The Sound Tricks Thread

[niftyprose]

I like long-running threads to which people can contribute as inspiration strikes, so I thought I'd start one for sub-musical aspects of the concertina. You know how, when you start gigging, you find uses for those odd noises? It would be great if people would share theirs here.

 

My particular contribution is the car (automobile) horn: 30-button anglo, left hand, row three, push buttons four and five (assuming Wheatstone/Lachenal layout). The semitone dissonance gives a quite convincing small vehicle 'parp'. 

 

The effect isn't in the Jeff Beck/Adrian Belew league, but it might come in handy if, say, you need spectators to move so the bass player can get his cab in.

[David Barnert]

I often imitate the sound of a European police car by playing  F#4  and G4 simultaneously alternating with B4 and C5 simultaneously.

 

 

Sometimes, to imitate the doppler effect of a passing police car, after a few cycles of the above I change the G to an F and the C to a Bb.

[niftyprose]

Neat! Must try that one...

[Jake Middleton-Metcalfe]

play the highest E on a G/D then the lowest E  alternately a few times being sure to play the low one a bit too hard so the pitch bends and it sounds like a donkey. I always play that noise at the end of our version of the song "donkey riding" 

 

[gcoover]

For the Anglo, left side buttons 2 and 3a on the pull (B and Eb/D#) make a nice horn sound, one that can be obnoxiously played in the B-part of the Staten Island Hornpipe (instead of the C chord) to mimic the sound of the ferry horn. 

 

 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

There is a great   train engine  horn effect possible using two buttons on anglo  on in bellows, then pull out afterwards.. cannot say which as do effect by feel😊and sound ..

[John Wild]

A D# with a G, at the lower end of a baritone English concertina, can (with imagination) sound like an American-style train horn.

[fred v]

At sessions they ask me to play an A note fro the fiddles. I like playing an A flat and watch everybody stop and look at their instrument and bow it again. LOL

[David Barnert]

4 hours ago, fred v said:

At sessions they ask me to play an A note fro the fiddles. I like playing an A flat and watch everybody stop and look at their instrument and bow it again. LOL

 

I was playing cello at an orchestra rehearsal many years ago, the last rehearsal before the concert, and we were playing Schubert’s “Great” 9th Symphony in C. The piece starts with a 7+ measure horn solo, with the violins, then the rest of the orchestra coming in in the 8th measure:

 

 

For the same reason @fred v describes above (ie., for grins), the horn player played the solo in C# rather than C and nobody noticed until the violins entered and desperately tried sliding their fingers up the strings to get in tune. It all broke down at that moment and we started again in C natural.

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

I was once been thoroughly ignored playing by the river Ouse ( York in UK).. so getting fed up I played the deepest  bass C note, loudly.. I call it the Queen Mary ( at Sea)!...note (C)😊.. it really sounds like one of those great Liners leaving port on a great voyage.(;when you keep blowing it, you should say in English accent.. "And God bless all who sail in her"!!

[Mark Alan Lovewell]

I just tried the Train horn. D# and G on my baritone English concertina. Really good. Anyone know a fog horn?

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

2 hours ago, Mark Alan Lovewell said:

I just tried the Train horn. D# and G on my baritone English concertina. Really good. Anyone know a fog horn?

 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Just use that lovely bass C ( Anglo).. the 'Queen Mary at Sea' .. one that makes good fog horn effect.