Francisco Escobar Bay Posted July 16, 2019 Author Share Posted July 16, 2019 Dear Lachenal74693. Thanks for the suggestions, I will look at the tutorial and the Australian site as well. As I mentioned before, in my city there are a few English and Irish pub-style sites, I do not know how authentic they are ... For the rest there are about eight bands of Celtic music but to my knowledge they do not include concertinas, they are handled with bagpipes, fiddle, bodhran, flutes and combine them with keyboards and guitar. I have to investigate more because I just got acquiring the concertima, I got closer to the world of the Celtic tradition, there is a lot to learn ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francisco Escobar Bay Posted July 16, 2019 Author Share Posted July 16, 2019 Mr. March Har, Donright and d. eliott, thank you for your comments. My concertina must have been brought by someone who traveled to Europe since it was not an instrument of common use in my country, the fact is that it was found among the belongings of a person who died, his son put it on sale but he told me that I had never seen her before and I did not know her existence, let me know what her story was ... The fact is that now it belongs to me, I am a piano system accordion performer and I have very little experience with diatonic accordions but I will try to learn. As far as the tuning is concerned, it's quite tight in the A of 440 Hz. Maybe I would need a bit of correction in some notes, but for now I'm going to leave it like that until I find out if there are any dedicated luthiers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Hare Posted July 16, 2019 Share Posted July 16, 2019 4 hours ago, Francisco Escobar Bay said: ...I will look at the tutorial... Perhaps I should have said that AD's tutorial is in fact a collection of sound files. I think there are printable scores as well, but it's primarily a 'listen' experience rather than a 'look' experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Taylor Posted July 16, 2019 Share Posted July 16, 2019 8 hours ago, lachenal74693 said: Perhaps I should have said that AD's tutorial is in fact a collection of sound files. I think there are printable scores as well, but it's primarily a 'listen' experience rather than a 'look' experience. It should be noted that Alan teaches the harmonic English style of playing and not the fast, ornamented melodic Irish style, so if Francisco wants to play Celtic music then Alan Day's tutorial might be misleading. However, the English style is chordal and might be useful if he wants to play in a more South American style. Francisco: another point to note is that you say your concertina (a very nice one, by the way) is tuned to A=440Hz but that a few notes are a little off tune. It might be that it has been tuned to something other than equal temperament, maybe 4th or 5th comma meantone. This is sometimes done to sweeten the sound of thirds on a concertina, something that might be very important to a player of South or Central American music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francisco Escobar Bay Posted July 16, 2019 Author Share Posted July 16, 2019 Dear Lachenal74693 and Don Taylor: Thanks for the feedback. As for the sound files of AD's we are going to listen and see, I think that intuitive and ornate style is difficult to write, maybe it is more of feeling than of reasoning. With respect to the possible intentional detuning, it is necessary to see if it corresponds to what Don Taylor describes. I am accustomed to playing with accordion musette system that in each voice has three blades, for example in A at 430 Hz, another at 440 Hz and the third at 450 Hz, which when vibrating simultaneously give that characteristic sound of the French style. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_holden Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 7 hours ago, Francisco Escobar Bay said: With respect to the possible intentional detuning, it is necessary to see if it corresponds to what Don Taylor describes. I wouldn't call it detuning; that is a way (as I understand it) to get a 'fuller' sound by simultaneously playing the note and a slightly out of tune version of the note. Most concertinas only have a single reed per note so they can't do that. Alternate temperaments are a complex subject that has filled entire text books, but basically they are different ways of tuning a scale that make some intervals sound sweeter at the expense of others. 7 hours ago, Francisco Escobar Bay said: I am accustomed to playing with accordion musette system that in each voice has three blades, for example in A at 430 Hz, another at 440 Hz and the third at 450 Hz, which when vibrating simultaneously give that characteristic sound of the French style. Wow, that's something like +/- 40 cents; I thought it was much less than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Molkentin Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 3 hours ago, alex_holden said: Wow, that's something like +/- 40 cents; I thought it was much less than that. Of course it depends, but I agree that 40 resp. 80 cents will be "a tad" too much even in France or Scotland - however the numbers seem to be given only to illustrate the nature of tremolo or musette tuning in general here... Best wishes - ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francisco Escobar Bay Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 (edited) Dear Alex and Wolf: This is what I have collected about the tuning of the piano system accordion, remember that each note is produced by three reeds vibrating simultaneously. 1.- CLASSICAL TUNING. It is characterized by the total absence of difference. All voices are tuned to "unison". It produces a timbre similar to that of the organ and is used for the interpretation of classical, contemporary music, chamber music ... 2.- SWING TUNING. It consists of the tuning of the central voice at 440 Hz and a "crescent" tremolo with a minimum difference, about 441 Hz, which represents a difference of +07 cents in the note A-4. The difference between the two voices produces a very "soft" modulation. This type of tuning is used for the interpretation of jazz, swing, blues music ... 3.- AMERICAN AFFINATION. It consists of the tuning of the central voice at 440 Hz and a "crescent" tremolo at about 443 Hz, which represents a difference of +12 Cents on the note A-4. The difference between the two voices produces a "nice" modulation. This type of tuning is used for the interpretation of varieté music ... 4.- CELESTIAL TUNING. Also known as "traditional" tuning, it consists of tuning the central voice to 440 Hz. And a "crescent" tremolo to 446, which represents a difference of +20 Cents in the note A-4. The vibration produced by these two voices results in a "bright" sound. This type of tuning is mainly used for the interpretation of all kinds of music: traditional, popular, varieties ... 5.- FRENCH TITLE. Also known as tuning "musette" consists of the tuning of the central voice at 440 Hz., A tremolo "crescent" (high) tuned at 450 Hz. And a tremolo "calante" (low) at 430 Hz. The difference, it would be in the note A-4, of +24 cents in the crescent and -24 cents in the spirit. The mixture of these three voices produces a very "shrill" sound. It is a type of tuning very used for music of the genre "musette" very widespread in France. Regards. Edited July 17, 2019 by Francisco Escobar Bay clarify concepts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Taylor Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 I understand that the 'modern' Equal Temperament (ET) tuning is a modification of meantone tuning which in turn was a modification of Pythagorean tuning. ET was developed to enable instruments to modulate to any other key without playing a wolf tone, but there are many compromises made to achieve ET. Some might say that ET stands for Equally bad Tuning. Instruments like concertinas that can only play in a limited ranges of related keys do not need to accept the compromises made to achieve ET, they can be tuned so that, for example, thirds sound good and yet still be close enough in tune to ET that they can be played with ET instruments playing within their range. This is not the same thing as having multiple reeds sounding simultaneously with most of the reeds detuned from the main note so as to achieve a musette sound. The tuning for the main notes is still ET. There has been much discussion here over the years about the benefits of meantone tuning for concertinas and perhaps the former owner/player of your concertina had it tuned in a meantone tuning. If so, then I would leave it alone and consider myself lucky. Here is an example of a concertina like yours tuned in 1/4 comma meantone: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Molkentin Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Francisco, you could check that easily with a tuning app which has "temperaments" included: 4 or 5 comma meantone, try different center notes (C, G, D) as well - maybe you'll find a match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Francisco Escobar Bay Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 (edited) Dear Don Taylor and Wolf Molkentin: They are really forcing me to study! I was reviewing the alternatives to the tuning of equal temperament and I learn about the tunings of Werkmeiter, Stopper (twelfths), Bremer (EBVT temperament); Le Monte Young (seven limits modified) and that I have just started to dive in those depths. It seems to me that I better stay with my well-tempered piano (thanks, Bach ...) It's a joke, again thanks for the suggestions. Edited July 17, 2019 by Francisco Escobar Bay clarify concepts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Molkentin Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Bach himself was not at all referring to ET! it‘s rather Werckmeister or a similar thing... ? The idea of the „well-tempered clavier“ was 1. playability of any given key (just like ET) but 2. distinctive colouring of the different keys (very unlike ET; but different from MT tunings as well since there was no „wolf“ intervall and thus no key excluded). All the best - ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Hare Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 2 minutes ago, Wolf Molkentin said: ...„well-tempered clavier“... When I started this music malarkey, I thought that „well-tempered clavier“ referred to a musical instrument which was generally well-disposed towards the human race. We live and learn... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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