Crazy overzealous concertina acquisition thread

[vos]

@seanc Thanks, I will probably be practicing by my home pc a good amount of the time that will come in handy, im sure there is some software crossover I can work. Worst case scenario ill borrow my friends iphone lol. Oh I bet I can run it in wine too.

@wunks Thats neat, I spent some time discerning at some monasteries as well, I'm a latin catholic though our chant is a bit different but similar principle. I sure would love to come visit some time. I go on adventures on occasion and If I find myself out that way I will definitely reach out, if you or anyone reading this are by the cleveland area do send me a message if you are not a serial killer

 

[Moll Peatly]

Chant was written without sharps or flats, only natural (white) notes, apart from the occasional B flat. This means that any instrument that can play in C major (preferably with access to a B flat as well) will work. I'm not familiar with anglos but presumably that means a C/G anglo will work, other configurations may or may not. Any English or duet concertina will cope fine in this regard.

 

This doesn't mean that it was all in C major; in fact hardly any was. You apparently know about modes and stuff. The upshot is that the keynote or tonic, around which the tune is centred, could in principal be any of the white notes. Different keynotes will have a different feel because they are different modes. I mention this because even if you only want to drone on the tonic and the dominant, you will still need most or all of the white notes available. A keyboard that doesn't have an F natural will be a big problem.

 

(I was going to add something about relative versus absolute pitch, A=440, and all that, but I think that's a purely theoretical distraction, so I'll leave it. I assume you would expect to play as if written at modern concert pitch.)

 

[vos]

Thanks for the input @Moll Peatly. I really only understand chant from a mostly intuitive level from having done much of it in practice and from doing a little formal study on it, starting from a standpoint of someone who knew nothing about music. It really was frustrating when I sought to learn how to chant people started using words (tone, pitch, key, register, octave, melody, harmony, C, etc) I had little real understanding of. People like teaching chant using standard musical terminology which I suppose makes sense on some level, on another level they might not realize they are talking to me like they think I played piano 😕

Really leaning toward the duet right now. Im thinking if this works out it will be my one instrumental focus for a very long time, perhaps my only one. Im not looking to get into all music, im looking to have a recreational instrument I can practice with daily which is mobile, unplugged, can accompany singing, and can play the kinds of folk and chant I like. It seems like an ideal instrument besides being expensive and a bit hard to learn. But Ive got the time so it might be worth a shot.