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Fiddlin' around with the concertina.


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A response to a request from another thread.

 

As a fiddle player for fifty years and a duet player for around six? months I'm surprised and delighted that my fiddle techniques are readily transferable to my 'tina.  My only disappointment in this regard is that the higher notes are less strident than the violin which may limit it's use as a lead instrument for much of the dance music I play.  I don't use a whole lot of ornamentation but I can see that adding some up high could help.  The overlap of notes on the duet could also be of use of use, although I haven't tried it yet, similar to mirroring an open string with the forth finger; a common fiddle technique.  The bellows is very similar to the bow in its function and can duplicate just about anything I can do on fiddle.  I tend to play in the middle of the bow and with the bellows at half way.  I wouldn't play a long phrase with one bow stroke, usually changing after two notes, or sometimes three for something fast like a reel or a hoedown.  Same with the bellows.  Having enough air never becomes an issue.  I use the bellows for same note triplets and a little mild vibrato. 

I'm stopping here because that seems like enough to start a conversation and I know others will chime in.

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Wunks

 

Thanks for starting this topic.

 

What concertina do you play?  (type of duet and maker, wooden ends or metal).   Concertinas are rarely described as not being strident enough - usually the opposite!  It might be that what you hear as a player is not what a listener on the dance floor hears.  Try playing close to a wall on your right hand side, this should make the sound come right back at you.  When you play fiddle then the sound is right in your face whereas the sound from a concertina projects outwards from the ends.

 

The fiddle and the violin are both very expressive instruments, do you feel that you can wring the same amount of emotion out of a concertina?  Danny Chapman says that his cello is better for expressive music than his concertina, maybe David has some thoughts on this topic?

 

 

 

 

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I have a 51 button Jeffries duet and a 53 button Wheatstone Jeffries pattern duet both of which I purchased (separately) in the late 60's early 70's both metal ended.  Both are centered on C but the Jeffries is apparently in old philharmonic, a tad below modern C#.  The Wheatstone is from around 1930 and maintains the Jeff pattern except for the low end and in having more overlap.  

Maybe strident is the wrong word.  It's loud enough.  I hesitate to use "dog whistle" but it's a thinness of tone similar to what you get from a poorly made violin.  I may catch it for this but I suspect the wood and other materials used in concertina construction are too dense to resonate much with the higher register.  Good fiddles are constructed with carved spruce tops that have the growth rings oriented from wide at the low end to narrower under the highstrings.  The feet of the bridge are honed to an exact match for the top and a new one is meticulously eased at it's corners and edges.  There is a sound post carefully fitted to tie it all together.  As I write this I'm more certain this is the problem.  Remove the sound post from a violin and it sounds flat as an unplugged Stratocaster.....or the highest notes on a concertina.  I think the concertina resonates wonderfully  in the range of a viola; with the higher notes on a fiddle... not so much.  Has anyone tried introducing an internal spruce resonator board?

Now that I've bashed it, as to expressiveness,  I find the concertina extremely so.  Is it better than the violin?  Different is a better word.  It can oom pah or play a slow air.  It excels at vocal accompaniment.  I love wandering around a usually acapella tune exploring rhythms and harmonies to go with my voice.  a nice slow version of "Rolling Down To Old Maui" is an example.  I even bent a note like on a harmonica by accident while torturing a passage on "The Spring Of '65".  Has anyone ever used this in their playing?  So yes, I think it's on par with a fiddle for expression.

 

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Wunks

 

My apologies, I thought that you had only recently bought your first concertina and wondered if it was an entry level model.  Clearly not the case.

 

Your observation about the 'thinness' of tone in the higher register, as opposed to a lack of volume, makes sense to me.

 

But you mentioned that you have managed to 'bend' notes.  Can you do this at will and, if so, how do you do that?

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No apologies necessary Don.  I've had them for years but just recently started playing them.  I'm progressing fairly rapidly because I already have the music in my head.  I do tend to play in the lower register both because the fiddle notes with the left hand and because the range of the cello, viola, French horn etc. is most pleasing to me.  It also helps that both instruments  are centered on C which is great for song accompaniment, again, mostly with the left hand.  The notes for most common fiddle tunes in G,D and A stray beyond the overlap of about 5 notes on the duet and into dog whistle territory and the fingerings are not as intuitive.  

I think I came off as a little harsh toward the upper end acoustics.  It's a wonderful sounding instrument overall but when you open one up there's nothing comparable to the violin as far as an attempt at enhancement of tone.  It's almost like it's just a pretty little bellows box to hold the reeds.  It gets me thinking when I see some of the modern efforts with F holes instead of intricate fret work...why not experiment with some instrument quality Spruce and a sound post and maybe a bass bar as an attempt to improve tone.

Bending notes.....I did it once by accident.  I tried to make it happen a bit last night after my post with limited success.  I can manage to coax a slight bend and i think it could be done.  Think of a harmonica reed.....similar thing.   You're changing the reed vibration by varying the air flow around it.  With that in mind try a vibrato by shaking the bellows with the free hand.  Slow it down and what have you got?  I'm not there yet but I'm betting it's doable.

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Hi wunks and Don, albeit eagerly anticipating to write something re the "fiddling" topic, two things in advance:

 

1. I would hardly believe that the "thinner" tone of smaller reeds could be noticeably enhanced (in terms of making it sound "fatter"), only muted.

 

2. Bending has been discussed here repeatedly. I think it's quite different from doing it with a harp; we just have to increase the volume/pressure whilst simultaneously closing the pad of a "lower" note.

 

Best wishes - ?

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Wunks

 

I get the impression from your posts that you mostly play the left hand side of your (big duet) concertinas and that you mostly 'bow' with your right hand.  Is that right?

 

If so, is this because it mirrors the way you play fiddle or because you prefer the sound of the lower notes on the concertina? 

 

The way that you say you play 'oom-pah' on the concertina seems to be fiddle-like: a strong single melody note on the down beat for the 'oom' and a light double stop for the 'pah', have I got that right?

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2 hours ago, Wolf Molkentin said:

Hi wunks and Don, albeit eagerly anticipating to write something re the "fiddling" topic, two things in advance:

 

1. I would hardly believe that the "thinner" tone of smaller reeds could be noticeably enhanced (in terms of making it sound "fatter"), only muted.

 

2. Bending has been discussed here repeatedly. I think it's quite different from doing it with a harp; we just have to increase the volume/pressure whilst simultaneously closing the pad of a "lower" note.

 

Best wishes - ?

Hello Wolfe.  A fairly easy test has occurred to me while discussing this.  I'll try ( or anyone can) fitting a sound post for the hi side, and move it around a bit looking for a sweet spot.  wooden ends (mahogany has decent acoustical qualities) might work better but if it's going to work at all there should be some effect with my metal ones.  I'll let you know.

 

I hadn't searched bending as it just came up in the conversation sorry.

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1 minute ago, wunks said:

I hadn't searched bending as it just came up in the conversation sorry.

 

no problem - I just meant to justify cutting short on my side...

 

and I'm eager to hear from you re experimenting with the sound post...

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1 hour ago, Don Taylor said:

Wunks

 

I get the impression from your posts that you mostly play the left hand side of your (big duet) concertinas and that you mostly 'bow' with your right hand.  Is that right?

 

If so, is this because it mirrors the way you play fiddle or because you prefer the sound of the lower notes on the concertina? 

 

The way that you say you play 'oom-pah' on the concertina seems to be fiddle-like: a strong single melody note on the down beat for the 'oom' and a light double stop for the 'pah', have I got that right?

Hi Don.  the answer is yes to all your questions.  Just playing pah is something I came up with after playing lead for many years and suddenly finding myself in a Blugrass/ Old timey band doing lots of fast accompaniment to unfamiliar tunes and rhythms.  I'm sure others must use this technique but most fiddlers I've heard "Chug" on the down beat or oom.  Jazz piano players use it as well.  Emphasizing the back beat like this frees up the melody, to my ear anyway, instead of everyone pounding away on the down beat.  Oom pa has its place but not every thing needs to sound like Octoberfest!

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Regarding the soundpost idea, I don't really see how it would work. I posed a similar question to someone who is an expert on both concertinas and violins. This was the answer I received: "... the sound post has two functions, one, to support the treble side of the violin near enough to the bridge to prevent the tension of the strings from cracking the table, but not immediately below the bridge so that the table can still vibrate, and also to carry the vibrations from the strings through the instrument and produce a better sound." This makes sense because the vibration of the strings is transferred to the table which produces most of the sound. However the sound in a concertina is produced in a very different way - by chopping up the airflow directly. If the intention was for the vibration of the reed to be transferred through its root to a soundboard then the reeds are fixed in the worst possible position - where the reedpan is fixed at the edge and has the least ability to resonate.

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1 hour ago, Wolf Molkentin said:

Hi John,

 

to my best knowledge the reed is indeed vibrating (of course), but there is nothing to be transferred or amplified from there - the tone is produced by cutting and releasing the air flow...

 

Best wishes - ?

 

Exactly. So what would a violin-type soundpost add?

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Regarding enhancing the tone of a concertina, I once raised the idea of adding some sort of resonator

 

Wunks:  so your focus is on your left-hand.  Other than to play occasional melody notes that are too high for the LHS, do you use the RHS notes at all?  Maybe for ornamentation or for a high drone?  It is an unusual (inverted really) approach to playing a duet (or an Anglo in the harmonic style) and I am intrigued about what can be done.

 

 

Edited by Don Taylor
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3 hours ago, Wolf Molkentin said:

 

no problem - I just meant to justify cutting short on my side...

 

and I'm eager to hear from you re experimenting with the sound post...

It'll be a couple of days before I can try it but I will post the results.  If my understanding of the Physics is correct, a musical tone is composed of not just the vibration frequency of the note it'self but harmonics and sympathetic vibes as well.  That is why placing a finger lightly in the middle on a string sounding "C" for instance will stop the note from end to end but two sympathetic higher octave notes will continue to sound.  Other spots or nodes will result in other harmonics so the musical "tone"C is comprised of all these harmonics while the academic "note"C is just the one frequency.  I'm sure you've listened to the fantastic Mongolian throat singers who can separate tones into harmonics as they chant.  It may be that the higher reeds of the concertina are too short to contain accessible extra harmonics, in which case a sound post may allow them to more easily communicate with the other sympathetic reeds and set them buzzing.  you wouldn't hear it as separate notes, just a fuller sound.  I have a viola the low open C string of which will not shut up when I play a higher C.   

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5 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

Regarding enhancing the tone of a concertina, I once raised the idea of adding some sort of resonator

 

Wunks:  so your focus is on your left-hand.  Other than to play occasional melody notes that are too high for the LHS, do you use the RHS notes at all?  Maybe for ornamentation or for a high drone?  It is an unusual (inverted really) approach to playing a duet (or an Anglo in the harmonic style) and I am intrigued about what can be done.

 

 

Don, I just read through the resonator thread.   Thanks,  maybe we can all come up with a solution if we keep the conversation going.

 

I am starting to go to the right hand more as I go out of C and to more fiddle tunes in G,D, and A.  Using the right for drones,  counter point and such is starting to progress.  I just let the "tina tell me what it wants to play for a tune.  Speaking of inversion, I recently picked it up wrong? way 'round and it took me a while to realize I had it upside down!  The finger patterns ,at least for the Jeffries are similar either way.

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12 hours ago, wunks said:

It'll be a couple of days before I can try it but I will post the results.  If my understanding of the Physics is correct, a musical tone is composed of not just the vibration frequency of the note it'self but harmonics and sympathetic vibes as well.  That is why placing a finger lightly in the middle on a string sounding "C" for instance will stop the note from end to end but two sympathetic higher octave notes will continue to sound.  Other spots or nodes will result in other harmonics so the musical "tone"C is comprised of all these harmonics while the academic "note"C is just the one frequency.  I'm sure you've listened to the fantastic Mongolian throat singers who can separate tones into harmonics as they chant.  It may be that the higher reeds of the concertina are too short to contain accessible extra harmonics, in which case a sound post may allow them to more easily communicate with the other sympathetic reeds and set them buzzing.  you wouldn't hear it as separate notes, just a fuller sound.  I have a viola the low open C string of which will not shut up when I play a higher C.   

 

Since the vibration of a reed is barely hearable anyway the communication of sympathetic reeds wouldn't add a thing of significance to the tone IMO. It's just a different type of sound generation...

 

 

Edited by Wolf Molkentin
typo
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