bandon**ns. They sound awful.

 

biggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gif

Oh, come now. Regardless of how they sound, if concertina playing school was developed half of bandoneon school, we all would be much better off.

 

Watching the vide below reminded me of the comment above.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/singlemaltbear#p/u/11/o7YsRlhwlAM

 

The video was recorded during the final exam for the player's sixth year of bandoneon studies.

 

I do agree with Mischa.

 

ocd

PS Technically speaking, the bandoneon is a concertina, anyway

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