Trying to learn how to write music for the Concertina

[seanc]

1 minute ago, JLAB9 said:

Well for my purposes (Orchestral) it really is quite important that things are played exactly as written. Notes can sometimes be missed, but it's risky for someone to add extras on the fly without consulting other sections. When you have whole Woodwind Sections, Brass Sections, Strings Sections, and more (often synthesisers too these days, not to mention Pitched Percussion, Keyboard Instruments, and Vocals), any note added could create a lot of dissonance and a horrible tone. Personally, most of my time spent composing is simply trying to find the sources of dissonance and either mold them into a nice harmony, or remove them. It takes A LOT of work, and someone improvising in new notes (unless in a solo) is generally not a good idea when you have 30+ musicians playing at once. 

 

If you are in an orchestra environment. You are pretty much going to want everything played note for note exactly the same way every time. You will also (presumably) want to keep the instrument really tightly within a very small range.  You won't want the 'tina player stepping on the flutes in the highs while simultaneously dominating the Oboes on the lows. So, (IMO) you are going to want to wite those parts in a pretty narrow spectrum. 

 

Also, where you are in an orchestra, you will likely be playing a lot of Bb/Ab keys.. 

 

You might really consider the english and then write based on the ability to do a ton of violinish lines with double stops/ intervals that a violin can't touch.

 

Also, dynamics could likely  be a major issue with an anglo.

 

[JLAB9]

7 minutes ago, Steve Schulteis said:

The notation shared here has the ties+tab thing I was talking about: 

 

Thanks, that's more helpful than you know! Gives me good insight into how people approach arranging a song, and where they have to make tradeoffs to make the piece work. 

 

Definitely enough info here for me to start properly adding Concertina parts to some of my scores. Thank you both for all your help (Steve & Sean). 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

You  can consider it this way.. the concertina as a similar to small reed organ ( like harmonium in a way) but held in the hands. It has its lungs or bellows to fill with air, and reeds  within like a singers voice box or larynx. There will be need for performer to use bellows to inflate or deflate when required, like a woodwind player needing to consider when to take breath.

The sound will blend surprisingly well With other instruments ( oboe,clarinet, cor anglais  also) as its reedy timbre adds its own character.

I have found myself that  it works well with reedy instruments ( like Chalumeau) example which I have played it alongside myself ( in my own music duos recently.

Other reed based instruments will work well and compliment and add to the mix.

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by SIMON GABRIELOW

[Little John]

On 12/1/2023 at 6:26 PM, seanc said:

You might really consider the english and then write based on the ability to do a ton of violinish lines with double stops/ intervals that a violin can't touch.

 

This is probably the best advice. I was going to say almost the same. Quite honestly, you need to understand the characteristics of an instrument when you are writing for it. Since you don't seem to know much about the different systems your best bet is to write in a violin sort of style and find a good English concertina player to critique it before you set it in stone. Just one example: playing in octaves is weak-sounding on the violin but very powerful on the concertina.

 

The (treble) English was designed to play violin music and so has the same range - 3 1/2 octaves from G3 - so you won't go too far wrong in writing as if for a violin. It's fully chromatic in that range, but fingering could become awkward if you stray beyond three flats or four sharps.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Little John
Added detail on the English system.

[JLAB9]

8 minutes ago, Little John said:

 

This is probably the best advice. I was going to say almost the same. Quite honestly, you need to understand the characteristics of an instrument when you are writing for it. Since you don't seem to know much about the different systems your best bet is to write in a violin sort of style and find a good English concertina player to critique it before you set it in stone. Just one example: playing in octaves is weak-sounding on the violin but very powerful on the concertina.

I'll definitely consider it. 

I will say that in my compositions I tend to lean on violins less than the typical composer. I find that most individuals who are less musical consider the violin to be the most important instrument in the orchestra, and the popularity of TwoSet in the online space, even among non musicians, leads to people thinking much less of the viola (and to a lesser extent the cello). 

 

Consequently I like to use far more violas and cellos than other composers, and I particularly enjoy using those sounds that are less typical of a certain instrument. For example, having a cellist playing a solo that would normally be played using a violin. Of course as the cello is roughly two octaves below the violin some computer processing is often required to allow the cello to reach notes slightly out of its range, but the tone of those notes can be delightful. 

 

My guilty pleasure is brass, as the techniques used allow extremely skilled musicians to produce much higher notes than a novice could. This lets you mix their typical use cases quite considerably, producing wildly different sounds to what people are used to hearing. 

 

Part of my plan for the concertina in my compositions is for it to work predominantly with the brass section, during movements where the strings remain more subdued. I want to be able to make it shine by itself both within and without solos, and by coupling it with brass instruments it may be less of a stark change so that people do not reject the concept as "simply not proper in an orchestra". 

[Little John]

43 minutes ago, JLAB9 said:

Part of my plan for the concertina in my compositions is for it to work predominantly with the brass section, ...

 

At a time when concertinas cost half of what brass instruments cost there were a lot of concertina bands. They frequently played from brass band scores. The treble and baritone instruments played the Bb parts (but as written so sounding a tone higher than brass) and the F-tenor and F-bass instruments would play the Eb parts; again sounding a tone higher. So thinking in terms of brass writing would work well for the English concertina too.

[Leah Velleman]

Can you point us towards some songs with concertina that have the sound you're looking for? That will help us give better advice

[JLAB9]

22 minutes ago, Leah Velleman said:

Can you point us towards some songs with concertina that have the sound you're looking for? That will help us give better advice

I'm not quite sure if this is what you mean, but the song that had made me interested in the Concertina (and part of why I picked up the Accordion) was a song from the small folk band "Talisk". The song is called "Echo" and it's honestly just mesmerising. I love the way the Concertina buttons click when they play quickly, and how you can clearly hear how much effort it is taking to play at the speed they are. I've actually made a little use of castanets inspired by that song, using them to accompany a solo Accordion part in a strange little way. It sounds quite nice and unique, and works great in jolly tunes. 

[hjcjones]

The Anglo is an idiosyncratic instrument. It is nominally chromatic, but it is much easier to play in some keys than others, since in the less friendly keys the notes may be inconveniently placed or require awkward bellows changes.  If you are playing harmonically then often you may find that not all the notes you wish to play are available in the same bellows direction.  Most players transcribe pieces into keys which work best on their instrument, and adapt their arrangements where the notes are unavailable. Some play instruments with more than the standard 30 buttons, which offer more note reversals although they might also extend the range slightly.  

 

Mohsen Amini from Talisk is a brilliant player, but he plays mainly in what is usually thought of as the Irish style (although the band is Scottish) ie mainly a single melody line with occasional chordal embellishments.  In your earlier posts you appeared to be wanting to write for the harmonic style of anglo playing, where the instrument also plays accompanying chords.  For that I suggest you investigate musicians such as Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne (who did his music degree on concertina and melodeon and who plays classical pieces as well as folk) and Adrian Brown, who specialises in playing Renaissance polyphony on anglo. 

 

If a single-line melody is sufficient then the English system was intended to take violin parts and was (and still is) widely used for playing classical music, although not perhaps in the usual classical circles.  You could look at some of the the compositions for concertina by Giulio Regondi. 

 

How you write the score is of far less importance than whether it is playable on the instrument. Whichever system you settle on, but especially the Anglo, it could be quite difficult to understand the instrument's quirks if you don't play it yourself.  I suggest you try to enter into a collaboration with an expert player who will be able to guide you. 

[wunks]

On 12/1/2023 at 1:18 PM, Steve Schulteis said:

 

I think this is a good advice for any concertina system, with the caveat that Anglo will have some bellows phrasing limitations that are not present on the others.

(  Referencing using the violin as a template for composition ).

 

It may be relevant for this discussion to note that most if not all duet's have at least some overlap between left hand and right and many dip down into the low cello range.  Because of these features the idea that right hand is for melody and left for harmony is an option that works well for some keys but it's not a mandate.  The full range of the viola is available on most duets and many cello pieces only use a touch or two on the low string.  

[Leah Velleman]

Oh, yeah, Mohsen Amini is fantastic. (He's in the running for "most technically skilled modern player," though, so don't assume everyone can do what he does as quickly and cleanly as he does it.)

 

If you want that sound in your music, your best bet is to write for Irish-style anglo concertina.

 

The good news is that Irish technique is pretty consistent. Lots of people learn the modern Irish style of playing, and that means they can use the same phrasing, the same style of ornamentation, and so on. So if you write in that style, and you do a good job of writing idiomatically, there will be a large pool of players who can perform your music, especially in Ireland, the UK, the US, and Canada. If you want to perform it again later, or sell copies of the score for others to perform, those future musicians will probably be able to play it without changes.

 

The slightly bad news is that Irish technique is really not much like classical technique. For example, a 30-button C/G anglo is technically a chromatic instrument, but Irish players don't learn to play in all keys — it's mostly just zero through three sharps. It can technically play most ornaments you can write, but there are specific Irish-style ornaments that players specialize in, and they're not the standard classical ornaments. (For instance, classical-style trills are basically unheard of.) If you want a player to sound like Amini, with his rhythmic drive, phrasing, and expression, you should write in the Irish keys and use Irish ornaments. Doing otherwise would... not just be annoying, the way sharp keys are annoying for brass players, but would really ruin a lot of the instrument's expressive possibilities.

 

And you should definitely write for 30-button C/G instruments. Every modern Irish-style concertina player in the world owns one and can play it (or owns a larger box that you can treat as one by ignoring a few buttons). Bigger boxes and other keys are much, much rarer, and you can't count on anyone owning a particular one.

 

Anyway, here are some things you can try if you want to go down this road and really use the instrument in a good and idiomatic way:

• Hire an Irish-style anglo player to spend a few hours with you and show you what the instrument is capable of. Use what they show you as raw ingredients.
• Read Grey Larsen's book about Irish flute and tin whistle. It is, obviously, not about the concertina. But it is the best written explanation anywhere Edit: a really detailed explanation that some of us like and some of us don't of how Irish ornaments work and how to notate them well. Most of what he describes will have an equivalent on the concertina. (Not everything. We can't bend notes, and we play rolls a bit differently than they do — but the basic cut, tip, short roll, and long roll are staples on the concertina just like on the flute, and you can hear examples of them if you listen to concertina recordings.)
• Listen to more Talisk and try to transcribe what you're hearing. Again, use that as your raw ingredients.
• If you like Mohsen Amini's playing and you want to write stuff that isn't pure traditional folk, also listen to Níall Vallely. He's got similar style and technique, and his playing is more rhythmically varied and chromatic than pure trad playing. 

Any one of those would be a good place to start.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Leah Velleman

[Peter Laban]

21 minutes ago, Leah Velleman said:

it is the best written explanation anywhere of how Irish ornaments work and how to notate them well.

 

Don't take that as a given, opinions are quite divided about his treatment of ornaments and their notation.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Peter Laban

[Leah Velleman]

Okay, yes, that was overenthusiastic. I love the book and learned a lot from it, but let me dial that back:

 

A lot of other written sources write grace notes in a way that will be totally misleading to a Classical musician who interprets them in a Classical way. And all the other written sources I know of have fewer concrete examples, tending to assume that you listen to Irish trad already and can call up plenty of examples in your memory. So I think unless he's willing to spend a lot of time learning by listening, the way real trad musicians do, it might be his best bet for getting a sense of the possibilities.

[Leah Velleman]

(This is also maybe getting further into the weeds than is helpful to OP. I'd love to hear more about different takes on it, but maybe elsewhere.) 

[arti]

You may find it useful to go here:

 

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by arti
info removed

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Personally speaking, I have trascribed hunreds of pieces of music, relying upon frequently, which may surprise some people, on Recorder transcription books. Descant or treble recorder range often seems to fit well for 30 key Anglo instrumental playing. 

To be safe if writing new music featuring concertina,  I would sat, best perhaps to do old way of not going below middle C, and not overly high at other end, then play safe to suit most players. A lot can be written even in only one chromatic octave for example if you have to. ( As example).

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by SIMON GABRIELOW

[McCarthy]

I haven't had or made a lot of time to post here recently but I have an official tunebook with all of Talisks songs sheet music with chords included. I've been trying to practice to play some of their songs but it's difficult due to speed, ornamentation and key signatures. Especially with just a basic 30 button C/G. Too many triplets and lack of bellow reversals forcing my phrasing. I have some YouTube recordings of my practice, including the song Echo but it's about half the speed it should be probably. 

 

Let me know if you want a copy of their sheet music to assist. I'm willing to share it with anyone. It was a good purchase. 

[JLAB9]

12 hours ago, McCarthy said:

I haven't had or made a lot of time to post here recently but I have an official tunebook with all of Talisks songs sheet music with chords included. I've been trying to practice to play some of their songs but it's difficult due to speed, ornamentation and key signatures. Especially with just a basic 30 button C/G. Too many triplets and lack of bellow reversals forcing my phrasing. I have some YouTube recordings of my practice, including the song Echo but it's about half the speed it should be probably. 

 

Let me know if you want a copy of their sheet music to assist. I'm willing to share it with anyone. It was a good purchase. 

I'd definitely be interested in the sheet music for Echo at the very least, but what you're suggesting sounds a little like it could be considered light piracy. If it's an official book you purchased from them or their label, and you had no part in its creation, you potentially have no right to share it. A bit like how you can't buy sheet music online and simply repost it to a site like Musescore for others to use for free. While technically possible, it isn't exactly moral, especially with a smaller artist. 

 

If you're allowed to share it then yes I'd be interested in seeing Echo, but if it's legally grey then I'd rather not.