Trying to learn how to write music for the Concertina

[seanc]

I had never heard of Talisk before and that was my first time listening. to Echo

 

it is FAST.

 

That said. I really hear this much more as king Crimson/ Robert Fripp type arpeggios (frippertronics) approach than anyhing else.

 

[Steve Schulteis]

On 12/3/2023 at 4:56 AM, JLAB9 said:

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. 

 

This sounds interesting. Is there somewhere we can hear your past works?

[Kathryn Wheeler]

I come up with pieces for 20 button anglo, often with a lot going on in both hands at the same time.  Harmonies, countermelodies, imitation, melody sometimes in l hand with r hand accompaniment, as well as standard chordal stuff.  So, a type of harmonic style playing.
 

Because of this I use a slightly non standard modification of the sort of notation Gary Coover uses, but with left hand fully notated on the same stave as right hand notes.   Left hand notes have stems going down.  Too much going on to do otherwise I’ve found.

 

Yes, used to using a lot of ledger lines if using the top end.  I do go up there for effect (one piece in particular in one section springs to mind!)

I think the way the buttons lie under the fingers, the patterns that are produced and how that changes from push to pull is very important.  In other words something that is idiomatic, anglo concertinistic.  Of course this stuff is important whatever instrument you write for but maybe more so when the instrument has certain combinations that won’t work together and others that work like a dream.

 

Another issue to consider is the rhythmic/articulation potential of the instrument - it’s capable of so much movement and drive. Or depending on your instrument and style of playing, great melodic flow. You can contrast flowing sections all in one direction with in and outy bits.  But the flow depends on availability of notes in one direction.  Because there are several options for certain notes, you have a choice of how to articulate using the choice of button/bellows direction.  And of course how you use the bellows as well.  

Edited December 4, 2023 by Kathryn Wheeler

[David Barnert]

On 12/3/2023 at 12:24 PM, Leah Velleman said:

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.)

 

I once found myself referring to him as “The Eddie Van Halen of the concertina.”

 

But one thing for @JLAB9 to consider that I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread yet is that although there may be more Anglo concertina players than English concertina players these days, it’s much more likely that an English concertina player will be comfortable reading music notation. Anglo concertina players are more likely to be self-taught folkies who learn by ear and rely on tablature when they need to use a written source for a tune. The English concertina was developed as a classical instrument, a stand-in for the violin (as others have mentioned). While many English concertina players today are folk-oriented, it is still an instrument that lends itself to reading music notation more readily than the Anglo.

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Have a try out playing concertinas..English or Anglo.. and you will get a basic jist of what is involved, in playing them. Even if you borrow one to try out long enough to physically hold in your hands. 

[Daniel Hersh]

13 hours ago, David Barnert said:

 

I once found myself referring to him as “The Eddie Van Halen of the concertina.”

 

But one thing for @JLAB9 to consider that I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread yet is that although there may be more Anglo concertina players than English concertina players these days, it’s much more likely that an English concertina player will be comfortable reading music notation. Anglo concertina players are more likely to be self-taught folkies who learn by ear and rely on tablature when they need to use a written source for a tune. The English concertina was developed as a classical instrument, a stand-in for the violin (as others have mentioned). While many English concertina players today are folk-oriented, it is still an instrument that lends itself to reading music notation more readily than the Anglo.

 

I agree.

[RAc]

On 12/1/2023 at 7:11 PM, Steve Schulteis said:

 

The chord names are redundant. They're nice if a guitarist wants to back you up. They're nice if you want to use them as a starting point for developing a different harmony yourself. Totally optional.

 

On  this rare occasion, I disagree with Steve. I am a duet player coming from a guitarist's background. In an ensemble environment, I will many times (depending on the arrangement, number of melody players etc) choose to play accompaniment either with or without the melody or fitting arpeggios for which the chord symbols are essential, so whenever I write put a score, including them to me is mandatory. But that is only me.

 

For people coming from a classical background, the concertina world must be confusing because every concertina player's background is different. The only classically educated concertina player I ever heard of is Juliette Daum; others (like David Barnert) have classical training in other instruments and then more or less found their way into the concertina world where there is little to none opportunity to "study" the instrument in the classical sense. 

 

Very few of the concertina players I know (regardless of the system they play) are able to sight read music in the classical sense (ie translate written music 1:1 in full expected speed in every miniscule detail as written out in real time). We tend to take a number of liberties with written scores, simplifying and modifying them to fit our needs. Whenever I am faced with music that requires a very precise rendition of the composition, I normally completly rewrite the score for my needs; for example, I do not read a bass clef but write out both hands in a treble clef and do the octave transposition in my head (this is because on the Crane, both sides have identical layouts).  

[hjcjones]

There are a few examples of scores written for concertina on concertina.com.  Those for English concertina seem to be in the treble clef whereas both historic and recent arrangements for duet are in bass and treble clefs.  This is understandable, as the EC mimics the violin whereas the duet can be said to mimic the piano.

 

However as RAc has pointed out, only some modern concertina players read music, and those that do probably learned it by playing other instruments. I would guess that most who do are probably more comfortable with treble clef than with others, but that may depend on their musical background.  

 

Among anglo players I suspect the number is even fewer - that is certainly the case among those of my acquaintance.  It is a relatively easy instrument to play it by ear, and many players (myself included) have had little or no formal musical training on any instrument. Where they use written music it often just a melody line and they then work out an arrangement. If they write that down at all they might use notation or tablature according to preference. The advantage of tablature is that it records fingerings and bellows directions and not merely the notes to play.

 

Much of the process of arranging a harmonic piece for anglo involves working out the best fingering patterns from a choice of different note reversals in opposite bellows directions, and often making choices whether to change bellows direction with every note or play more legato by crossing the rows. For me, this can be an evolutionary process which is refined by my experience of actually performing the piece over weeks or sometimes months.

 

Despite this there are probably sufficient readers of music for this to be a worthwhile endeavour.  However the three systems are all very different to play to the extent that they can be thought of as different instruments, so writing "for concertina" begs the question, which sort?  When old music was published for "concertina" this usually implied the English system.

 

If you are writing only a single line of melody then this should be playable on any system, assuming of course that it is within the instrument's range and in not too unfriendly a key.  However once you start to introduce chords and harmonies then much will depend on which type of concertina it is to be played on.  Which brings me back to my earlier point about finding a player to collaborate with, rather than trying to acquire a merely theoretical knowledge of the instrument.

 

 

[David Barnert]

2 hours ago, RAc said:

The only classically educated concertina player I ever heard of is Juliette Daum;

 

I would add Wim Wakker:

 

 

And Allan Atlas, who doesn’t appear to be represented on YouTube.

 

Also Didie Sendra. I don’t know about his training, but he certainly plays classical music nicely on the concertina.

 

 

2 hours ago, RAc said:

others (like David Barnert) have classical training in other instruments and then more or less found their way into the concertina world where there is little to none opportunity to "study" the instrument in the classical sense.

 

Thank you. That pretty reasonably sums up my experience.

[John Wild]

17 hours ago, David Barnert said:

 

I once found myself referring to him as “The Eddie Van Halen of the concertina.”

 

But one thing for @JLAB9 to consider that I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread yet is that although there may be more Anglo concertina players than English concertina players these days, it’s much more likely that an English concertina player will be comfortable reading music notation.

Another important reason for myself reading music is that I find a lot of tunes in books, which would not have been available to me (or not so easily) if I could not read the dots.

[JLAB9]

Thank you all again for your help. I think I'll give the English and Duet Concertinas a bit more thought, as it does sound like they may be better suited to my purposes. I suppose the only real difference in how I can use the instruments, from what I've gathered here, is between the Duet and the English/Anglo, due to the Duet's greater bass range. Furthermore, hearing that the Duet could be said to mimic the piano, is of great interest to me as I was first and foremost a pianist. 

[JLAB9]

19 hours ago, Steve Schulteis said:

 

This sounds interesting. Is there somewhere we can hear your past works?

Since I compose almost entirely in my free time and rarely find situations where it can be considered 'work' it does take me a great deal of time. I have written two albums, available for viewing on Musescore, however those were made relatively quickly and with little to no consideration of playability - just trying to make it sound good in playback. 

 

My proper composed pieces take far longer, with each piece taking around the length of time as one of those full albums. I also plan to release these compositions in a similar way, having at least eight being released at once (or more provided that they fit thematically. I love music that tells a story). 

 

That being said, as it stands I have four, only three of which I would consider sufficient quality. This album of composed music will definitely be in the works for at least another two years, but probably closer to four. So I currently do not have anything in my specific composing style detailed in my comment that I want to release (again, I want to release in big chunks), but you're welcome to look at my Musescore page (Username is also JLAB9). Most of the stuff there is just a collection of lazy arrangements for piano in an attempt to get my scores to rank higher in the algorithm (it has not worked), so don't expect any great quality. Most of those arrangements only take an hour to put together. 

 

However, if I do end up writing something with a significant Concertina part, I may post a teaser to my Musescore and link to it from a post here. Only time will tell how long that could be, however. 

[alex_holden]

8 minutes ago, JLAB9 said:

I suppose the only real difference in how I can use the instruments, from what I've gathered here, is between the Duet and the English/Anglo, due to the Duet's greater bass range.

 

Not necessarily. Baritone and bass concertinas exist in all systems, though they are rarer than the treble variants. Concertina bands would have a mixture of (usually English) concertinas playing different ranges. The main difference with a duet is that it's like having an independent keyboard in each hand, typically with the left hand sounding an octave lower than the right, and with some overlapping notes that are duplicated between the top end of the left hand and the bottom end of the right. An Anglo also has lower notes on the left and higher notes on the right, but without the overlap so it's more like a single keyboard that's been split in two.

[JLAB9]

1 minute ago, alex_holden said:

 

Not necessarily. Baritone and bass concertinas exist in all systems, though they are rarer than the treble variants. Concertina bands would have a mixture of (usually English) concertinas playing different ranges. The main difference with a duet is that it's like having an independent keyboard in each hand, typically with the left hand sounding an octave lower than the right, and with some overlapping notes that are duplicated between the top end of the left hand and the bottom end of the right. An Anglo also has lower notes on the left and higher notes on the right, but without the overlap so it's more like a single keyboard that's been split in two.

I think we mean the same thing, if I'm not mistaken. That the English and Anglo have similar ranges and have some amount of degeneracy towards the centre of their ranges, while the Duet has a larger range that extends further into a normal Bass Clef range, and presumably features less degeneracy. Again, correct me if I'm wrong on that, but form what I've heard here that seems to be the case. 

[Theo]

Classical music is also possible on the anglo.

 

https://livestream.com/uol/final-recitals-17/videos/157705262 from about 5:30

[Randy Stein]

Attached are two pieces of music.

One is a lead sheet given to me by my friend and amazing accordion player, Craig. The other a simple polyphonic arrangement based on how I might play the tune and so some of my students can learn from playing it.

The rest is commentary. Go and learn

CINECITTA (1).pdf Cinecitta .pdf

[Steve Schulteis]

4 hours ago, RAc said:

On  this rare occasion, I disagree with Steve. I am a duet player coming from a guitarist's background. In an ensemble environment, I will many times (depending on the arrangement, number of melody players etc) choose to play accompaniment either with or without the melody or fitting arpeggios for which the chord symbols are essential, so whenever I write put a score, including them to me is mandatory. But that is only me.

 

I certainly don't intend my statement to be universal. I do include chord symbols in my own tabs because in that context they're not redundant. I only mean that they don't add anything relative to the OPs purpose of precisely representing a predetermined arrangement. If allowing more room for interpretation, then I agree that they're quite valuable.

[arti]

This may be a waste of time:

I think I posted and deleted this suggestion and some examples:

 

Go to Concertina.com

 

You are setting yourself an impossible task as you know nothing about the instrument and the knowledge generously  offered here is likely to be confusing rather than informative.