Bertram Levy's new tutor-a stroke of genius

[Anglo Enthusiast]

Hello, everyone. I just finished going through Bertram Levy's new tutor (American Fiddle Styles For The Anglo Concertina) and feel rather how Magellan must have felt upon discovering that the earth is not flat. This tutor has unfolded to me a whole, vast world of possibilties inherent within the 30 button concertina.

 

To those of us familiar with Bertram's former tutor, The Anglo Concertina Demystified or his groundbreaking albums FIRST GENERATION and SAGEFLOWER SUITE it may come as a surprise that he would elect to focus exclusively on a single repertoire (American fiddle tunes) to shape these advanced studies as the defining trait of his previous work has been

its cultural eclecticity. Paradoxically, brilliantly, Bertram's triumph in choosing to zero in on this specific body of music is really, as I see it, two-fold:by filtering his idealogy through these American fiddle tunes he illuminates not only how multi-faceted and culturally varied the repetoire actually is (encompassing influences as disparate as Irish, Afro-American, and English) but, more importantly, how, in complementary fashion, the concertina is equipped with a staggering adaptability which can mold itself both technically and stylistically time and again to the diversity of the material.

 

And, splendid as the tunes are, the chief value of the text is in the concepts and techniques presented within the given study. Bertram submits in the introduction that these skills can be applied to any genre, and eager to take him up on this claim, I've spent the last few days incorporating the approach into a handful of tunes outside the American fiddling repetoire with exciting results. Like many others, I began my studies with the Anglo Concertina Demystified and decided to reapproach a few of the tunes from that tutor newly equipped with the techniques learned from the more recent tutor (my plan is to eventually re-arm all the tunes from the Anglo Demystified and perhaps even post the results of the experiment on youtube). I decided to revisit the English Morris tune Constant Billy and the Irish reels Morning Dew and Sportin Paddy. What I found was that, though the Irish and English styles stand in sharp contrast to each other, I was able to meet both with a new level of confidence and understanding while encountering some surprising harmonic possibilities along the way. I've also reapproached a few tunes of Parisian and French-Canadian decent with comparable results.

 

One of the finger patterns from the tutor is of a particularly innovative nature and merits special mention. It is found in the study of the tune Rock The Cradle Joe and enables the concertinist to harmonize the C sharp and middle A with the bellows closing and then attend to the B on the third row while proceding to the C sharp in the next octave-and all without having to resort to changing bellows direction which would invariably interrupt the fluidity of the phrase. This maneuver is a stroke of genius and is in itself more than worth the price of admission. Fortunately, it is ony one of several incentives to give this new work a fair shake. I encourage any concertinist who has his/her sights set on mastery of the instrument and is, so to speak, in it for the long haul, to explore this tutor and leave no stone unturned.

 

Andy

[ceemonster]

[to harmonize the C sharp and middle A with the bellows closing and then attend to the B on the third row while proceding to the C sharp in the next octave-and all without having to resort to changing bellows direction]]

 

...it's great that you like the tutor and everything, but is it really news to any anglo players that this can be done? i dunno....maybe to some people who have learned from "methods" that limit learners to certain buttons, but these possibilities have always been there for the taking, and have seemed to me from the start to be the raison d'etre of the 30-button concertina as opposed to the 20-button concertina.

[Frank Edgley]

B on the third row? Should that be Bb or are you speaking of B on the first row?

[BertramLevy]

B on the third row? Should that be Bb or are you speaking of B on the first row?

 

 

I appreciate Andy's comments. I met him by skype recently and was amazed that he had armed the entire book to memory in 2 months - He has only been playing a year but he will be a great player in the world of concertinists

 

Please allow me to clarify the confusion over rows. I have always called the top row of accidentals Row I, the middle C row Row II and the bottom G row Row III. It seems others name it in the opposite direction. I guess there is no hard and fast rule - it is what I am used to and what I have seen on some of the cheaper instruments that used to have the button numbers stamped on the instrument

 

What Andy is referring to is in Rock the Cradle Joe in the key of D. The first phrase in the second part starts on the dominant A7th chord The figure is A B C# B A B C# D while the counterpoint melody is C# A C# A. The counterpart notes are quarter notes while the melodic line is eighth notes. The melody note A must be played on the top Row I to line up with the C# in the bass and the melody note C# similairly must be played with the closing A in the bass. These notes are all on the top Row I. If one played the B's on the middle (C or Row II) in the opening position, the phrase would be interrupted, the counterpoint bass notes would be converted into eighth notes and the melody would be altered from the original intention of the phrase. The fingerings used to accomplish this easily are part of the methodology outlined in the text. incidentally the arrangement comes in the last section of the book on counterpoint.

 

Hope this is clear. By the way if those with the tutor would like a skype session (gratis) to clarify something, I would be happy to accomodate them with prior arrangement.

 

Bertram