Carolan Tunes and 'Harp Space' on Concertina

[michael sam wild]

I play a lot with a friend whose web site on Carolan tunes has the tnes from O'Sullivans book put into in tab for guitar.

 

Here is a link http://www.docsworkshop.force9.co.uk/music.htm

 

We spend a lot of time exploring various tunings on guitar and many opportunities to find attractive chords and arpeggios,

 

I play Anglo and find that cross row playing often comes closer to that sound than push/pull style. So it is not just legato but , even though you can't bend notes on the concertina, you can come closer to that ringing sound between the individual notes.

 

Maybe it is the fact that we play in Mike's kitchen which is in an old stone house with wooden floors, I don't know whether it would survive microphones etc.,

 

Have other people explored this more systematically?

Edited November 13, 2010 by michael sam wild

[Jody Kruskal]

that ringing sound between the individual notes

 

That is exactly the sound I have been exploring. Dynamic playing is the way to get it, I think. When each note on the concertina has it's own dynamic shape and with space between notes being the ideal, then that ringing of the other instruments and of the room acoustics has space to come forward and be present. Honoring the presence of the room is a very good thing musically, both for tone, style and depth and musical meaning, IMHO.

 

This is not possible when the concertina goes Blahhhhhhhhhh! (That being a representation of non-dynamic playing.) But when each note goes Dommmmnnnn>>>>>>> then this opens up the listener's ear to the decay of the reeds which has a beauty of it's own. This decay of the reeds (dynamic playing) is not a natural aspect of the instrument. No, not the way it is on the piano or guitar, for instance. To achieve that sound, dynamics must be applied with deliberation on the part of the concertina player.

 

This is a part of what I also call emulating, as in, emulating or matching the sound of the guitar (or whatever instrument you are playing with). The only way to do it is by observing bellows control. That is the bow of the concertina. When the bellows controls dynamics like the bow does on the fiddle then music can happen and space (silence between notes) serves to highlight pitch and rhythm, bringing us phrases of musical conversation that can delight and astound even ourselves.

 

My word, this ranting is fun!

 

Does my rant shed light on your O'Carolan sessions on the stone floor?

[RAc]

that ringing sound between the individual notes

 

...

The only way to do it is by observing bellows control. That is the bow of the concertina. When the bellows controls dynamics like the bow does on the fiddle then music can happen and space (silence between notes) serves to highlight pitch and rhythm, bringing us phrases of musical conversation that can delight and astound even ourselves.

 

...

 

sounds like a fair and professional analysis... however, while violin bowing technique (as well as picking and stroking techniques on the guitar) are well analysed, documented and can be learnt from a good teacher or with the help of a plethora of material available for self-study, I'm still at loss as to how learn these things on the concertina... the best I have heard so far (and this seems to be the stock response) is something along the lines of "oh well, listen and play, and it will come."

 

Given that the generation of tone is one of the fundamentals of mastering any musical instrument and given the fact that tone production on almost every other instrument is very well studied and documented, I'm sort of hesitant to accept this answer.

 

Thus, do you (or any other fine fellow on this forum) have a pointer to real life in depth explanations on how to do exactly that - namely, observe and practice bellows control to the degree that one really has a chance to shape music and have and make choices on how to accomplish a particular tone? Is this possibly something that e.g. an accordeon teacher could be able to help with in case noone has worked on this on the concertina yet?

 

Thanks!

[Jody Kruskal]

"oh well, listen and play, and it will come."

 

This is good advice. Learning from the right teacher will help understanding come faster. You might want to consider taking lessons from me.

 

Tone production is one of the fundamentals, but just one. To make things more complicated, bellows control and the use of micro dynamics that I was talking about can also be used to help create style, bounce, lift, drive, rhythm and that sense of space that Michael was talking about (my interpretation of his words). These qualities are affected by other factors as well but controlling dynamics from micro to macro can play a huge role.

 

So... how do you get more control?

 

"oh well, listen and play, and it will come."

 

This is still true but how you listen and your intent while playing is key to growth. What helps me most is learning tunes from musicians who are better than I am. Mostly fiddlers. One on one or in small groups. I listen to them and when I join them, I try to make my playing match theirs. Matching takes many guises. Note for note unison is a good place to start.

 

As we play, I listen and respond. Pitches and rhythms, phrases and articulation, groove and style... but also dynamics. When they get louder or softer, I do too. As I mentioned before, this dynamic variation happens at a number of time frames - minutes, seconds, micro seconds. From the macro arrangement level (OK, we will play the tune three times with the middle time soft), to a medium level where dynamics help define phrases and on down to a smaller level where each note has it's own dynamic and down even shorter to a micro level where you can notice the dynamic shape of each note... the attack and decay of the sound.

 

I'm paying attention and matching their dynamics at all these levels and because I'm trying to listen I'm PLAYING SOFTER THAN THEY ARE. So... matching means playing softer, listening and emulating.

 

Home alone, I have spent much time trying to play as softly as possible with the goal of being better able to play with others. Loud is easy but soft is hard. It takes practice.

 

Want better bellows control? Learn to play quietly.

[Rod]

"oh well, listen and play, and it will come."

 

This is good advice. Learning from the right teacher will help understanding come faster. You might want to consider taking lessons from me.

 

Tone production is one of the fundamentals, but just one. To make things more complicated, bellows control and the use of micro dynamics that I was talking about can also be used to help create style, bounce, lift, drive, rhythm and that sense of space that Michael was talking about (my interpretation of his words). These qualities are affected by other factors as well but controlling dynamics from micro to macro can play a huge role.

 

So... how do you get more control?

 

"oh well, listen and play, and it will come."

 

This is still true but how you listen and your intent while playing is key to growth. What helps me most is learning tunes from musicians who are better than I am. Mostly fiddlers. One on one or in small groups. I listen to them and when I join them, I try to make my playing match theirs. Matching takes many guises. Note for note unison is a good place to start.

 

As we play, I listen and respond. Pitches and rhythms, phrases and articulation, groove and style... but also dynamics. When they get louder or softer, I do too. As I mentioned before, this dynamic variation happens at a number of time frames - minutes, seconds, micro seconds. From the macro arrangement level (OK, we will play the tune three times with the middle time soft), to a medium level where dynamics help define phrases and on down to a smaller level where each note has it's own dynamic and down even shorter to a micro level where you can notice the dynamic shape of each note... the attack and decay of the sound.

 

I'm paying attention and matching their dynamics at all these levels and because I'm trying to listen I'm PLAYING SOFTER THAN THEY ARE. So... matching means playing softer, listening and emulating.

 

Home alone, I have spent much time trying to play as softly as possible with the goal of being better able to play with others. Loud is easy but soft is hard. It takes practice.

 

Want better bellows control? Learn to play quietly.

 

Yes, Jody. The Concertina is certainly at it's best when played at modest volume. All too often the delightful subtleties of tone and expression available to the instrument are totally lost to heavy-handed, unsympathetic bellows work as a result of which much of the potential charm of the music is all but lost. It is not difficult to play quietly.

[RAc]

"oh well, listen and play, and it will come."

 

This is good advice. Learning from the right teacher will help understanding come faster. You might want to consider taking lessons from me.

 

 

I'd love to but, given the fact that I reside in Southern Germany, I'm not at liberty to see you for face to face lessons... ;-) if you offer interactive web based training, we should get in PM touch...

 

 

Tone production is one of the fundamentals, but just one. To make things more complicated, bellows control and the use of micro dynamics that I was talking about can also be used to help create style, bounce, lift, drive, rhythm and that sense of space that Michael was talking about (my interpretation of his words). These qualities are affected by other factors as well but controlling dynamics from micro to macro can play a huge role.

 

So... how do you get more control?

 

"oh well, listen and play, and it will come."

 

This is still true but how you listen and your intent while playing is key to growth. What helps me most is learning tunes from musicians who are better than I am. Mostly fiddlers. One on one or in small groups. I listen to them and when I join them, I try to make my playing match theirs. Matching takes many guises. Note for note unison is a good place to start.

 

As we play, I listen and respond. Pitches and rhythms, phrases and articulation, groove and style... but also dynamics. When they get louder or softer, I do too. As I mentioned before, this dynamic variation happens at a number of time frames - minutes, seconds, micro seconds. From the macro arrangement level (OK, we will play the tune three times with the middle time soft), to a medium level where dynamics help define phrases and on down to a smaller level where each note has it's own dynamic and down even shorter to a micro level where you can notice the dynamic shape of each note... the attack and decay of the sound.

 

I'm paying attention and matching their dynamics at all these levels and because I'm trying to listen I'm PLAYING SOFTER THAN THEY ARE. So... matching means playing softer, listening and emulating.

 

Home alone, I have spent much time trying to play as softly as possible with the goal of being better able to play with others. Loud is easy but soft is hard. It takes practice.

 

Want better bellows control? Learn to play quietly.

 

still, without meaning to critzise you (I do appreciate the advice you are willing to give), you're discussing not the tool box but its application...

 

Thanks again...

[michael sam wild]

Thanks Jody that appears to confirm my initial considerations, and I think the room is important. Some sound engineers and producers understand this more than others and computerised recording of music can lose the sounds IMHO.

 

 

Mike Lydiat and I started to talk about it a lot when exploring airs and accompanying our songs in a relaxed home situation.

 

He had learned a lot from another great local guitarist Keiith Hinchliffe who is also fascinated by the Irish harp . Davy Graham and those who followed also taught us a lot.

 

 

When playing 'English Style' or Irish dance music ( in my case on the C/G Anglo )you tend to be going for rhythm, lift or speed and the subtelties get lost but that's fine in a group situation.

As an unaccomanied singer of old style songs for many years I have learned a lot about dynamics and have listened to a lt of 'ethnic' music where the individual voice and its harmonies are utilised.

 

I think the open tunings and drones that Mike has come up with allow for the same thing as cross row concertina playing. If you keep a guitar in standard tuning then to get notes it is often the same as push / pull on the same buttons and the note is terminated at the change. when consecutive notes are on separate strings you get those hair raising sounds and off course harps have to do that.

 

this becomes so much more apparent when playing slowly and sensitively as opposed to rushing ahead.

It's not always easy to get a chance to express it in sessions where people want to pile in ( and I've never been one for demanding people 'sshhh' but we do have some local sessions where peple want to listen to each other and it seems to be getting across.

 

This approach does demand the kind of situation in which harp players played to listeners, not dancers ( although i'm sure carolan could get them dancing fiddles, flutes , whistles , mouth music and 'pastoral' pipes must have been more useful for that). Not that there is a conflict, just different social or artistic/commercial circumstances.

 

 

PS I'd like to hear from players of English Concertina about this as it might all be so obvious to them

Edited November 13, 2010 by michael sam wild

[Anglo-Irishman]

still, without meaning to critzise you (I do appreciate the advice you are willing to give), you're discussing not the tool box but its application...

 

Rüdiger,

 

To continue your metaphor ...

 

What would you expect a carpenter to tell you about the hammer?

 

There's not much to say about the hammer as a tool, except "This is the hammer. It's held by the handle, and is used to drive nails by hitting them on the head."

Everything else you need to know to be able to drive nails straight and quickly into different materials is information on the application of the hammer. You learn it by being told about it, by watching how it's done, and by applying common sense and a feel for the material. You get better at it as you gain experience.

 

Same with the bellows: "This is the bellows. Its ends are strapped to your hands, and it is used to make the reeds sound by pumping air through them."

The rest really is a matter of asking, listening/watching and developing a feel for the material. You get better at it as you gain experience.

 

So IMO Jody dealt with the matter pretty exhausively!

 

And how do your develop feeling for the material? An anecdote comes to mind. A short sequence that I saw on TV many years ago:

 

A leading American classical violinist (I think it was Isaac Stern) was on a goodwill tour though China, and had an encounter with some very young (early school-age) violin prodigies, which was televised. One little girl played him a passage from a Bach partita. She had all the notes down, and her intonation was really impeccable. But it was just one note after the other, with no shape to it. Stern asked her through an interpreter if she could put more life into it. She played it again, just the same as before. Then Stern asked the little girl to sing the passage for him. She did so. "And now," he said, "Play it like you just sang it." She did, and it suddenly sprang to life!

 

This is only an anecdote. Your mileage may vary.

 

But the fact is that a lot of instrumentalists, especially as beginners, tend to think of music in terms of notes assigned to specific buttons on the concertina and indicated by dots at certain positions on the stave.

When you sing, you tend to think in terms of phrases, because even trained singers have problems hitting a specific note. What a good singer can do is hit an accurate interval between the last note and the next. And to do this, he or she has to know where the tune is going, and how long it will take to get there (so as to know when to take a breath).

 

So if you have no other, more experienced concertinists to listen to, listening to yourself singing the tune is a good execise!

 

As to what Jody said about mico and macro dynamics: Remember that each tune has a beginning, a middle and an end; each part of a tune (A Part, B Part) has a beginning, a middle and an end; each phrase in a part has a beginning, a middle and an end. And notes, especially longer ones, can have a beginning, a middle and an end, too! Singing will often make this apparent.

 

Cheers,

John

[Ransom]

And how do your develop feeling for the material? An anecdote comes to mind. A short sequence that I saw on TV many years ago:

 

I'll just leave this right here.

[Jody Kruskal]

"oh well, listen and play, and it will come."

 

This is good advice. Learning from the right teacher will help understanding come faster. You might want to consider taking lessons from me.

 

 

I'd love to but, given the fact that I reside in Southern Germany, I'm not at liberty to see you for face to face lessons... ;-) if you offer interactive web based training, we should get in PM touch...

 

Ruediger, sure send me a pm. If you click on the underlined word "me" above you will see that it's a link to my website where you can read all about skype lessons I offer live on the web world wide.

[Jody Kruskal]

And how do your develop feeling for the material? An anecdote comes to mind. A short sequence that I saw on TV many years ago:

 

I'll just leave this right here.

 

Wow! what a great teaching moment. Exactly what I'm talking about. Micro dynamics is the tool used to play with expression as Isaac Stern showed us. But how does a teacher communicate that idea in a way that the student can understand and use? Brilliant teaching. Play it like I sing it has been my mantra for years.

Edited November 13, 2010 by Jody Kruskal