complimentary instruments

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Having most recently taken to playing a wooden Chalumeau [ early version of Clarinet] along with keeping up with my long-established Concertina [ and occasionally accordion].. I am quite pleased the way the Chalumeau, with its reedy voice like timbre, mingles in well with my metallic reeded concertina. And they are aerophone family of instruments anyway.  The accordion [ my late father's originally which I inherited years ago] of course is in closer sound value to my concertina; and the Chalumeau with its direct, simple wooden structure, and single cane reed, falls in-between the two - but they all seem to complement each other [ sound wise I mean].

I have also heard people here on C.net perform with variety of different instruments, and they often sound very good too.  Each type has its particular character, or range; for example the little Chalumeau [ keyless variety] sounds deeper toned than one may expect on appearance and has to be transposed a lot to fit its range, which I like to do anyway, [ I recently played a Telemann piece intended originally for Oboe d'amore on it] and it sounded really quite nice with it, having a similar sound to oboe d'amore, at least to my way of thinking].

The concertina has very wide range from low notes to high.  The Accordion [ in C sharp] sounds good medium to low tonally, and Chalumeau even though small in appearance, has unusually deep tone, and so put them together and you have a sort of trio of musical instruments that complement each other.

Just think how mixed musical choice was back in medieval times; with all the variety of things they used then; crumhorns, recorders, portative organs, hurdy-gurdy, sackbut, many later obsolete, but remained as choice for the specialist, or more curious musician to rediscover later on.  What a rowdy sound they all made together, but what fun too!!! Carry-on with mixing all together I say!🙂

 

 

[Steve Mansfield]

Interested to know more about what chalameau you are playing, as there are several different instruments around with that name, from historically correct reconstructions to modern 'bung a single reed head on a cylindrical body' frankeninstruments ... 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Steve Mansfield
Grammar

[Anglo-Irishman]

Speaking of older instruments ...

In at least one Shakespeare play, a stage-direction calls for "broken music" offstage. This may seem somewhat enigmatic to the modern musician, but we must remember that the word for an instrumental ensemble in Shakespeare's day was "consort." There were two kinds of consort: "whole consorts" and "broken consorts." the former consisted of instruments from one family, e.g. viols only or recorders only. Of course, these families each had members of different pitch: treble, alto, tenor, bass etc. The present classical string quartet would have been called a whole consort if it had existed in Elizabethan times, because violin, viola and cello are of the one family.

The Elizabethan "broken consort" was any ensemble consisting of instruments from different families: flutes, like the recorder, reed instruments like the shawm or rackett, bowed strings like the viol, or plucked strings like the ubiquitous lute.

The music of the period was polyphonic, so if you were getting together with a few friends for a session, the most important thing would have been to have instruments capable of taking the treble, alto, tenor and bass lines; the mixture of wind and string instruments would have been less important. And I'm sure that friends who habitually played "broken music" together would find interesting things to do with their combinations of instruments. 

My experience of playing the concertina ina purely instrumental ensemble is limited, but in my folk group we did perform a couple of Carolan pieces with violin, concertina, guitar and double bass. Sounded quite nice, we thought!

Cheers,

John

[David Barnert]

15 hours ago, Steve Mansfield said:

Interested to know more about what chalameau you are playing, as there are several different instruments around with that name, from historically correct reconstructions to modern 'bung a single reed head on a cylindrical body' frankeninstruments ... 

 

But isn’t that what the original chalumeaux were? Somebody “bunged” a reed onto an existing pipe instrument (recorder, pennywhistle, whatever) to see what would happen...

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Following on to the Chalumeau discussion, mine is a very straightforward, wooden [ Sycamore wood], keyless variety, with modern clarinet head on top. It isn't the 'Tupian' variety, but it is genuinely made of wood.  I like that basic approach - it being wood, with organic reed in it, as it is satisfying to have to do the work yourself; to get the sound it, with little else to help. Also, very easy to replace reeds, and everything else [ little to go wrong with it].  That's the joy of it!  it is amazing what a good ' work-out' you go through with the lungs to play it - takes more breathe than people may think.  Goes well with my concertina also in its reedy tone timbre.  Many people think they are just like a recorder and start by blowing too lightly on them [ no sound much].. once you do [ the 'rabbit teeth'] technique, and close lips around the clarinet type head, then it becomes easier with practice.  When playing with another instrument, I have found, you must keep the tone steady, as the concertina [ as example] has a steadier sound, and chalumeau depends upon your own mouth and playing, to make sound [ which can waver and 'slide' from note to the other].

 

[Aldon Sanders]

I played for a music group that focused on music in California in the 1850s.

 

There were a couple of tunes where I played EC with a trumpet player.  The 2 instruments blend remarably well!

[Clive Thorne]

My concertina always says very nice things about me. 

 

 

Ah, sorry Complimentary instruments.