Fingering and rhythm: A guitarist writes

[niftyprose]

Merry Xmas, everyone. The following is one of those small queries that sometimes turns out to have broader implications.

 

I'll mention at the start that I'm a concertina newbie but a venerable guitarist. 

 

I'm presently having a lot of fun with a Marcus 30b anglo and Mr. Coover's excellent 'Pirate Songs'.

 

'Rickett's Hornpipe' includes a descending phrase that goes E-D-C-B-A-G, which the book notates on middle-row buttons, push-pulls on the right side b2 and b1 and then pull-push b5 on the left. (Are you with me?)

 

This being a dance tune, rhythm is crucial. I tried beating time and kept losing it. After kicking the arrangement around a few times, I realized that my problem lay in the switch from push-pull to pull-push. On guitar, I'd address comparable issues with "alternate picking", that is, arranging things so that the down-up down-up movement of the pick fits the tune. (A massive oversimplification. Flatpickers please bear with me.)

 

Anyway, I moved the A and G of the problem phrase to left side top row b4 push-pull and got immediate gratification. This fingering only *looks* harder. It's actually easier to execute, for me at least.

 

I'm inclined to take this approach with other tunes, but would I do better to learn how to keep rhythm through un-rhythmic changes of bellows direction?

 

 

 

 

[Richard Mellish]

Welcome to the world of concertinas.

The obvious advantage of a 30 or more button Anglo over the basic 20 is that more notes are available. You have just discovered the less obvious advantage; that some notes are available in both directions of the bellows. Actually even the basic 20-button offers a few of these "alternatives". On a C-G instrument the E-D-C-B by push-pull-push-pull on the C row on the right hand end are available pull-push-pull-push on the G row on the left hand end. I sometimes use those buttons for a scale run F-E-D-C-B-A (or the corresponding C-B-A-G-F#-E on my G-D Anglo) without changing direction at all. And the final G is, as you have already found, on pull on the top row. So you have the choice of alternating all the way for a punchy rhythm, all in one direction for legato, or whatever else best fits the phrasing of the tune.

[PaulDa321]

I’m mainly an Irish Trad guitarist, but I’ve been plugging away at Anglo for a couple years now. When I started, I would avoid changing bellows directions a lot because I thought it made the expression of rhythm kind of herky-jerky. I do that less often now, I think because I kind of just got used to it. I’m working a lot on expressing rhythm by emphasizing notes. I like to play a tune slow with the concertina leg bouncing to the rhythm and emphasizing certain notes to get that pulse. I’m clearly no expert and I might look back on this comment and roll my eyes, but this is the kind of thing I think more about when expressing rhythm at this stage. Not sure if that hits the mark. 

[Mikefule]

One of the charms of the Anglo is the way it lends itself to an accented rhythm because of the push pull arrangement, and the way that the most important chords naturally fall in one bellows direction or the other.

 

One of the other charms is the fact that almost any short run of notes can be played without changing bellows direction.  This can help with speed or smoothness.

 

On a simple 20 button CG, there are 128 ways of playing a 1 octave scale in C major.  No one learns them all, but there are many useful options for any short run of notes, either staying on one row or crossing rows in different patterns.

 

On the 30 button, there are even more options because some notes appear in 3 places.

 

One problem with learning any new tune is finding the best route through the maze.  Indeed, there are some tunes which respond to being played with different fingering each time through, giving different harmonic options and a different overall feel.

 

So there is no "right way" to play a tune.  However, some ways are easier, some ways are more fluid, others with more bounce, and others more plaintive, and so on.

 

The more tunes you can play, the more your fingers will naturally find the sequence that suits a new tune.  Each tune becomes a new series of mainly familiar patterns, rather than a new sequence of individual notes.

 

A common mistake with a "fast run" (a run of several half or quarter notes) is to think "Ooh, this next bit's fast and tricky" and then panic and speed up, forgetting the rhythm.  I still do it from time to time after nearly 20 years of playing.

 

The cure for this error is to step back a moment, and remind yourself of the count: 1 & 2 &, or 1 e & a 2 e & a... and remind you that some notes are on the beat and others are off the beat.  Remind yourself that the beat is not always even (hornpipes are often dotted) and that a folk tune is never played exactly as it is written.

 

A violin section in an orchestra has to play note for note, with every violinist playing each note at the same time and for the same duration as all the other violinists.  An orchestral score is therefore "gospel".  Folk tunes were generally composed by ear and passed on by sharing.  They developed at a time when standard musical notation and the "rules" of composition were not understood by the people playing them. 

 

Therefore, using standard musical notation to write a folk tune "exactly as played" can be unwieldy: all those slight changes of emphasis, small changes of speed, spontaneous decorations, and so on would require a lot of ink, a lot of dots, and a lot of ties and slurs.  Instead, folk tunes are usually written down simply, leaving the experience and ear of the musician to add the nuance.  The important thing to take from this is that if a tune is difficult to play smoothly and easy to play heavily accented, or vice versa, then maybe the tune is telling you how it wants to be played.

 

Another common mistake, almost the opposite of the one above is to speed up on the easy bits, then get in a tangle when you reach the difficult bit.

 

It takes discipline to practise a new tune at the right speed: not so slow that it is plodding and uses too much air, and not so fast that you sacrifice accuracy on the altar of making it a "foot tapper".

 

Enjoy playing, because that's the only reason to do it.  It isn't an exam, or a competition, and however good you get, someone else will be better, and however bad you think you are, someone else thinks they're worse.

 

 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

When attempting faster pieces you can play them at a moderate pace and need not rush too much, until you are more confident. Presto ( very fast basically) could be played as fast as you can manage, as you progress ( but perhaps not like a rocket!).. Take it at your own pace and as you play every time you will notice the skills improve.

If make errors..learn from them, but do not keep constantly going over same phrases too much, as it can fatigue the mind, and I found that resting away from a problem piece can be a help..and going back to it later on.. you will suddenly realise you are able to do more later on🌝

[AndyNT]

I have found that A/G reversal on the left side top row , and the one on the right top row (b2) an octave higher are my most used top row buttons. I find they often help with rhythm, harmonising chords, and air management (not necessarily at the same time!!).

 

Effective use of the bellows and bellows changes can really impart lift and a pulse into dance music such as hornpipes. It is one of the joys of an anglo!!

 

[Clive Thorne]

If doing chords on the left hand then ork out which chords you want first. In many (but not all) cases this will dictate the fingering on the right hand. I didn't do this for many years, so I'd learn the tune, than try to add chords and find I had to relearn parts of the tune.

Edited December 22, 2024 by Clive Thorne