Advanced Transcritions/lessons.

[Alan Caffrey]

Hi fellow squeezers,

You bang away on this thing (concertina) and you think you're getting somewhere, you play a 100+ tunes and you feel like you've got it nailed....you can really play this box....but not. I was listening to the Tommy McCarthy CD 'Sporting Nell', specifically to the jigs 'Scatter the Mud/Mulqueeny's and of course I'm a light year from there (in the wrong direction), and ask myself why are there no advanced lessons on concertina .net beyond tuneatron?

You tell me that ornamentation is a person to person thing but for some of us in the wilderness who NEVER get to meet another player, who have no pointers in the right direct....you get the idea... is anyone willing to put up some tunes with ornamentation?

Alan.

[David Barnert]

You bang away on this thing (concertina) and you think you're getting somewhere...

 

>snip<

 

...for some of us in the wilderness who NEVER get to meet another player, who have no pointers in the right direct....you get the idea...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Try pushing the little buttons. Banging will only get you so far.

[Robin Madge]

This is the sort of request that leaves me feeling helpless at my inadequacy.

 

I would love to help people, as I have been helped in the past, but I don't think of myself as teacher material.

 

I would love to show people how I perform particular tunes/songs in the way that I do and how I decide what ornamentation to add, but I just can't find the means of doing so.

 

It is bad enough when you are in the same room face to face. That's when you find out that you don't really know what you ars doing in the first place. If you try to slow things down to analyse it everything falls apart and you lose where you are. If you try to concentrate on one hand without the other the same thing happens.

 

When it gets to writing music down I'm scuppered as I only know which notes are being played by about 5 buttons.

And as for the inadequacies of the systems of notation.... well I just give in. I know that that notes that I think of as being different in length are represented by the same notation on paper.

 

So my advice is do a lot of listening and playing along with things. Use a "slow-downer" program if available, and see if you can get to some concertina weekends/meetings/sessions.

 

Robin Madge

[Dan Worrall]

Hi fellow squeezers,

                              You bang away on this thing (concertina) and you think you're getting somewhere, you play a 100+ tunes and you feel like you've got it nailed....you can really play this box....but not. I was listening to the Tommy McCarthy CD 'Sporting Nell', specifically to the jigs 'Scatter the Mud/Mulqueeny's and of course I'm a light year from there (in the wrong direction), and ask myself why are there no advanced lessons on concertina .net beyond tuneatron?

You tell me that ornamentation is a person to person thing but for some of us in the wilderness who NEVER get to meet another player, who have no pointers in the right direct....you get the idea... is anyone willing to put up some tunes with ornamentation?

                                Alan.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Alan,

 

I took a week's worth of lessons from Tommy McCarthy nearly twenty years ago at the Willie Clancy school, and may be able to offer some advice on his playing style...although I have never learned the particular jigs you mention. I noted down his fingering style rather carefully for a number of tunes that week. Sadly, he passed away about five years ago.

 

I'll mention here a couple of tunes that are I think both on the CD you mention.

 

Tommy played mostly along the G row, even when playing in D. In "Within a Mile of Dublin", for example, he plays 95% of the notes on the G row on this D tune; he reached up to the C row on the left hand for the E, and to the top row on the right hand for the C#. In this, he is quite like Chris Droney or Tommy McMahon. This tune and others in D will give your left hand and your left pinkie quite a workout, as the tune is mostly played on the left.

 

For ornaments on that tune, he makes extensive use of the first button on the right hand C row, on both press and draw. His index finger tended to hover over that button, just waiting for a chance to use it! For example, in the "...Dublin" tune (in the second half of the A part) he plays an A-B-A triplet, all on the draw, going from the left hand G row to the right hand C row and then back. In "Sporting Nell", he uses that same button in the Press for a briskly popped C that he uses in the opening phrase of the tune and liberally in many other locations within it. He also uses that button in "Sporting Nell" for the same A-B-A triplet mentioned above, and for a C-B-C triplet, on the draw, that opens up the second part of the tune. When in doubt with any of the ornamentation in Tommy's playing, try that button. Other than having to leave the G row for a button or two when playing in D, that particular button is his main concession to cross row fingering. The reason is simple....the index finger is fast (making nice little grace note pops) and there are plenty of occasions to make flowing triplets with that button, both on press and draw.

 

There is much more to be learned about his style...it isn't all so easily documented. But that might give you a few ideas to try. Getting a "slow downer" for your CD player will help a lot. The difficulty with writing down precise fingering for the anglo, as I am sure you know, is that it is very labor intensive. I've been working lately on writing down the fingering for all of William Kimber's Morris tunes, and can tell you that that took a long while! (It will be published later this year). Studies of arrangements and fingerings of noted players should be approached mainly as a fun 'learning' thing to do and no more, of course; your own style should be allowed to develop freely. But there are lifetimes of learning out there, and it is definitely a good idea to "copy" some tunes from a variety of players as you are learning.

 

Keep at it....I hope you have a strong left hand pinkie!

[Alan Day]

My thoughts on this subject are that it would be fairly easy to get someone started on the concertina and get to a level you are at now.To reach a higher level , it will be completely down to you.It is only be pushing yourself to play tunes that you cannot play and practice those over and over again.First very slowly for accuracy and then build up speed, until you get there.I try to play a peice all the way through,if I make a mistake I just practice that section and as a penalty for getting it wrong ,it is right back to the start again, until I get it right.I find short bursts of playing more constructive than four hour bashes,I do not think your mind can cope with the complicated difficulty of what you are trying to do ie. push yourself foreward. If you succeed in playing the tune correctly than put the instrument down come back later and see if you can repeat it.

It is also a good idea to investigate an easier way of playing the difficult piece that causes a problem.At the point where you are struggling, see if there is the same note elswhere that makes the tune playing easier.Ornamentation can be found by experimentation,get the notes of the ornamentation in your head and find out where they are.Some are not difficult ,others are,it is just down to practice.

The funny thing is Alan that an absolute begginer would listen to your playing and wonder how you do it,in the same way you are looking up to these brilliant players.

At a stage in their playing they were at exactly the point you are at now.

Good luck

Al

[Alan Caffrey]

Thanks for the responses (the useful ones anyway). Dan: I had some lessons from Tommy's daughter Jacqueline but I was an absolute novice then and was just trying to hang the basics of a tune together and didn't even attempt the ornamentation she showed us. I would guess she plays a similar style to her father and 'along the row', especially the G row is how I play - I taught myself from the Frank Edgley tutor. And Alan you're right - two years ago I remember thinking 'if I could just play two or three tunes at the session..' And now I can play two polkas. (ha, ha!)

 

later, Alan.