Irish tunes for Harmonic style Anglo?

[Steve Moore]

   Recently began to work through Gary Coover's excellent starter book for left-hand (LH) harmonic accompaniment on Anglo concertina.  Many of the melodies presented in his book are English Country dance tunes, Morris tunes, and original compositions.  They can be transcribed into C, Am, F, and Dm which have many LH chord patterns for the 3 or 4 chords required for many tunes.  Some more limited chording can also accompany G and even D tunes.  The practical requirement is that "most" of the tune be playable on the right hand. 

   Many Irish tunes sit in the middle range of the fiddle, whistle, flute and pipes; low parts of melodies will commonly fall below G or A above middle C and are played with the LH on the Anglo.  So, even though it's not traditional, I'd like to see, or work on collecting, a list of Irish tunes of any genre that either fall within the right hand, or can be transcribed into a key that fits there.   A subset is tunes that have a second, high or B part that is right hand only.

   My starter tune:  Kesh jig.  Except for the tonic G and the A that follows, the tune is all right hand, and notes can be found in the LH for the 3 required chords.

[Ubizmo]

"Britches Full Of Stitches" played in D. 

[Robin Harrison]

These from my practice this morning.

  In the next day or so I will be posting the layout of my 36 key G/D Dipper ( thanks Luke !!) that enables me to pretty much keep the tune mainly in the right hand and let the left hand do the harmonic accompaniment. Hence I am playing across the rows on the RHS.

 

Quote

even though it's not traditional,

      It seems so but most Irish tunes are played on a C/G anglo.

                  I play these tunes on a G/D anglo giving me far greater harmonic possibilities but at the expense of sounding like a traditional Irish anglo player. 

           Thanks for posting this thread.

Robin

1a.....Boys of Bluehill & Sligo Fancy.pdf 1b.......Harvest Home & Belfast Hornpiper.pdf 1......Hare in the Corn & a Tailor am I.pdf 4.......Plane of the Plank & Corofin Departure.pdf 11...... Joe Bane's & Gypsey P..pdf 4__Hewlett.pdf 8_Loftus Jones.pdf

Edited December 8, 2023 by Robin Harrison

[John, Wexford]

I love that tune of Dermot Lernihan's, the "Corofin Departure".

[Steve Moore]

KESH JIG TAB

Here's the Kesh jig in G, left hand tab below, with substantial but mostly one-note harmony on the left.   A, G and F# melody notes have to be covered by the left too.    Getting to all these positions on the L seems possible but is challenging for me at this stage, and I'm a long way from intuitively knowing which button combo to move to for a given chord.

 

I also have a G/D instrument, a Herrington.   I'll explore G tunes on the right hand at some point later.

 

Addressing the C/G for now (per the format of Gary Coover's book), other G tunes that fit more or less within a G to g octave could be treated like Kesh here, but there don't seem to be many of them.   Or, transpose the G tunes to C  -  therefore mostly right-hand, and with fuller chord possibilities.

 

A dorian tunes that fit in an A to a octave - but try to find one -  can be treated like this too and left in the original key; there are good harmonic options with A minor.   The Princess Royal set dance and The Stack of Rye hornpipe are candidates.  

Kesh jig_LH tab for harmonic Anglo.pdf

[Michael Eskin]

I play in the traditional Irish style and on a C/G Jeffries-style instrument. 

I'm guessing to play tunes in the harmonic style with the melody on the right and chords on the left, I'd be best served transposing them to a key that sits better on the C/G or just think of my instrument as a G/D.

Are there any fully arranged tablature versions of traditional Irish dance tunes that I might experiment with?   I could probably arrange one myself, but would prefer a good reference example.

I'd love to be able to at least demonstrate the style for my occasional concertina students.

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Michael Eskin

[Eric Lerner]

On my GD Anglo, I can play St. Anne's Reel and Rickett's Hornpipe in D all on the right hand, using only the buttons on a basic 20 button box.  Over the Waterfall -- all but the final two notes of the B part.  They could of course be transposed to G to play on a CG (and sound kinda squeaky).  I'm sure I have some more like these flagged in my tune books.  If this is what you're looking for, I can rummage for them.

Eric

[Steve Moore]

My G/D is in reserve for future exploration.  I can transpose mostly by ear so at some point, summon the nerve to sit in on a slow session and play G, Em and D tunes as if they were in C,  Am and G.   (I'm not going to think about LH harmonic options yet.)

[gcoover]

I think Michael is absolutely correct about probably needing to transpose, since the melodies of so many of the traditional Irish dance tunes fit naturally across "the break" in the C/G instrument. The G/D is a completely different story, which of course means the lilt will sound completely different or perhaps be lost altogether. 

 

Although I've owned several G/D's, I've not taken to it, preferring the C/G and sticking with it for the books since it is by far and away the most common and most available type of Anglo, especially for beginners. But I would love to hear what someone could do with ITM on G/D in the harmonic style - and if it's promising enough, let's do a book! Sales would be pretty minimal since there aren't that many G/D's out there, but I think it would still be worth doing.  

 

I'm not sure about full harmonic style for the fast ITM tunes, they probably lend themselves better to pipe-like drones and occasional accent chords, like you hear in the astonishing playing of Micheal O'Raghallaigh and Cormac Begley.

 

The slower airs and harp tunes work much better as harmonic arrangements, and I've included some in the books, and I have previously posted "Eleanor Plunkett" and "Blind Mary" here on CNET. Dave Cox at Marcus Music recently recorded me playing "Eleanor Plunkett" in their shop last September and posted it on their Facebook page.  

 

Still, having said all this, I'm eager to hear what you all can come up with!

 

Gary

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by gcoover

[Alan Day]

Paul Davis a player who lived in Worthing Sussex ,was one of the few players of Irish music that played full chord style. I have a couple of old recordings of his X ICA Festival. I will have a listen and possibly send them to Gary if they are of interest.

[Michael Eskin]

Now that I'm finally retired, I'll have the time to experiment with this!

[Steve Moore]

Great comments, ideas and inspiration; thanks everyone!    I am beginning to get a feel for the A dorian/minor  Irish tunes and harmonies (and a few G major ones) that may fit largely in the right hand on C/G.  I may explore a hornpipe soon in this spirit and going forward plan to write out the full tab versions with RH melody notes, as suggested above, so all can interpret. 

 

Meanwhile check out another A minor attempt, posted as a separate thread, Drive the Cold Winter Away.