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Which Concertina for French mazurkas


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Here's an example:

 

Ooooh - I want a hurdy-gurdy! (are they fully chromatic - it sounds like it?)

 

 

HG seems approximately the "concertina" version of the fiddle. :) But it sounds diatonic to me, or simply modal like a lap dulcimer. These kinds of instruments can be fun when one wants to get "Medieval."

Edited by catty
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The Music and Dance that M3838 is referring to is Polish and the dance demonstration is nothing like the French Mazurkas that are the subject of this discussion.

The French Mazurka dance is a combination of the basic Mazurka step and the Waltz step.

The French dance involves alternating mazurka steps with a small turn.(A Music)

The Mazurka steps is a rocking step onto one foot and then back onto the other followed by a small pause and then a lift of the foot and alternates with a waltz step, The music should follow the feel of the dance rhythm with the main beat every two bars at the start of the mazurka step.The B part of the tune the dancers dance a normal French waltz, which normally involves many spins and small steps with the feet hardly rising from the dance floor.

Thus the A music should exaggerate the stepping of the dance and the B music fairly smooth and played faster than an English waltz.

There was a U tube clip from St Chartier that demonstrated this dance and I will try and find it

Al

Interesting so I found this tid bit online:

http://mmcconeghy.com/RIMUSIC/waltz.html

 

 

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Here's an example:

 

Ooooh - I want a hurdy-gurdy! (are they fully chromatic - it sounds like it?)

 

 

HG seems approximately the "concertina" version of the fiddle. :) But it sounds diatonic to me, or simply modal like a lap dulcimer. These kinds of instruments can be fun when one wants to get "Medieval."

The only hurdy-gurdies I've seen for sale are at Olympic Musical Instruments. All their instruments except one have chromatic keyboxes.

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The Music and Dance that M3838 is referring to is Polish and the dance demonstration is nothing like the French Mazurkas that are the subject of this discussion.

On one hand it was a joke.

On the other, nowadays, in the epoch of shrunk distances, local deviations have stopped been styles. They are just deviations. Of very many people I danced with in my youth, and of very few I dance with now I rarely see true elegance. Most just stomp like rhinos and have no idea of the style. We just care to have good time, who's to blame us?

Lengthy descriptions of a dance without visual diagrams or video examples are useless.

A Mazurka is sort of supposed to be what it is and it has very distinct feel from the Waltz, but if you manage to dance elegant Polka to the sound of Polish Anthem, the better.

Mazur is common name in Belarus and is a nickname for someone from, er... Mazovje? or something like it.

So a glance towards the origin is always good. Otherwise we may start mixing Marches and Polkas. If it's 3/4 waltz rhythm, that's what it is. If it's dotted note it's probably Mazurka. If French Mazurka is not really mazurka but something French - anything goes. In which case, you are right, but I'm right too. Who's to judge?

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Excellent playing again. Seems like accordion school once again proved it's superiority.

 

Thanks for that. But I would say that accordion school is just the better way to have...accordion style! Here is the myspace of my chromatic accordion duo with Tiennet. You can listen to the mazurka "les ormeaux" arranged for two chromatic accordions.

 

http://www.myspace.com/duottc

 

I think that you can recognize the same style I play concertina.

 

But I would like to say that franglo system or my duet are just ways to allow accordion players like my dear friend Emmanuel Pariselle or myself to use our accordion experience. Nothing more. But accordion style is not a guarantee to play mazurka correctly and I think that mazurka can be played by any instrument (except drums...) and moreother by any type of concertina. In France, people who play concertina play mostly anglo for irish music. But I think that an anglo player (or another type of concertina) who is interested by playing french mazurka could play it very well.

 

So to answer to your question Ubik, I would say that if you like accordion style for mazurka, perhaps you can choose duet or franglo. (difficult to find a franglo...). I say perhaps because I don't know much about the differents systems of duets. I have to read what Dirge said in second page.

 

Concerning the mazurka dance in France, we have several forms of mazurka who were collected in France by regions. The form called "samatan" is the most danced actually with no difference between A and B. (But there are other types of mazurka with part of waltz like Alan said.)

 

We can observe a slower tempo compared to the old collectages and sometimes new figures inspired of tango. (I don't want to say if it is a good thing or not!...there are a lot of debate here also between "trad" and "newtrad" supporters...)

 

Amicalement,

 

Thomas

 

PS : salut David, au plaisir de te rencontrer et de discuter de concertina. (et mon système n'est pas un darwin de serafini...)

Edited by tona
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Excellent playing again. Seems like accordion school once again proved it's superiority.

 

Thanks for that. But I would say that accordion school is just the better way to have...accordion style! Here is the myspace of my chromatic accordion duo with Tiennet. You can listen to the mazurka "les ormeaux" arranged for two chromatic accordions.

 

http://www.myspace.com/duottc

 

I think that you can recognize the same style I play concertina.

 

But I would like to say that franglo system or my duet are just ways to allow accordion players like my dear friend Emmanuel Pariselle or myself to use our accordion experience. Nothing more. But accordion style is not a guarantee to play mazurka correctly and I think that mazurka can be played by any instrument (except drums...) and moreother by any type of concertina. In France, people who play concertina play mostly anglo for irish music. But I think that an anglo player (or another type of concertina) who is interested by playing french mazurka could play it very well.

 

So to answer to your question Ubik, I would say that if you like accordion style for mazurka, perhaps you can choose duet or franglo. (difficult to find a franglo...). I say perhaps because I don't know much about the differents systems of duets. I have to read what Dirge said in second page.

 

Concerning the mazurka dance in France, we have several forms of mazurka who were collected in France by regions. The form called "samatan" is the most danced actually with no difference between A and B. (But there are other types of mazurka with part of waltz like Alan said.)

 

We can observe a slower tempo compared to the old collectages and sometimes new figures inspired of tango. (I don't want to say if it is a good thing or not!...there are a lot of debate here also between "trad" and "newtrad" supporters...)

 

Amicalement,

 

Thomas

 

PS : salut David, au plaisir de te rencontrer et de discuter de concertina. (et mon système n'est pas un darwin de serafini...)

 

Sounds fantastic. Is it possible to get the sheet music for 'les ormeaux' somewhere?

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But accordion style is not a guarantee to play mazurka correctly and I think that mazurka can be played by any instrument (except drums...) and moreother by any type of concertina. In France, people who play concertina play mostly anglo for irish music. But I think that an anglo player (or another type of concertina) who is interested by playing french mazurka could play it very well.

 

 

I would like to add that I did not want to say that I think I play mazurka well. I know a lot of french good musicians who think that I do not play mazurka like it should be! I hope that I am understood well on this! It is very difficult for me to write in english and I am not sure about the real sense of what I am writing.

 

Here is the sheet music "les ormeaux" for michelv and those who are interested. (in C minor like the myspace's recording. I transposed it in Am on the recording I posted because of my duet's range)

 

Amicalement,

Thomas

Edited by tona
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It is very difficult for me to write in english and I am not sure about the real sense of what I am writing.

The sense of what you are saying is crystal clear. No worries.

A bummer, I think Am is better for EC than Cm. Those transposition.mad.gif

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So the same in Am. Thanks to the computer!

 

I add that sometimes, a capital letter does not mean a real chord but only the bass to play (last measure of the second staff for example)

Edited by tona
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Although I am a great lover of the Duet sound I think it would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that an English could not exactly reproduce the French Mazurka style that is proffered here. After hearing Randy play the English I am certain he could reproduce it.

Al

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Since several people in personal conversation have asked me about the layout of my custom dipper duet...

 

Many thanks to your interest.

 

Thomas

 

Thank you very much for posting this. I am puzzled: I would have expected that the right hand side would be like the right hand side of a C-griff chromatic accordion. As shown in the diagram it is neither C-griff or B-griff. (It is like a C-griff with the opposite slant of the keys.) How come you decided on this?

 

Thanks!

ocd

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Thank you very much for posting this. I am puzzled: I would have expected that the right hand side would be like the right hand side of a C-griff chromatic accordion. As shown in the diagram it is neither C-griff or B-griff. (It is like a C-griff with the opposite slant of the keys.) How come you decided on this?

 

Thanks!

ocd

 

Perhaps I should start a new topic to be not off this one....Sorry...

 

So I started to play diatonic accordion 13 years ago on a 2 rows 8 bass accordion. "Push and pull" style at first. Then I got a 3 rows and I studied "cross" style with less and less push and pull playing. I decided finally to develop a unisonoric system without learning standard chromatic accordion. On my layout, the axis of movement of fingers is the same as on the diatonic accordion "cross" style, that is why I chose this layout which is in fact a very old right hand layout that doesn't exist anymore today.

 

So I have the same layout on my custom "chromatic" accordion and on my duets.

 

My layout has no relevance for someone who starts learning chromatic accordion. It only makes sense from my self-educated diatonic past. Someone who plays chromatic standard accordion and wants a duet like mine will choose of course the c-griff system which is more logic... (c system is the standard layout : for those who are interested, google will give you more informations)

 

Left hand is another problem...A chromatic accordion player could have chosen the “free bass” system (concert accordion used in classical music sometimes called “bayan” with a converter which switches the left "bass-chords" system to the "free bass" system => same layout of the right hand). I prefered develop a sytem inspired of the layout of diatonic accordion which facilitates in my opininon the bass and chords playing.

 

More later!

 

Thomas

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As shown in the diagram it is neither C-griff or B-griff.

 

Right hand side is C griff. What do you mean?

 

In C-griff, in playing position, C# is closer to the floor than C. In Thomas scheme, C is closer to the floor than C#.

 

ocd

Edited by ocd
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As shown in the diagram it is neither C-griff or B-griff.

 

Right hand side is C griff. What do you mean?

 

In C-griff, in playing position, C# is closer to the floor than C. In Thomas scheme, C is closer to the floor than C#.

 

ocd

 

I see. So it's like a mirrored B-system? Again, makes total sense. My respect. Very unusual system, but obviously working very well.

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