Which concertina for sea shanties and klezmer

[amberlayli]

Hi everyone! I'm a beginner and I'm most interested in learning sea shanties and klezmer music. It looks like Anglo might be better for sea shanties and English might be better for klezmer. I would love your thoughts on which I should choose for both. 

[Philip Haakon]

Are you going to sing as well, or play instrumental?

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Anglo system has a lot 'snap' to it with its bellows use, and the double notes on one button ( two different notes in the one button, in or out)..

A lot seem to use them for traditional music.

Advice for you .. please avoid playing beginner tunes such as.the tune: 'Hot cross buns' or other stuff as it's silly!😄

There's loads of great shanties and good pieces you will find and folk here will direct you were to go next find them I am sure🌝.

 

[seanc]

I would defer to people more knowledgeable. But, from my extremely limited experience.. most klezmer tends to the flat keys.. f, Bb/ Eb. 
 

so… if you were to go Anglo, you might think of trying to find a Bb/ F. A 30 button g/c will give you the notes. But a Bb/F is going to be quite a bit easier.

 

 

 

shanties (from what I have seen) orig keys tend towards the flat kets as well.. from looking at some 1800s scores. But they are generally able to be easily found transposed to just about any key. 
 

I think the English vs anglo come in where you consider, how you want to play it. If you intend to want a melody with simple-ish oom pah chords, I would gravitate towards anglo.

 

 

[CrP]

I'll second the recommendation above -- a Bflat/F concertina is probably the one most useful, given a predominance of tunes in Dminor, G minor and F. Here's an additional consideration, namely, what instruments are you playing with? The reason for asking has to do with being heard above, e.g., clarinets, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, drums accordions and combinations thereof. Even the much-vaunted cutting power of a really good Jeffries (which I have used for Klezmer music) may not make itself heard against a large group of brass instruments + drum + accordion(s). If you're planning to blend in, not take a prominent lead, make only enough chording noise to fill in downbeats and offbeats, then volume and projection power may be minor issues for you.

 

Another consideration concerns chording, since you'll find many modal Klezmer tunes in which you need to easily/quickly go from, let's say D major to Cminor often or similar changes in freigish mode, for instance. So, an anglo with a few extra keys might prove useful, meaning more than the commonly obtainable 30.

If you're accompanying yourself singing, then you may be able to do very well with a 30+ anglo in C/G rather than a Bflat/F butthen, altho' that's getting into an area that not everyone agrees falls into the genre of "Klezmer."

 

So, you guess that I play anglo rather than English. My reply reflects that. Go seek out [I advise] and english player or two to ask your questions to see how they think of this.

 

[seanc]

NOT a klezmer player.. But more from a "what CrP said above" English take.

on an Enlgish some keys are easier than others. But All are accessible.  What I would say is that if your Klezmer purpose is to double a violin, or a clarinet part.

 

That would easily be accomplished on an English. But, you may find that melody AND chords may be better served on an Anglo, or a duet.

 

As CrP threw in the twist of playing with others, and being heard..  You might also look at a melodeon. I Don't know how chord accompanyment works in Klezmer and how that may line up on a generic melodeon, but there are quite a few Bb/F boxes for short money in the meldeon/ button accordion world and those have some serious volume.

 

 

 

[seanc]

CrP..

just for my own edification.. Does Klezmer do the 1/2 flat thing at all?

 

[Moll Peatly]

I know little about anglos or klezmer. But I will say that my repertoire includes a couple of tunes in D phrygian dominant (aka freigish), and they are a doddle on the English. (My middle finger loves 'em!)