Suggestions sought for variations on octave accompaniment

[rlgph]

In another duet accompaniment thread Don Taylor said "I am just so happy if I can get anything going on the left hand that sounds good with the melody on the the right."  I immediately thought "I resemble that remark."  That's the primary reason i consider myself as remaining at an advanced beginner level.  (I play mostly American or British folk or pop tunes by ear.)  Since the left side of my Hayden is mirrored, octave accompaniment is very easy for me, so that's what i usually go for when i do anything on the left side other than playing melody.  However, obviously i don't always want to slavishly follow a right side melody with my left hand.  As i have thought about it, i've come up with the following variations on octave accompaniment that i've tried (I mostly limit the use of one or two of these variations within a given tune.):

 

0.  Strict octave shadowing of phrases within the tune.

1.  Echoing phrases of the right side with the left side (call and response).

2.  Alternately playing phrases of the melody between the right side and the left side.

3.  Shadowing the melody with the left side shifted a fourth (or other fixed shift).

 

I'd like to hear comments you have about other possible variations, or your views about the artistic merit of any/all of these variations.  Thanks.

[Wolf Molkentin]

9 minutes ago, rlgph said:

3.  Shadowing the melody with the left side shifted a fourth (or other fixed shift).

 

Hi - good to have these things discussed IMO!

 

And just a quick comment on this one from my side: a fixed shift would hardly work throughout a given melody. A common example would be parallel thirds below the melody. You constantly alternate between major and minor third anyway (in order to keep things within the diatonic scale resp. harmony), and then you would drop the final note below the root note by two semitones in order to achieve a stable ending. I expect similar findings for any other given spacing but will gladly stand corrected if mistaken.

 

Best wishes - ?

[Don Taylor]

rlgph

 

(Going out on a limb time for me as I really don't know what I am talking about...)

 

As I understand  things, all of your techniques work but not all the way through the melody with just one of them.  If you do that then it is not that it sounds bad, just that it becomes boring and predictable after a few notes.  With apologies to Everly Brothers fans, that is what they did and the two voices really just merge into one for the listener.  Gregorian chant has the same effect.  It can be quite beautiful, but modern ears demand a more varied sound.

 

To make it interesting and maybe surprising at times, it seems that the harmony line(s) need to sound different from the melody line, supportive yes, but different.  There are tomes written about counterpoint harmony but these are some simple guidelines that I try to follow (I may be wrong in these and the real experts will soon chime in, right David?):

 

Do not play sequences of parallel 4ths, 5ths or octaves, a singleton is good, but then move to a different interval.

 

You can play sequences of 3rds and 6ths but even then you should try to avoid long strings of these intervals.  I suspect that these intervals are OK because the sound will flip between the major and minor versions of the interval as you accompany the melody and this will naturally separate the melody from the harmony.

 

When the melody rises then try to go down in the harmony, and vice-versa.

 

I am not sure what to do about 2nds and 7ths.  I generally try avoid 2nds, but 7ths seem to sound appropriate at times.

 

Hold on to a harmony note through multiple melody notes when it sounds good.

 

Having an idea of the chord progression for a tune helps in picking between 3rds and 6ths.  For example, if the section of the melody calls for a C major then E (the 3rd above C and the 6th below C) will sound OK, but A, the (the 6th above C and the 3rd below C) may not.  However, if the chord is F major then the As's will sound OK and not the E.  Similar idea between picking a 4th or a 5th. (Added:  However Amin can often be substituted for Cmaj in which case the A will sound OK - nobody said this would be easy!)

 

Thirds, especially major thirds, can sound dissonant on concertinas so play a 10th instead.  Eg.  If the melody note is C5 and you want to play a third that would be [A4,C5] but [A3,C5], which is a 10th, will often sound better.

 

Less is sometimes more, leave the melody to itself for a few notes or just add harmony to occasional long held notes, I hear this quite a lot in ITM and in fiddle music.

 

Sometimes you have to break the rules and just find something that sounds OK. 

 

I just wish that I could work this stuff out 'on the fly' as I am playing but I have to work at it in a music notation program and then learn to play the result - which is hard and slow work for me. 

 

I am finding that having a chord progression for a melody and then poking at notes that are in an accompanying chord will often work out OK.

 

"The journey is the reward".

 

Don.

 

I often ponder this one pager that Rich Morse wrote 10 years ago, you (RLGH) will have invert the spider patterns on the LHS because of the mirrored LHS on your concertina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Don Taylor
Tried to clarify interval counting: E3 to C4 is a sixth, C4 to E4 is a third.

[Wolf Molkentin]

14 minutes ago, Don Taylor said:

Hold on to a harmony note through multiple melody notes when it sounds good.

 

All very good advice from Don IMO, just wanted to highligt the quoted bit - the sound of fiddle „double stops“ can be achieved this way...

 

Best wishes - ?

[Anglo-Irishman]

3 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

I am finding that having a chord progression for a melody and then poking at notes that are in an accompanying chord will often work out OK.

 

That's what I do most of the time. It's certainly quicker and more efficient than trying to work out what is the third, fifth, seventh, tenth or whatever of the melody note, and then wondering which interval is appropriate at this point in the tune!

 

That's why I find it so important to learn chords on the duet - not to create a carpet of sound or to provide an oom-pah, but to reduce the choice of possible harmony notes to a minimum. I don't have to press down all the fingers that are hovering over the buttons for the given chord.

 

Cheerts,

John

[Wolf Molkentin]

This is exactly part of what I‘m doing right now, John...

[wunks]

9 minutes ago, Anglo-Irishman said:

 

That's what I do most of the time. It's certainly quicker and more efficient than trying to work out what is the third, fifth, seventh, tenth or whatever of the melody note, and then wondering which interval is appropriate at this point in the tune!

 

That's why I find it so important to learn chords on the duet - not to create a carpet of sound or to provide an oom-pah, but to reduce the choice of possible harmony notes to a minimum. I don't have to press down all the fingers that are hovering over the buttons for the given chord.

 

Cheerts,

John

Me too.  The chords are always there waiting in my subconscious.  I find myself limiting the melody to just the first two fingers mostly,  and reaching out for harmonies almost without thinking.

[rlgph]

Thanks for the suggestions, especially your long, thoughtful post, Don -- a lot there for me to mull over.  Just, to be clear, though i initially started my left hand accompaniment with octave shadowing entire tunes, i now limit all of the variations 0-3 to a measure or two here and there.  The melody is always dominant in my playing.

 

Although i can in principle work out and learn counter melodies to go with my right (or left) hand melody, my biggest enjoyment with the concertina is playing a melody by ear and devising variations of it.  (In addition, recently i've been having fun quietly playing single hand accompaniment at a weekly guitar/banjo jam that i attend.)  I'm not willing to invest a lot of time memorizing a few set pieces (that would be substantially inferior to those of a good player, no matter how hard i worked).  That's why i tend to base any accompaniment i do on the octave variations that i mentioned -- i can do those on the fly along with my melody playing, with a relatively small sacrifice in speed.

 

Thanks again for your comments; i shall be trying out some of your ideas over the next batch of months.

 

           ron

[Don Taylor]

Chord-based harmonic accompaniment.

 

Yes, while I am not sorry that I started down the road of formally working out harmonic structures, it is a lot of work and the chordal approach is a lot quicker.

 

This is why I find the Rich Morse's  'spidering around' technique for Hayden concertinas powerful - see the link in my last post.  

 

Rich's diagram does not have much explanation on how to use it, it was meant as a hand-out for a course on playing the Hayden and very sadly Rich is no longer around to explain his diagram.

 

I stared at it on and off for a while and only recently figured out how it works.  What can I say, I am a bit slow at times.

 

Basically, the 'body' of the spider is the note on the lhs that corresponds to the melody note being played on the rhs.  The 'elbows' and the 'feet' of the spider are the possible harmony notes.  Exclude the notes that are not in the key being played (unless you are very modern) and you have most of the possible chordal-based harmony notes for the melody note.  Not shown in the diagram are the additional notes that you can use by simply inverting the spider shapes to get some more harmony notes from different chord inversions.  If you want to play more than one of these harmony notes then they need to be joined together with a line in the diagram - 'legs' and/or  'thighs' in my arachnid analogy. (Added:  Well this maybe a bit too strong a precondition for picking multiple notes, but it is a safe choice).

 

So why is this handy?  Because there is only one set of spider shapes to learn for all possible melody notes.  Some feet and elbows get chopped off because they are out of key, but the rest of the feet and elbows land on harmony notes.  On a Hayden, you do not even have to know about chords to find harmony notes - just memorize the spider shape and then spider around for a note that you sounds good to you.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Don Taylor

[Mikefule]

I play Anglo, but in this respect the principles must be similar.

 

There are 5 chords that together will provide a reasonably varied accompaniment to a tune in a major key:

 

I,  !V and V (all major)  (Matter of taste, but V7 is also an option.  Some people say "no sevenths in folk".)

II minor and VI minor

 

So playing in G, they would be G C D, and Am and Em.

 

Occasional use of III minor (B minor if playing in G) adds colour.

 

Every note of the scale will fit at least one of those chords and most will fit 2 or even 3 of them.  The trick is then to learn which chord is preferable.

 

A simple tune will tend to start and finish on the major chord based on the tonic.  G, playing in G.

 

The V chord (D, playing in G) will be your second most common chord, often occurring at the end of a phrase that ends on either the 5th or 2nd note of the scale.

 

The II min chord (A minor, playing in G) will often substitute for the V, especially if it is followed immediately by the V.

 

The VI minor chord will often substitute for the I major.

 

 

So the question is what to do with those chords to make a nice accompaniment.

 

I agree that the "oom pah" is often overdone.  By "oom pah", I mean playing a bass note followed by 2 or more notes of the chord, approximately an octave higher.

 

The oom pah can be varied by changing the bass note.  For example, playing the G major chord, you may play:

| G bass, B&D | D bass, B&D | and alternate, or:

 

| G bass, B&D | B bass, B&D | D bass, B&D |

 

 

Another simple effect is to play the 1st and 5th notes of the chord together (an "open 5th") then fill in the 3rd.

 

Another simple effect is to play arpeggios: the notes of the chord, one after the other, in a pattern.  Examples for G major:

 

G B D g

G D B D

 

 

Another simple effect is to find "pedal points".  These are the notes that are shared between consecutive chords.  For example:

G major is G B D

C major is C E G

The G bass note will fit either chord, but performing a different function in each case: the root in one, the 5th in the other.

 

Or

G major is G B D

D major is D F#A

The D bass note will fit either chord, but performing a different function in each case.

 

By holding or repeating a note that is the pedal point, you use simple fingering to achieve a dynamic effect.

 

 

A good exercise is to take 4 chords and play them in sequence, and experiment with different ways of sounding them, without a melody to distract you. Find what works for you.

 

 

 

 

[RAc]

My concertina socialization is via dance (function) music, so my take on this issue is somewhat, uhm, funneled through the ears of a dance musician. I fully understand and appreciate that there is more to music than playing for dancers. In my eco system, however, the following rules stand:

We play music to support dancers, so the dance form, its rhythm and groove is the No. 1 concern. The melody line should be able to by itself carry the dance (so the melody players must already emphasize the dance groove in their playing), and everything else (including accompaniment) serves little other purpose than to help the dancers with the rhythm and lift. That said, we must also be able keep the same dance interesting for many repititions (some dances may go on for several ten minutes based on the same tune), thus vary everything as much as possible (of course always in accordance with the dance). Varying the accompaniment (for example by changing the harmonies or adding unexptected notes or frictions) is one way to accomplish that.

Thus, harmonic concerns only play a subordinate role. Most of my playing (which of course is still nothing but amateur level) uses mainly Ohm-Pa in many variations to support the dance rhythm. Since the Crane system nicely supports Power Chords, most Ohm-Pa chord shapes involve only the root note and the fifth (which has the nice side effect that this can be used for both minor and major chords). Thirds, Seventh and other embellishments are fine as either transitionary bass run notes (an example can be heard here: Old Kiss my Lady , first of four sections) or paddings for full chords used to emphasize phrases (same recording, third section. I still don't use a full chord there mainly because of the frictional third in equal temperament tuning that Little John pointed out). A previous discussion on this forum about melody parallel 6th and 10th runs prompted me to incorporate that into a tune (Schottische Roquefort) which I think works quite well if used sparingly and deliberately.

I think it's great to arrange tunes, and there are intriguing examples where even a very simple dance tune can be embellished to the max without losing its usefullness as a dance (Rob Harbron's recording of Young Collins comes to mind). Of course there is also a valid and just place for "concertant" concertina music in which the arrangement plays a major role. Other than that, however, as of yet I tend to think of the left hand mainly as a tool to support the dance rhythm. As I (hopefully) become better with the instrument, new roads will open to employ the left hand for more intricate accompaniment patterns and possibly even complex arrangements such as counter points.
 
 

Edited November 20, 2018 by RAc
inserted URLS as links

[wunks]

14 hours ago, RAc said:

 

Thus, harmonic concerns only play a subordinate role. Most of my playing (which of course is still nothing but amateur level) uses mainly Ohm-Pa in many variations to support the dance rhythm. Since the Crane system nicely supports Power Chords, most Ohm-Pa chord shapes involve only the root note and the fifth (which has the nice side effect that this can be used for both minor and major chords). Thirds, Seventh and other embellishments are fine as either transitionary bass run notes (an example can be heard here: Old Kiss my Lady , first of four sections) or paddings for full chords used to emphasize phrases (same recording, third section. I still don't use a full chord there mainly because of the frictional third in equal temperament tuning that Little John pointed out). A previous discussion on this forum about melody parallel 6th and 10th runs prompted me to incorporate that into a tune (Schottische Roquefort) which I think works quite well if used sparingly and deliberately.

 
 

I'll mention this as somewhat relevant to the oom pa portion of this discussion and also because there's a recent thread about hand strap tightness and stiffness.  I have an F# thumb key on My Jeffries and can reach the low G on the bottom row as well. On a whim, I loosened the LH strap a notch and slipped my thumb underneath.  I was  easily and comfortably able to reach The low G,C,and D.  Because the strap is both stiff and loose, It held it's shape during this maneuver and maintained contact with the back of my hand for control.  It's easy for my thumb to duck in and out as needed.  This is important for me because I'm playing melody in the middle of the box when possible so if I want to oom pa, drone or play a bass line my index finger doesn't have to drop down for these notes abandoning it's melody assignments.  I'm not familiar enough with the other duet layouts to know if this would be of use.  Eh?