No wrong notes!

[gcoover]

In a concertina workshop at the recent Old Pal Concertina Weekend in East Texas I emphasized a couple of concepts that will hopefully help those beginning to play the Anglo in the harmonic style. Simply put:

 

“There are no wrong notes – only notes you like, and those you don’t like”.

 

What happens if you hit a “wrong” note? NOTHING!

 

The note might sound terrible and be an awful clanger, but that’s it. No harm done to the tune, the player, or the instrument. It might even lead you to a surprising harmony or wonderfully rich chord that you would never have found otherwise. Stray notes can be your friend, and can lead to amazing discoveries.

 

A lot of the chords I use in my playing are found by trial and error and “by mistake”. Truth be told, I often have no idea what the particular chord is officially called. BbMAJ7sus+b4#9? Maybe, sure, whatever.

 

In contrast to the desperate exactness of how many approach ITM, harmonic style is all about exploration and discovery. Professional players like John Kirkpatrick, John Watcham, Phil Ham, Jody Kruskal, and Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne all encourage folks to be more adventurous in their playing, to be musical and have fun.

 

This is not intended to stir up any opinions or controversy here at CNET although I have no doubt many will chime in. This is for the beginners here on the forum - all instruments are daunting at first, but if beginning Anglo players replace any fear or timidity with a robust sense of experimentation, they will likely be rewarded with a wonderment of sounds that will help them craft their own unique style. Books and tabs only show one way of playing a tune, and are just a starting point.

 

Once you're no longer afraid of wrong notes, you are free to move about the instrument!

 

Gary

[wunks]

Absolutely!

[Ken_Coles]

I had a brother-in-law who was devoted to studying and learning languages. He told me the person he knew who learned a language faster than anyone else was absolutely unabashed about saying whatever words he thought might fit and then finding out if they were right or not. He was apparently also quite funny. He didn't worry that he might order a broiled tractor in a restaurant; he was pretty sure they wouldn't bring him one. A lesson for us learning new instruments, as Gary says.

 

Ken

 

 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

I suppose that if you are playing a written piece you should play what's written note for note. However any composer of any kind will expect tunes to be played with feeling, and not rigidly like a metronome, for eample,.

But, sometimes a bit of discord can be quite interesting, intentional or not, and when  in improvising, then who is to say what should be played at all?

 

[Randy Stein]

"If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad."

 

Miles Davis

[Noel Ways]

I have felt for a long time that what determines a good musician from otherwise is how well they recover from an “error.” The “error” becomes a springboard or call to action to lead the melody or harmony (or both) in the direction that one desires.

 

Alternatively, a “wrong” note frequently adds a little dissonance and needs to be resolved, and this can make the music more exciting and colorful.

 

Most of my playing involves coming up with a melody in my head and then harmonizing it, sometimes spontaneously or sometimes after I have run through the tune a time or two. It is a constant exercise in resolving dissonance and leading the melody to a final resolution.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Noel Ways

[John Wild]

My music teacher liked to say there were no such things as wrong notes - only variations.🙂

[Mikefule]

To say there are "no wrong notes" is simplistic.  There are of course some notes that break all the written and unwritten rules of harmony, sound awful to everyone, and clash with any other instruments that are playing at the same time.

 

This may be more true in some forms of music (for example, brass band) and less true in other forms (for example, free jazz.)

 

Many concertina players have a folk/traditional background.  Two things about folk/traditional music:

1. It is about conventional form and structure rather than innovation, but...
2. It is about participation rather than perfection.

The fear of playing a wrong note should not be an obstacle to playing at all, but that should not be the same as being complacent about bum notes.

 

And yes, occasionally, you find a note that doesn't seem to fit according to the conventional rules of composition and harmony, but nevertheless sounds good.  Music that exactly fits the formula: metronomic beat, perfect note duration, predictable harmonies with perfectly correct passing notes, can be predictable and bland.

 

A note of tension that is resolved can add flavour.  It was the little burned bits on the top of my grandmother's bread and butter pudding that made it taste better than the blandly homogenous ones I can buy in the supermarket.

 

[wunks]

1 hour ago, Mikefule said:

 

 

 

 

Many concertina players have a folk/traditional background.  Two things about folk/traditional music:

1. It is about conventional form and structure rather than innovation, but...
2. It is about participation rather than perfection.

 

 

I would add:

 

        3. it's always evolving and often towards conventional form and structure.  Many of the early recorded examples of                   blues and mountain music are quite "rough" or free form.

[Anglo-Irishman]

10 hours ago, Mikefule said:

To say there are "no wrong notes" is simplistic.  There are of course some notes that break all the written and unwritten rules of harmony, sound awful to everyone, ...

Yes, indeed, there are wrong notes all over the place, just waiting for the unwary to trip over them!

During the 19th century, when the working classes had realised that there were musical people among their ranks, but few had the money to spend on music lessons that would enable them to avoid the wrong notes on the piano, violin or guitar, this became a problem.

So a number of inventors (mostly German, when I come to think of it) began developing musical instruments that didn't have wrong notes. They were pitched as "playable without prior musical knowledge." The idea was that even an uneducated player couldn't hit a wrong note that wasn't there. So, for example, "people's zithers" had strings with the notes of only one diatonic scale. Same with free reeds - instruments had only the notes of one key signature. So any unintentional note was at least in the right key. A certain Herr Richter eliminated even more wrong notes for the free reeds by inventing the "press, draw, press, draw, press, draw, draw press" scale. The result was that, not only were wrong notes hard to find, but harmonies were easy to find. A Herr Gütter in Saxony invented a device that made it practically impossible to hit a bum note on a diatonic zither - the chord bar.

Many of these "easy to play" instruments fell by the wayside, but I am glad that a few survived, and are still in production today. I have an Anglo concertina with Richter's scale, and an Autoharp with Gütter's chord bars, and both of them are useful instruments. And my youngest grandson has started his musical career with a mouth organ (the ideal instrument for small children - they just can't get annoying noises out of it!)

 

So, yes, Anglo players needn't worry about "wrong" notes!

 

Cheers,

John

 

 

[gcoover]

Of course it's very simplistic, but I've seen way too many beginners who are terrified of "hitting the wrong note" almost to the point of paralysis, which is also a way-too-simplistic reaction.

 

Thinking about what you are doing is good, but overthinking can create its own problems.

 

I can't tell you how many times I've hit a really strange chord by mistake and thought, "Whoa, what was that?", and then quickly written down the button numbers to remember to use it somewhere later.

 

There are lots of different options for accompaniment and I just want to remove some of the fear-factor! 

 

Gary

 

[Jesse Smith]

I came to the anglo from the melodeon, and in a way I have found that because it is easier to hit wrong notes in some regards on the anglo (since you have to build your own chords from scratch), I have become a lot more relaxed during practice about carrying on despite not playing exactly what I intended. Maybe I didn't hit all of the chord notes that I intended to, but close enough, or maybe I played a D minor instead of a G major. Eh. Not worth stopping over.

 

Since many beginners have a hard time learning to keep going despite a minor mistake, I consider that a benefit of the anglo. It's just too difficult an instrument for me to be a perfectionist about! 😄

Edited April 20, 2023 by Jesse Smith

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Really, there is nothing wrong in easy keys to play with.. the well known C major just as it is ( like white notes on piano).. can contain a lot of ideas within its scope alone.

Easy is not always a downside in itself .. like the way Anglo concertina has indeed been developed to make playing more accessible. It is merely an intelligent and logical solution to a difficulty; which many now benefit from.🌝