(English 'tina) Play simple again in other octave

[JimLucas]

...I have wondered if it is actually easier to play 'double octaves' on any of the concertina types in particular.

Well, yeah... any of the standard "duet" systems.

Because on a duet you'll be playing the entire melody separately in each hand, and (with rare exceptions on large Maccanns) the button sequence will be the same in both hands. (I don't say the "fingering" will be the same, since your hands are mirror images, but the keyboards are not.)

 

Playing in octaves on the anglo can also be pretty easy within a particular range in the home keys, though there is the complication of a location shift between push and pull in the two hands. And outside of those keys and range the fingering correspondence between the octaves quickly becomes effectively arbitrary.

 

Although the English is my main squeeze, I would say that the English is the most difficult for octave playing of more than a few notes in a row. This is not because of any lack of a consistent pattern, but because of how that pattern influences fingering sequences. On an English, playing in thirds is mechanically simple for the fingers, requiring little movement, but playing in octaves requires continual large and potentially awkward movements. It's hardly worth the trouble, when there are many other styles of harmony that are more suited to the English.

[symon]

It's hardly worth the trouble, when there are many other styles of harmony that are more suited to the English.

ooh! I have to take the bait and say...'such as?' and it would be interesting to know why they are used more than others.

[JimLucas]

It's hardly worth the trouble, when there are many other styles of harmony that are more suited to the English.

ooh! I have to take the bait and say...'such as?'

Thirds and sixths have already been mentioned. A drone sometimes works, but hardly always. Chords... particularly now and then, rather than constantly. That should be good for a start.

 

... and it would be interesting to know why they are used more than others.

Because "the others" are difficult, uncomfortable, or even "impossible". Parallel octaves is a case in point. Another is vamping a steady bass-chord/bass-chord while also playing the melody. On a duet and often on an anglo the chording and melody can be kept separate, each in a single hand (normally LH for the chords and RH for the melody). On an English that's impossible for any reasonable tune (and for most unreasonable ones, too).

[symon]

Thanks for that, Jim.

I have been wondering whether the chordal oom-pah (or otherwise) that you can get from a melodeon could be replicated on an EC. I suppose it could be with a great deal of effort, but it's good to know others have considered it and thought it too much.

So, do you think that the EC is best used with harmonised lines of some sort at select points rather than all the way through (as opposed to the constant chording you can do with a melodeon)?

 

Thanks for your time in answering these questions. Your answers (and others') are very helpful to me, just starting to explore the greater potential of the English concertina.

Bellowbelle I hope you'll forgive my questions. I don't think I've hijacked the thread, but I seem to be taking it a little further away from your OP.

[JimLucas]

So, do you think that the EC is best used with harmonised lines of some sort at select points rather than all the way through (as opposed to the constant chording you can do with a melodeon)?

"Yes" would be a partial answer. But it's way past my bedtime, so I'll have to get back to you on that.

 

Bellowbelle I hope you'll forgive my questions. I don't think I've hijacked the thread, but I seem to be taking it a little further away from your OP.

I believe Wendy's original post was not about playing in more than one octave at once, but about shifting what one plays by an octave. On the English, one perspective is that it turns all the fingering "inside out". I recommend a different perspective, under which the octave jump makes "no change at all". My perspective is all about three sets of "mirrors" (no smoke), and if you search on that word, maybe you'll find something I've written in the past. Otherwise... later.

[symon]

Thanks. I found this: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1553&view=findpost&p=14748 which gives a tantalising hint! I will search for the rest tomorrow as it is also now past my bedtime.

Thanks

[JimLucas]

I found this: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1553&view=findpost&p=14748 which gives a tantalising hint!

In addition to "mirror", another word I used is "alternation". Here's an extract from one of my posts in a earlier thread:

For the EC, I find it useful to think of the scale not as a set of fixed locations, but as a nesting of three alternations:

• same side vs. opposite side of the instrument
  
• same side vs. opposite side of the center line
  
• same side vs. opposite side of the inner-outer dividing lines
  

I.e., not "right" vs. "left" sorts of alternations, but "the same" vs. "the other". And eventually (actually, it should be pretty quickly) it should become as automatic a clapping your hands. You don't think, "Oh, my hands are apart, so I need to slap them together; now my hands are together, so I need to draw them apart." Do you? (If you do, then I suspect you'd better not try to play the anglo. )

And here are links to a couple more of my related posts:

one link

and another

[michael sam wild]

Geoff, if you don't use equal temperament does that mean you play mainly in certain keys in your French band?

 

On the question of harmony intervals I was very intrested at a gig by Chris Foster who now lives in Iceland to hear that folk tunes and harmony songs were largely played in 1, 5 harmony. Chris said it may have come via the Irish monks who were early settlers before the Vikings ( the monks must have got there in curraghs!). It gives a very nice effect. He and his wife were using dulcimers like the US mountain ones, with a few strings and a drone.

[Geoff Wooff]

Geoff, if you don't use equal temperament does that mean you play mainly in certain keys in your French band?

 

 

Michael,

yes we do play in certain keys in the French band. In this area the normal tuning of the Hurdy Gurdy and bagpipes is C/G

so most tunes are in C major with some in G Maj.,and some in G and C minor.The usual Accordion is the G/C Melodion. But having said that I also use my Concertinas in non Equal Temperament for playing ITM and anything else that comes along... from Bach to Ragtime.

 

Because the EC has the separate buttons for G# and Ab and for D# and Eb one can use these "sweeter" temperaments with out compromising much on the number of Keys one can play in.I have yet to find a key that I cannot play in but I would guess that F#,C# and B majors would throw up some nasty intervals.

 

With the Duet, where there are not these extra buttons, I am thinking about a temperament that will suit it but at present it remains in E.T.

 

I have tuned several Anglos for people who have a specific use... an example would be The A/E pitched Jeffries of Jacqueline McCarthy which she uses to play with her Husband,Tommy Keane's Uilleann pipes pitched in B. So this one was tuned to a set of perfect intervals relating to a datum note of B.

 

Maybe that should be a discussion for a different forum though so I will leave it at that. If you or anyone wishes more information please feel free to ask.

 

Cheers,

Geoff.