Gail_Smith Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 (edited) Quite a few traditional tunes that fiddlers like have sequences that "bounce" between a descending (or ascending) sequence of notes and a single string position on a fiddle . A very polite gentleman fiddler recently told me that the problem with my playing is that "you should only just touch" the intermediate (static) string for his style of irish playing.... rather than playing them at a similar volume to the other - main tune - notes. He was oblivious to the lack of strings in a concertina! However, try as i might I cant get anywhere near the sort of bellows control that enables me to do this as part of a fast sequence of notes. Can anyone point me at a video of someone who DOES manage this ? or give me some advice please? Thanks , Gail p.s. i should have said that this is for an English concertina but i am guessing that its a similar thing for other systems Edited April 17, 2019 by Gail_Smith clarification Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Hersh Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 How's this? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gail_Smith Posted April 17, 2019 Author Share Posted April 17, 2019 Daniel - how would you describe what you do please? And is it a different thing that you do on the anglo to the duet when trying to get this effect - or the same sort of thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Molkentin Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 it‘s Cormac Begley who‘s playing... awesome technique and tone, I totally love it! however, it might be straining reeds and bellows I reckon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Wooff Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 Gail, perhaps you could suggest a couple of tunes where you want to use this ' string rocking' effect. There are a couple of techniques I try to use on the English , so to suggest that it could either be done with timing; by playing the notes that are to be quieter as short a duration as possible or changing the volume by opening the button a tiny amount for the quiet notes whilst depressing buttons further for the louder notes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gail_Smith Posted April 17, 2019 Author Share Posted April 17, 2019 the classic tune that everyone (?) knows is the irish washerwoman. The type of thing I'm trying to explain is in bars 5 and 6 of the B music, where i would want to only "just touch the string" for the repeated g. Its easier to do when the "light touch" note is higher then the melody (as here) because the higher notes do not sound as loud as the lower ones with similar pressure. But other tunes (or indeed this one, if you use the G an octave lower) have the repeated note lower than the melody line - often requiring changes of which finger you have to use on the button to accommodate the rest of the tune. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aldon Sanders Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 I tend to think of the repeated notes as 'drones' (like bagpipes) and accent (push or pull harder) on the melodic, moving notes. Maybe that will help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Hersh Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Aldon Sanders said: I tend to think of the repeated notes as 'drones' (like bagpipes) and accent (push or pull harder) on the melodic, moving notes. Maybe that will help. I agree that accenting the non-repeated notes is the way to approach this, especially since the repeated notes are on the off-beats, so they should generally not be accented anyway. More pressure on the on-beats, less pressure on the off-beats. To refine it further, in an Irish jig (such as Irish Washerwoman) there should be more accenting/pressure on the third note of the triplet than on the second. So put the most pressure on the first note of the triplet, second-most on the third note, and least on the second note. Cormac Begley's playing is a good illustration of the effects you can get with changes in bellows pressure. Here's a jig from him, played on what I think is a bass Anglo concertina. Edited April 18, 2019 by Daniel Hersh 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gail_Smith Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 the classic tune that everyone (?) knows is the irish washerwoman. The type of thing I'm trying to explain is in bars 5 and 6 of the B music, where i would want to only "just touch the string" for the repeated g. Its easier to do when the "light touch" note is higher then the melody (as here) because the higher notes do not sound as loud as the lower ones with similar pressure. But other tunes (or indeed this one, if you use the G an octave lower) have the repeated note lower than the melody line - often requiring changes of which finger you have to use on the button to accommodate the rest of the tune. I do use the "drone" approach a bit when the repeated notes are higher than the melody (I like drone music- i play the hurdy-gurdy - badly- as well as the concertina) but i think they overpower the melody if used for lower notes. I can manage different volumes with the repeat notes, using bellows pressure, when playing slowly - but slowly isn't how these tunes are played in the Liverpool/UK part of the world. Too fast for me to exchange fingers for them, never mind getting different emphasis on the second and third notes. I will experiment with shortening notes/not opening the valve fully and see if i can get that to work. More practice needed (as always). Thank you for comments so far. Gail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Laban Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 Quote however, it might be straining reeds and bellows I reckon... More than a few of us present on the occasion were wondering if we'd see the concertina explode before the end of the tune. It was a bit much. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halifax Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 And then, sometimes one has to accept that the fiddle and concertina are very different instruments with different properties and different kinds of magic. That's why they can sound so good together. Daniel, I often listen to that that video of Cormac Begley playing Master Crowley's on a loop as I work. I love how the music grows and grows! Best, Christine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anglo-Irishman Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 On 4/17/2019 at 10:40 PM, Wolf Molkentin said: awesome technique and tone, I totally love it! however, it might be straining reeds and bellows I reckon... Remember that (according to Wim Wakker) Anglos have "stouter" bellows than ECs! Another point: On the Anglo, one often has the options to play the next note in the same or the opposite bellows direction. So you can put your "drone" note on a button where it's in the opposite direction, and just apply less force. I know that EC players are free to choose when to reverse the bellows and when not to - but don't the tenuous grip via thumb-strap and pinkie-rest and the softer bellows make the bellows changes less emphatic? And, BTW, I couldn't help noticing the circumference of Cormac's biceps. Muscles like an uillean piper! Cheers, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathhag Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 On 4/17/2019 at 8:28 PM, Daniel Hersh said: I agree that accenting the non-repeated notes is the way to approach this, especially since the repeated notes are on the off-beats, so they should generally not be accented anyway. More pressure on the on-beats, less pressure on the off-beats. To refine it further, in an Irish jig (such as Irish Washerwoman) there should be more accenting/pressure on the third note of the triplet than on the second. So put the most pressure on the first note of the triplet, second-most on the third note, and least on the second note. Cormac Begley's playing is a good illustration of the effects you can get with changes in bellows pressure. Here's a jig from him, played on what I think is a bass Anglo concertina. This is driving me crazy. What is this tune? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Hersh Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 4 hours ago, mathhag said: This is driving me crazy. What is this tune? I hear him playing three tunes, one after the other. I believe I've heard the first tune called both Give Us a Drink of Water and The Swaggering Jig. I don't know the name of the second one. I think the third one is Bean Pháidín (which has words in Irish). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathhag Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Could it be Na Ceannabháin Bhána? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takayuki YAGI Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 The second tune is known as the caravan. https://thesession.org/tunes/8983 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Laban Posted April 22, 2019 Share Posted April 22, 2019 Quote The second tune is known as the caravan No it isn't. Don't believe everything you read on the session.org, especially mishearings of misnamed tunes.. Usually it's referred to as 'the Connemara version of Páidín Ó Raifeartaigh' All three tunes played in the video have words sung to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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