South American tunes

[rcr27]

 

South american style in anglo concertina

https://youtu.be/HeDuLAMPuR8

[Little John]

Thanks for sharing this. It was also interesting to see the use of English concertinas in Bolivia. (That was in the video that came up next, not that I understood much of it!)

[rcr27]

Hi John I got many friends in Bolivia. I have many videos of bolivian players I can share them if you wish. Is always nice to listen to this instrument in a different culture with a different style of playing isn't it?

Edited September 10, 2018 by rogercr27

[ritonmousquetaire]

On 9/9/2018 at 9:04 PM, rogercr27 said:

Hi John I got many friends in Bolivia. I have many videos of bolivian players I can share them if you wish. Is always nice to listen to this instrument in a different culture with a different style of playing isn't it?

 

I'd be very curious to have a look at these videos! I didn't know that the concertina was played in Bolivia, it would be great to hear more!

[rcr27]

Sure, I know quite a lot about the history of the concertina in Bolivia. 

There are even concertina festivals in different cities of the country, here is one:

https://youtu.be/dWbnm3CFoSw

 

I will be posting more.

 

 

 

[Don Taylor]

He is playing an EC in a chordal style.  I vaguely remember reading that the EC is the concertina of choice in Bolivia and that a two finger chordal style (well four fingers altogether) is the norm.  I would love to hear more of this stuff and to hear how this happened, this style of playing is not what Charles Wheatstone envisaged - and it is so exciting.

[rcr27]

That’s right usually they play with two fingers. I know the correct way of playing is with 3, but they play with 2 because that’s just how the bolivian folk music is played, in duet, regardless of the instrument. I just posted some YouTube  links of bolivian players if you want to take a look.

 

Im thinking about writing an article about the English Concertina in Bolivia since it looks that this topic is quite interesting.

Edited September 29, 2018 by rogercr27

[John Wild]

13 minutes ago, rogercr27 said:

Im thinking about writing an article about the English Concertina in Bolivia since it looks that this topic is quite interesting. 

I am sure it would be welcomed as an article in the International Concertina Journal, Concertina World.

[Don Taylor]

I just looked at the other videos - nice looking Aeola in one of them!  Two fingers mostly playing thirds on each end?

 

Do they have their own tuning conventions for their instruments - it has a distinctive, tart sound?  Cf. Cajun tuning for their button accordions where they tune to perfect thirds, but here is quite a different sound to the Cajun style.   Or the tuning used by the Zulu players in SA.  I also noticed some of  the players using the Doppler effect to get some interesting dynamics. 

 

As a Canadian, I have often wondered what the Inuit concertina sound was like.  There are old photographs like this one, but no recordings.

 

http://www.arcticdefenders.ca/sites/default/files/a179001-v6.jpg

 

We are certainly not in Potters Bar, Dorothy.

 

Yes please, a longer piece on the Bolivian style would be very interesting.

[rcr27]

I don’t really think they have a different tunning conventions to be honest. They have been able to adapt the instrument to their folk music style, and the reason why the use english concertinas and not anglos or any other button concertinas is simply because of the chromatic scale that the EC has, so its easier. I’ve never heard the sound of the Inuit concertina either.

 

I have some good videos on my phone as well but I can’t upload them because the max total size is only 3.91MB

[Don Taylor]

You could upload them to Youtube and post links here without consuming your allocation.

 

I did find an impressive Bolivian video of a guy playing an Anglo (a Bastari):