Will I Confuse Myself By Learning Cross-Row Keying On Anglo In Harmoni

[TedK]

I don't think there is any conflict between cross-rowing and the harmonic style- in fact it's often essential to play across rows to get the chord you want on the left hand.

 

Harmonic style is certainly easiest in the "home keys" of C/G, I personally find it roughly equally easy (or difficult ) in both, but isn't that difficult in D either and definitely something to work towards.

 

The principles of the instrument are the same whichever style you are playing, and personally I think that learning a diverse range of pieces can only benefit your overall understanding of the instrument. I guess the only exception might be if you wanted to learn a strictly Irish style for competitions or something, but I don't get the impression that's the case.

 

[Mikefule]

 

 

The "first" key would be Dmaj then (there has been some discussing the nomenclature of calling a C/G Anglo a "D" concertina here...

 

Best wishes - Wolf

 

 

Buy a C/G push pull box and start off playing in D. For lesson 2: fitting a roof rack to your unicycle! Only the Irish!

[Wolf Molkentin]

Buy a C/G push pull box and start off playing in D. For lesson 2: fitting a roof rack to your unicycle! Only the Irish!

 

 

touché

[lstein]

Unicycles aside, and speaking only from the experience of a rank beginner, I'm finding that learning the Irish and Harmonic styles simultaneously has been fun, rewarding, and enriching. Harmonic style forces me to learn alternative fingerings and helps me get comfortable with using all the rows. In addition, I think that if I were just working in the Irish style, my right hand would be getting a disproportionate amount of training; at least on the tunes I'm working on, the range favors the right side of the instrument.

 

On the other hand, I've had to make tradeoffs to learn the harmonic style in the limited amount of practice time I have per day. I haven't tried to learn the various Irish-style ornamentations, reasoning that gaining fluidity with the unadorned notes is more important at my level. What do you folk think?

 

Lincoln

Edited February 18, 2016 by lstein

[JimLucas]

...I've had to make tradeoffs to learn the harmonic style in the limited amount of practice time I have per day. I haven't tried to learn the various Irish-style embellishments, reasoning that gaining fluidity with the unadorned notes is more important at my level. What do you folk think?

 

I think that whatever provides you with the most motivation is the right way to go.

[Wolf Molkentin]

Hi Lincoln,

 

albeit not being a player of primarily Irish music and without exact knowledge of the embellishments considered appropriate here I nevertheless found it important and likewise natural to include ornamentation in my approaching the instrument and developing style. Maybe you could just give it a go as it may be falling under your fingers...

 

Best wishes - Wolf

[lstein]

I'm referring to rolls, cuts and the like. Pretty essential to the style, I suspect.

 

Lincoln

[Wolf Molkentin]

I'm referring to rolls, cuts and the like. Pretty essential to the style, I suspect.

 

Lincoln

 

I wasn't unsure about the reference, just re the exact execution (as opposed to a rather lax "feel")

[ceemonster]

what do you mean by "harmonic style"? never heard this before RE anglo concertina, or concertina. are you talking about, chordal playing? melody playing with chordal bass effects?

 

put all notes in play as potential options for fingering/phrasing/chording/bass-ing a melody, regardless of "what row" they are on and what direction they go in. that is the only "rule" I used when learning anglo, and I made it up myself. don't care what any famous teacher thinks on that subject. it served me extremely well . . . and then I got interested in EC simply because it became irresistible to have all notes and be able to play them in either direction, at any point in the tune I jolly well wanted. . . . but . . . it is still fascinating how much one can do melodically on anglo by putting every note on the table as an option. French musette melodies, for example, which one would expect to fit optimally with unisonorics (and they do), actually can be done very fluidly on anglo . . . with all notes in play.

Edited March 4, 2016 by ceemonster

[Mikefule]

Lots of people refer to "harmonic style" - possibly because it isn't always played as chords. You can play bass runs and counter melodies, for example.

[lstein]

I use the terminology from Gary Cooper's book, "Anglo Concertina in the Harmonic Style". It seems to mean a style in which there is a strong accompaniment to the main melody, and not just occasional chords and embellishments.

 

Lincoln

 

PS: great book!

[Robin Harrison]

what do you mean by "harmonic style"?

 

Just a few years ago, we used the term "English Style" with the intention of distinguishing it from "Irish Style"

If my recall is correct, it was Dan Worral ( an earlier poster in this thread) who concluded after his wide and detailed research that the term "English " was far too narrow and coined the term "harmonic".

Am I right, Dan ?

Robin

 

[Dan Worrall]

I think so, Robin. Back in 2004, while preparing my book on William Kimber, I was grappling with how to describe what I saw at the time as four main ways to play the instrument:

along-the-row (eg, many of the old Irish players, and nearly all of the 19th century tutors for the instrument), octave playing (like Scan Tester and Chris Droney, and of course since then I learned of so many others, including Oz's Dooley Chapman), cross-row playing (e.g., Noel Hill etc.), and then what Kimber and so many other English players were doing in Morris music. I called it 'harmonic' playing in that book, and since then was exposed to dozens of brilliantly harmonic South African Boer players, so I am glad I didn't call it "English" style!

 

If I had to name that categorization again, I might be tempted to call it "duet" style playing, because most harmonic style players play the instrument as if it were a duet. But then, one would have to invent another categorization for some of the South African Boer players, who play in weird keys like Bb and Eb on a CG Anglo, going wildly across the rows without even a tip of the hat to what most of us would call the 'along the row' core of the instrument.

 

And then, we should add a separate category for the black South Africans, who play rhythmic riffs rather than melody, and who have even been known to reverse the direction of whole rows of keys to aid in this! But that is another story.

 

Before 2004, in a mostly pre-internet era, it was a different world in terms of shared knowledge of the Anglo concertina - which is why I even tried to categorize the main styles. There were still at that time many Irish players who had never heard of 'English' style playing, and vice versa. And very few from my country (including me at the time) had heard Australians and South Africans play. Not that way any more! Alan Day's Anglo International recording spread knowledge of the great diversity of styles on the Anglo, and by today Youtube has made nearly everything accessible.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Dan Worrall

[geoffwright]

I play anglo and english and can swap during tunes - must be wired-up wrong
I treat them as totally different instruments for different repertoire so I don't get confused (Irish on anglo and northumbrian on english)

After some 3 decades on anglo, I learnt english as I got fed up of cross-fingering F and A on anglo

If you are wanting to play Irish, it is worth learning the 4 button trick

Up the LH then
GA (LHC) BC (RHC)

DE (LHG) F#G (RHG)

then up the G row

Edited August 9, 2016 by geoffwright