Duet Concertina Techniques

[Dimble]

A separate thread on duet construction raised some questions about how duet players use their instruments. Last week I would have said that the preferred way to play a duet is melody on the right hand side, accompaniment on the left. Comments by @Stephen DOUGLASS, @David Barnert, and @wunks demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case.

 

So duet players: how do you use your instruments? How do you share the work between your hands? Which fingers do you use? How many buttons would you use at a time?

 

Relatedly, what are your musical goals? What keys do you play in? Do you play solo or in a group? If in a group, what role do you play in it?

 

Personally, I am working on chordal accompaniment for traditional jazz and melody lines for trade Irish sessions. To date I am using mostly the left side for chords and bridging between left and right for melody lines. However, these habits are mostly by necessity.  I am working with a Peacock from CC, so the locations of the notes that I want largely determine the fingerings. I do choose to avoid bouncing a melody or chord between hands when possible. I only do this as a learning exercise to force myself to get good at efficient fingerings. I assume that I will do this more on the future.

 

I also typically play no more than three notes simultaneously. This keeps chord voicings from becoming muddled (to my ear) and avoids my bellows running out of air too quickly.

 

[wunks]

Well, melody right, accompany left is one way to do it but "preferred" by whom and on what instrument and what music?  I do that sometimes on my Jeff duet but I'll mix it up even within the same tune.  I don't think left or right.  I think middle because I'm a fiddle player and the range of the fiddle straddles the instrument as does most of the music I want to play.  The melody must use both sides and the overlap zone so the harmonies must weave over under around and through.  

I use all 6 fingers on each hand.  

I like sparse harmonies and little touches rather than oom pahs but really what ever works for the music.

I want to know the instrument well enough to play anything that pops into my head.  

My 50 button box ( 6 1/4" ) is chromatic basically in 4 octaves from the low cello G so any key.

generally lead in a couple or 3 combos.  I like contra dance music.

 

Sounds like you've got a good start.  Don't fight the instrument.  It will instruct you how to play....😃

 

[David Barnert]

2 hours ago, Dimble said:

Last week I would have said that the preferred way to play a duet is melody on the right hand side, accompaniment on the left. Comments by @Stephen DOUGLASS, @David Barnert, and @wunks demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case.

 

Not necessarily, perhaps, but (for me, at least), most often. Sure, sometimes I find myself playing a tune with a note that dips below middle C and have to play it on the left (while still providing an accompaniment on the left). And sometimes I’m playing something sufficiently complicated that I have to move beyond the right:melody/left:accompanimet paradigm, but most of my playing is just that.

 

2 hours ago, Dimble said:

So duet players: how do you use your instruments? How do you share the work between your hands? Which fingers do you use? How many buttons would you use at a time?

 

You’re saying “duet,” but I can only answer regarding the Hayden (and I note you have a Peacock, which is a Hayden). The answers may be different for other duet systems, I wouldn’t know. Wunks plays Jeffries duet, an entirely different system.

 

Perhaps I’ve already answered the “hands” question above.

 

As  for fingers, I have the unfortunate habit of not using my little finger unless absolutely necessary. Brian Hayden and the late Rich Morse both sensibly advocated starting a scale with the 2nd finger and using all four regularly (I’ve even seen Rich use his thumbs). See my video at https://youtu.be/wqwDnMXrY9Q. One of the most complicated things I have ever learned to play. The melody stays on the right, but the accompaniment sometimes also needs some right hand fingers (eg., at 11 seconds). In the entire video, I never use my left little finger and only use my right one once (well, 5 times in a row, to play the C# in an accompanying D major 7th chord that the left hand is playing the rest of) at 48 seconds. And occasionally an inner voice appears that may bounce back and forth between hands.

 

But this is an exception. Most contradance, English country dance and Morris dance tunes don’t require anything but melody on the right, accompaniment on the left.

How many buttons? As few as possible. Don’t forget that the left hand reeds, being lower in pitch than the right are therefore longer and louder, so if you don’t want the accompaniment to overpower the melody you have to keep a light touch. That means a) rarely playing more than one note at a time on the left and b) coming off the notes early, leaving space between them. A good note to leave out of a chord is one that appears in the melody. So if you’re in G and the melody has a B, don’t play a [GBD] cluster. Play a quick G and then a quick D.

 

3 hours ago, Dimble said:

Relatedly, what are your musical goals? What keys do you play in? Do you play solo or in a group? If in a group, what role do you play in it?

 

I play mostly 32-bar British Isles-style traditional dance tunes, but also some classical and early music, some Scandinavian, etc. My Hayden has 46 keys, and except for one Bb on the left and two on the right, there are no flats. So I tend to stay away from keys that have many flats, although two tunes that I play commonly are in G minor, and I use the D# at the right edge of the the layout (with my right little finger) for an Eb. Otherwise, any key from one flat to three sharps may be fair game, although most of the tunes tend to be in G, D, A minor or E minor.

 

Something else that I find very pleasing to do is to move the bass line in parallel 10ths below the melody. A 10th is an octave + a 3rd. So if the melody is going BCD, stop playing oom-pahs for a moment and play GAB in the lower octave. Even if it’s just for two consecutive notes: If the melody goes DE and you want to harmonize it with a G chord and a C chord, use a lone B to stand in for the G chord so it moves up to C as the tune is going from D to E.

[David Barnert]

13 hours ago, David Barnert said:

Something else that I find very pleasing to do is to move the bass line in parallel 10ths below the melody.

 

Example: In the above linked video, right near the beginning, the descending scale (and the note preceding it) harmonized by a similarly shaped line a 10th below it on the left. Many similar examples in this tune if you listen closely.