Giving up on tunes

[Anglo-Irishman]

Last year I made some progress with using my Crane duet for song accompaniment, which is why I bought it in the first place, and that's what I'm going to focus on in the future.

 

Prior to that I spent three years learning English folk dance tunes, but I've now reluctantly come to accept that a Crane isn't suited to a session environment.

 

Richard,

On aspect that may be important is that instruments built before about 1960 were not built with session playing in mind! This is a relatively recent phenomenon, and for me and probably a lot of other performing musicians it is only a fringe activity.

The main objectives in building an instrument - not only a concertina - are (a) to give it a balanced bass/treble range for solo work; (b ) to give it enough "presence" to accompany other instruments or singers, even groups of singers; (c ) to blend with other instruments in an ensemble.

 

My first acquaintance with the Crane/Triumph Duet was at the Salvation Army, where it was used to accompany choruses sung by the congregation at small meetings. It certainly had enough presence for this; you could follow its lead easily without straining your ears, even when everybody was singing along.

 

I now play with a folk group of fiddle, 2 guitars and double bass, and in some pieces, mainly Carolan tunes, I play single-line melody on my concertina. Hitherto, I have used my hybrid Stagi Anglo, but as my competence on the newly acquired Lachenal Crane increased, I took it along to a practice. The lads immediately told me to go back to my "old concertina", because it blended better! The fact is that a Stagi hybrid Anglo and a fiddle together sound almost like two fiddles (we seldom play in unison, except for Irish dance tunes, so we sound like 1st and 2nd violin), and they blend well with the bowed double bass.

So in a group it's all about optimum sound, not maximum volume or cut-through. In fact, some people regard the blend of instruments or voices as perfect when you can't distinguish them when they're playing together, but you miss one if it stops. Put another way: in a group you don't stand out by being louder than the others, but by doing something different.

If everybody is frantically playing the melody at a jam, it's obvious that only a very loud instrument will stand out.

But, on the other hand, why should it?

 

Cheers,

John

[frogspawn]

Thanks very much to Alan for posting the recordings and to everyone for their thoughtful responses. There are a lot of interesting ideas here which I will follow up, but there is not a lot you can do when you are completely overwhelmed by a much louder instrument. I have also experienced the situation of not being able to hear myself but sensing that other people can hear me when, as a result, I hit wrong notes!

 

There are obviously ways of improving volume and speed, but there is usually a trade off between the two.

 

Richard