Waves Roll High by Ye Banished Privateers

[TehRazorBack]

Hello everyone,

I am new to these forums. I'm from Scotland, I have been playing accordion on/off since 2008, and recently picked up a concertina from Red Cow Music. I've started with a cheap 30 button anglo c/g Scarlatti concertina, as I am just starting out and didn't want to buy anything extravagant to begin with (until I know if it's something I want to continue with). I have been playing through Gary Coover's Easy Anglo 1-2-3 and Pirate Songs books, and enjoying them so far! I am finding the bellows control to be much more important than with the accordion, and that little air intake button requires some finesse to learn the perfect time to use it.

My thanks for letting you join your forum comes in the form of a song composition; Waves Roll High by Ye Banished Privateers: https://musescore.com/user/37659330/scores/6731482. I have arranged this using Gary Coover's tablature system, however I had a lot of issues during the second part; there is a lot of pull on the bellows, and not much push. So every chance you get to push you really have to give that air intake button a good press too (at least on my Scarlatti you do ). If anyone has any ideas on how to improve this section, please let me know. My issue is all the F's and Bb's for the chords are all on the pull.

Hope you're all well, and if there is any issues with me using Gary's tablature system like this, please let me know and I shall remove it.

 

WavesRollHigh.pdf

Edited April 22, 2021 by TehRazorBack

[David Barnert]

1 hour ago, TehRazorBack said:

If anyone has any ideas on how to improve this section, please let me know. My issue is all the F's and Bb's for the chords are all on the pull.

 

If it’s not important to be able to be able to play along with the video, try it in a different key. E minor?

[TehRazorBack]

32 minutes ago, David Barnert said:

 

If it’s not important to be able to be able to play along with the video, try it in a different key. E minor?

Hey David,

Thanks for this. The original song does actually jump to the key of Em halfway through, and changing to this would allow me to play on the first 2 rows. All the F#'s are all still on the pull, however, so we'll have to see if that'll be an issue. The chord progression will be:

 

Em, Bm, Am, B | Em, Am, G, Am, Em, Am, B/Bm, Em

Em: Push only
Bm: Pull only
Am: Push, and pull in a higher octave (sounds wrong)
B:    Pull only

G:    Push or pull

Bm: Pull only

 

 

Had a quick look of chords on the left hand, and as far as I can see this is the push/pull possibilities. I am a newbie, so please let me know if I'm wrong. It looks like the second half of the song will be mainly push, until we hit the G, and which point we can take a deep breath with the bellows until we hit B and Bm.

With the songs I have currently been learning I am not very familiar with getting my fingers into position to perform a lot of the chords needed for E minor, so it might take me a wee while before I get the dexterity/muscle memory required to perform this to a good enough degree.

 

[David Barnert]

1 hour ago, TehRazorBack said:

I am a newbie, so please let me know if I'm wrong.

 

That’s as far as I can take you. I’m not an Anglo player, I just know a lot about music and know that E minor should be a comfortable key for any Anglo that has a G row.

[gcoover]

Hey there Razorback (from Arkansas originally?), this is a good start but I think there might be some better workarounds - I'll give it a try and see if I can come up with something a little easier to play. 

 

Gary

[TehRazorBack]

Hey Gary,

 

Nice to chat to you, and thanks for helping me out. I am not from Arkansas (I googled Arkansas and razorback to find out you were meaning sports teams), it's just a username I chose as a kid, whose reason/origin for picking is now shrouded in mystery.

 

Any hints on what kind of music book you'll be producing next?

 

Martin

[gcoover]

Hey Martin, well it seems I've heard a slightly different melody and some different chords so have come up with a version that is not right or wrong but just different, and maybe it still doesn't answer your question about how to deal with too many notes/chords in the same direction!

 

The good news is this piece lends itself well to variation, maybe throw in that Gm instead of A7 just for variety, etc.

 

General advice for too many in a row that are push or pull (and I'm really struggling with that on part of "Namida no Regret" right now), is to use alternates whenever possible, shorter chord durations or chords with fewer notes, maybe even different chords, and sometimes no chord at all if a simple harmony or melody line will buy you time until you can get the air you need in the other direction. The hard part is finding ways to do this that don't wreck the phrasing.

 

The next concertina books will be Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne's Anglo tutor, followed by a book of John Kirkpatrick's tunes, and then a paperback version of Dan Worrall's House Dance. And by the end of the year maybe even a book of Swiss and German tunes in conjunction with Akkordeonschule Aarau. Suggestions for future books are always welcome!

 

Gary

 

 

Waves-Roll-High-Dm-ANGLO.pdf

Edited April 23, 2021 by gcoover

[TehRazorBack]

Hey Gary,

Thanks a lot for this, I shall give it a try and see how I fair!

Martin