Anglo Air Button

[Rod]

Would I be correct in suggesting that one of the great, if not greatest advantages to 'Irish Traditional' exponents of the Anglo is that the tunes appear to be very 'bellows friendly' and playable from beginning to end without recourse to the air button. Most other styles of music on the Anglo require some extremely deft interaction of the air button and bellows to be fully successful but the 'Irish Traditional' fraternity seem to have a very distinct advantage in this respect. As one who is not a great lover of 'Irish Traditional' I probably sound jealous ? !!

[Mikefule]

I don't play Irish so I can't really comment in detail on how they prefer to play, but my understanding is that to play in G on a C/G there is a basic scale which goes "in out in out" all the way from the G on the accidental row on the left hand up to the high G on the right hand. I know a couple of single note melodies that I can play in this way.

 

But playing English/Morris music, with a bass/chord accompaniment I find that there are lots of ways of keeping the bellows direction smooth. It is not always possible, but it is often possible. Some tunes require more use of the air button than others.

 

I was playing for a year or more before I started to use the air button anything like properly. In many ways it is the most important button on the box, and it requires a knack. But then, if we wanted simplicity, we'd play the melodeon...

[Rod]

I don't play Irish so I can't really comment in detail on how they prefer to play, but my understanding is that to play in G on a C/G there is a basic scale which goes "in out in out" all the way from the G on the accidental row on the left hand up to the high G on the right hand. I know a couple of single note melodies that I can play in this way.

 

But playing English/Morris music, with a bass/chord accompaniment I find that there are lots of ways of keeping the bellows direction smooth. It is not always possible, but it is often possible. Some tunes require more use of the air button than others.

 

I was playing for a year or more before I started to use the air button anything like properly. In many ways it is the most important button on the box, and it requires a knack. But then, if we wanted simplicity, we'd play the melodeon...

 

Having posted this original topic I sat down and rattled off about 25 of my current favourites and was immediately surprised to discover how very infrequently it was necessary to make use of the air button ! Many of the tunes required no intervention from the air button at all.

When playing becomes second nature I guess that one is sufficiently relaxed to be no longer really conscious of the actual technique involved.

[RP3]

There are considerable numbers of tunes that are not very bellows friendly but are intimate members of the IT repertoire. A perfect example is ironically The Concertina Reel! And there are others that do fit the "no air button" pattern. But more than a few times I've encountered IT tunes that are commonly played on fiddle but are very difficult on Anglo. When you consider that many tunes are made to fit the no air pattern by careful selection among the fingering options available on an Anglo, I think the basic assumption is interesting but incorrect.

 

Ross Schlabach

[richard]

Hello Rod

 

I agree that the Anglo is suited well for Irish music and vice-versa.

 

Maybe I am reading too much into your comments, and what seems to be is your basic premise.....but it sounds like you are saying the air button and the need to utilize it is an unfortunate burden and that a strategy to avoid it is a good idea.

 

I think the air button is part of the nature of the Anglo. It is a tool like all the other buttons. I think eventually it can become part of the vocabulary of a persons playing if one practices using it. To avoid using the air button (or avoid practicing any particular skill) deprives someone the opportunity to master it and have it become a natural and unconscious part of one's playing.

 

I think to have avoidance of the air button be a guide to how one plays a tune is not a good idea. The fact that playing an Irish tune with a lot of change of bellows directions can give the music a lot of bounce and also keep the two end from getting too close or too far from one another is just a coincidence.

 

Richard

Edited June 27, 2011 by richard

[david_boveri]

i have never played an irish tune beginning to end without the use of the air button. depending on the tune, it does tend to average out half push and half pull, but that does not mean you don't need the air button. then, as Ross points out, there are some tunes that are very slanted towards mostly push or pull.

 

i agree with Richard, in that the air button is an essential part of Anglo playing. if one tries to avoid it entirely, you might as well just play english concertina, which would much more easily make that legato effect.

[JimLucas]

i agree with Richard, in that the air button is an essential part of Anglo playing. if one tries to avoid it entirely, you might as well just play english concertina, which would much more easily make that legato effect.

I disagree... with your apparent assumption that the only purpose in avoiding the use of the air button is to obtain a "legato effect".

 

Contrariwise, one can (try to) avoid using the air button by choosing fingering which deliberately and frequently reverses the bellows to obtain pushes and pulls in equal balance, in much the same way as a fiddler will choose bowing patterns. E.g., in a jig you might see how close you can get to a repetition of (pull-pull-push, push-push-pull) or vice versa in each measure. Or for a different rhythmic effect, (pull-pull-pull, push-push-push), etc. But unless you have a very leaky instrument, you should be able to balance the pushes and pulls over periods longer than a single measure and thereby develop rhythmic patterns of longer duration... patterns chosen by you the player, rather than dictated by some rule about button-and-bellows sequences imposed from outside the tune itself.

 

I do believe that the air button is a useful tool on the anglo, one which seems unnecessary on unisonoric squeezeboxes (English, duets, PA, etc.), but I think it reasonable for the player to choose how heavily (and how) to use it.

 

Edited to add: Thinking further on the above quote, it seems backward to me. I would think that the more you try to play "legato" -- i.e., without reversing the bellows through a phrase, -- the more likely it will be that you will have to use the air button, to compensate for "too many" notes in one bellows direction.

Edited June 28, 2011 by JimLucas

[Rod]

i agree with Richard, in that the air button is an essential part of Anglo playing. if one tries to avoid it entirely, you might as well just play english concertina, which would much more easily make that legato effect.

I disagree... with your apparent assumption that the only purpose in avoiding the use of the air button is to obtain a "legato effect".

 

Contrariwise, one can (try to) avoid using the air button by choosing fingering which deliberately and frequently reverses the bellows to obtain pushes and pulls in equal balance, in much the same way as a fiddler will choose bowing patterns. E.g., in a jig you might see how close you can get to a repetition of (pull-pull-push, push-push-pull) or vice versa in each measure. Or for a different rhythmic effect, (pull-pull-pull, push-push-push), etc. But unless you have a very leaky instrument, you should be able to balance the pushes and pulls over periods longer than a single measure and thereby develop rhythmic patterns of longer duration... patterns chosen by you the player, rather than dictated by some rule about button-and-bellows sequences imposed from outside the tune itself.

 

I do believe that the air button is a useful tool on the anglo, one which seems unnecessary on unisonoric squeezeboxes (English, duets, PA, etc.), but I think it reasonable for the player to choose how heavily (and how) to use it.

 

Edited to add: Thinking further on the above quote, it seems backward to me. I would think that the more you try to play "legato" -- i.e., without reversing the bellows through a phrase, -- the more likely it will be that you will have to use the air button, to compensate for "too many" notes in one bellows direction.

 

My experience suggests that over sufficient period of time, application of the air button on an Anglo becomes an almost totally relex action not dissimilar to normal breathing and the process no longer requires any particularly concentrated in-depth analysis. I guess this eventually applies to any sort of musical instrument that is dependent upon bellow, bow or lung capacity ?

[david_boveri]

i agree with Richard, in that the air button is an essential part of Anglo playing. if one tries to avoid it entirely, you might as well just play english concertina, which would much more easily make that legato effect.

I disagree... with your apparent assumption that the only purpose in avoiding the use of the air button is to obtain a "legato effect".

 

Contrariwise, one can (try to) avoid using the air button by choosing fingering which deliberately and frequently reverses the bellows to obtain pushes and pulls in equal balance, in much the same way as a fiddler will choose bowing patterns. E.g., in a jig you might see how close you can get to a repetition of (pull-pull-push, push-push-pull) or vice versa in each measure. Or for a different rhythmic effect, (pull-pull-pull, push-push-push), etc. But unless you have a very leaky instrument, you should be able to balance the pushes and pulls over periods longer than a single measure and thereby develop rhythmic patterns of longer duration... patterns chosen by you the player, rather than dictated by some rule about button-and-bellows sequences imposed from outside the tune itself.

 

I do believe that the air button is a useful tool on the anglo, one which seems unnecessary on unisonoric squeezeboxes (English, duets, PA, etc.), but I think it reasonable for the player to choose how heavily (and how) to use it.

 

Edited to add: Thinking further on the above quote, it seems backward to me. I would think that the more you try to play "legato" -- i.e., without reversing the bellows through a phrase, -- the more likely it will be that you will have to use the air button, to compensate for "too many" notes in one bellows direction.

 

there is really no need in irish music to get into the habit of balancing the pushes and pulls over periods longer than a measure. in heavily chorded music, this can be very beneficial, but it can very quickly kill the lift of a tune in irish music. i see what you mean about the legato thing, but if one is adept at playing all on the push or all on the pull, you could balance pretty easily use button direction alone to manage the bellows in irish music. my point is that it would not necessarily bring anything good to them music.

 

when i was learning my way around the anglo, i learned to play one jig all on the push and all on the pull. after that, i learned to play it with a D drone all on the pull in the first part and/or the second part. although it was a useful exercise, i have never since played the entire tune that way. i will, however, randomly pull to keep the drone going, but more is less with those kind of things. so, without doing a bagpipe like drone, i would never take all the lift out of the tune by just pulling or pushing for no reason ad nauseum.

[Anglo-Irishman]

I do believe that the air button is a useful tool on the anglo, one which seems unnecessary on unisonoric squeezeboxes (English, duets, PA, etc.), but I think it reasonable for the player to choose how heavily (and how) to use it.

 

Edited to add: Thinking further on the above quote, it seems backward to me. I would think that the more you try to play "legato" -- i.e., without reversing the bellows through a phrase, -- the more likely it will be that you will have to use the air button, to compensate for "too many" notes in one bellows direction.

 

Jim,

I don't play much single-line music such as ITM dance tunes on the Anglo. Any single-line melodies that I do play in an ensemble usually balance themselves out pretty well, so I hardly ever need the air-button, except to open the bellows to starting position and close them again at the end. Perhaps I should say, "I don't think I use the air-button vey much," because it's sort of instinctive to bleed a bit of air when you've still got the bellows half full (or half empty) and you have a long phrase in the opposite direction coming up.

 

Most of my single-line pieces are at a moderate tempo - I'd imagine the fast tempo of ITM music would make use of the air-button even less frequent, because the push and pull phases are shorter at presto than at adagio, but the bellows have the same volume.

 

I find that fully-chorded, more typically Anglo arrangements generally tend to be pretty well balanced, too. Here again, I only use the air-button occasionally. But there are definitely a few arrangements that I just couldn't play without it. Alternate fingerings are not so readily available when you're playing harmonies.

 

As to duets, I notice that some Cranes have and air-button and some haven't. Mine has, and I do use it occasionally to get my bellows in end position for a long, legato phrase or a phrase with very fat chords, that takes a whole bellows-full of air.

 

On both Anglo and Crane, my rule of "thumb" would be that the air-button is useful when applied during a short phrase that precedes a long phrase in the opposite bellows direction.

 

Use of the air-button is certainly analogous to breathing while singing. Even more closely analogous to using you nose to compensate when playing the mouth organ!

 

Cheers,

John

[Chris Timson]

Would I be correct in suggesting that one of the great, if not greatest advantages to 'Irish Traditional' exponents of the Anglo is that the tunes appear to be very 'bellows friendly' and playable from beginning to end without recourse to the air button. Most other styles of music on the Anglo require some extremely deft interaction of the air button and bellows to be fully successful but the 'Irish Traditional' fraternity seem to have a very distinct advantage in this respect. As one who is not a great lover of 'Irish Traditional' I probably sound jealous ? !!

 

As I do not play Irish music I cannot comment on how the Irish players use the air button, but I do not find its use in English music a hindrance. Indeed it has become second nature to me so much that I rarely notice when I use it. Introspection suggests that if I need a lot of air then I use it in conjunction with a long note in the appropriate direction. If I only need a little then I grab it in between notes. But either way it's as routine as the gear lever on a car. I just don't think about it. It works.

 

Chris