Anyone use the highest pitch right hand button on Anglo C/G?

[Ryan Galamb]

Do any of you use the right hand B6/F#6 on anglo C/G? If you do, would you miss it if it were swapped out with something more useful?

 

Some context:

I'm considering switching from Wheatstone to Jeffries (both 30b C/G.) I use the top row a lot, so I've been looking over the button maps to make sure I'm not losing anything I need. Everyone talks about that extra C#, but the Jeffries top row also trades some of the highest pitch notes for more useful notes (like the push A that was displaced by the extra C#.)

 

That got me thinking about other "dog whistle" buttons that I never use. And over all my years playing concertina, I can't say I've ever (intentionally) used the highest pitch button on the G row.

 

I'm tempted to try replacing it with a push F# (same octave as the first RH F#) and something else useful on pull. (Maybe the D#6 that gets dropped on Jeffries?)

 

---

 

Do the "dog whistle" notes sound substantially less shrieky on higher end concertinas? (I currently play a clover, to give you my reference point.)

Is this my Icarus moment? Is the forbidden F#push fruit simply not meant for 30b C/G mortals?

 

Any advice or cautionary tales would be much appreciated!

[Jody Kruskal]

If you play the near G row a lot, consider getting a G/D. For harmonic playing of dance tunes the G/D is much better., richer in tone and harmonic accompaniment possibilities.  

 

My go-to instrument is a G/D Jefferies 38 button Anglo. These instruments have that highest button in the near G row as F push and D# draw.

 

Transposed to C/G, that high button plays A# push and G# draw. The draw G# note is one I rarely use, but the A# push is essential to my playing because it is the blue note in a G chord. Sliding from A#5 to B5 on the push gives me that bluesy quality I like; going seamlessly from a G minor to a G major in the melody and sometimes letting the two overlap in time.

 

When I commissioned a new Jefferies 30 button C/G, I knew I would miss that A#5 and had the maker replace the useless high B6 with the useful A#5 push.

[Jody Kruskal]

Another button I've changed is the left hand far row (accidental row) second from the bottom button draw. On a C/G that is typically a Bb note. I rarely play melody down there and the tunes I play rarely require a Bb chord... but now that I've changed it to a low D, I use it all the time. On my G/D, that draw button plays a low A. Very useful.

 

One Anglo player I know has that lovely low draw note on the C/G left hand middle button of the far row And that works well for him and preserves the Bb sacrificing a C#.

[Clive Thorne]

My 36 key Jeffries also has the top B6 replaced by a Bb5, and did when I bought it (around 40 years ago). IT seem sthat this is quite common on Jeffries C/Gs.

[Chris Ghent]

I have replaced all of the high notes I didn’t use, F6/F#6, E6, C6, D6, G6, with reversals of F#5, F5, G#5, A#5, C#6 and obscurely, another C#5. 
 

Seriously, its your concertina and you can have what you want within your ability to get the changes made.  I say that because an A5, for example, is not going to fit straight in where the F6/B6  is and some wood and reed frame reworking is necessary, 
 

The concertina with the above changes, if I hand it to others they will not even notice the changes. Well, except the occasional super user; Mohsen Amini played it a few weeks ago and he discovered a couple of the changes. 

[gcoover]

I don't use it often, but it's absolutely essential for tunes like Coilsfield House in G. 

 

Posted a few years ago with video and the dots:

 

Just keep in mind, as many have said - the danger of swapping notes around is that no other instrument will have your custom arrangement, so playing on others will be problematic at best, and resale will be difficult if not unlikely.

Gary

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Those very high notes are nice to have even if rarely used🌝

Good for imitating bird chirps and the like. ( Bird song)!😊

[Kathryn Wheeler]

Yes, I do occasionally - particularly in this piece I wrote specifically to explore the top end of the instrument.  It's in E minor.  The high section is in the B section (for example at 0.47 seconds in) and uses both top B and F#.

 

And yes, its also useful for sending my cats out of the room, haha! (My old cat was used to me playing anything, but with our new cats, even the most placid will leave if it gets too high).

 

Playing things an octave higher than melodeons, particularly when outside, is also a way of not disappearing into the free reed mush when playing for Morris.  That's why I might get my sopranino recorder out too!

 

 

Edited April 12 by Kathryn Wheeler

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Wonderful and has the freedom of the countryside embodied within it. I also like the presentation with the leaves fluttering about🌝

[Tiposx]

Magnificent, dynamic music.

[Jody Kruskal]

I love it!

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

If you use the high end notes in a chord it can give very unusual effect to the sound, particularly combined with contrasting  low notes🌝

[Kathryn Wheeler]

3 hours ago, SIMON GABRIELOW said:

If you use the high end notes in a chord it can give very unusual effect to the sound, particularly combined with contrasting  low notes🌝

Yes!  It's the same sort of effect when I bow two high notes together on a violin.  You get the impression there's a lower note that's weird happening at the same time - it's an auditory hallucination apparently, to do with the way our ears work.  A Tartini tone.  It's apparently the difference between the frequencies of the two notes being played.  Thing is, on a concertina which is tuned to fixed pitches, presumably equal temperament* - it'll sound really quite off.  On a violin you can do a fun trick, which is minutely change the position of one of the notes and see how that effects the extra tone.

 

I only find I notice them when the notes are high.  But of course on a C/G anglo, anything on the right hand is high enough.

 

*and now I realise I haven't investigated how anglos are tuned... 

 

This is all on top of what happens when you play three high notes together in a chord - then you've got even more weird tones going on!

 

Perhaps you're noticing it as particularly weird when you also play a low note because that low note will be sounding at the same time as the low Tartini tone?

Edited April 13 by Kathryn Wheeler

[Ryan Galamb]

Thanks so much for the thoughtful replies! Y'all have been super helpful.

 

Gary and Kathryn, those lovely tunes make a very strong case for me to keep the button "as is." The high note sounds great in the context of your tunes.

 

For my switch to Jeffries, I'm coming to the conclusion that I should keep it standard. I'm sold on the utility of the high notes, and the resale/swappability angles are also compelling. If I want the extra notes on push/pull, a 38+ button concertina is probably the move (if I can find one 😅)

 

>Tartini tone

YES! It drives me nuts. I've always wondered about that (and whether or not my ears are somehow broken haha.) Thanks for sharing the name/explanation of the phenomenon.

 

I'm still interested in hearing y'all's thoughts on this (even though I'm pretty sure I'll keep the button "as is" now.) This discussion has been super helpful/interesting.

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Tartini tones ( sounds like a cooking  recipe)🌝 

As for high notes there's also some very high note in Locatelli ( violin) Capriccios, which are played with huge intervals and so rapidly giving impression of three instruments at once ( on the one instrument.)

Another method which can be adopted  on Anglo concertina.for effects!🌝

[Clive Thorne]

These "Tartini" tones sound like they are just a very high frequency tremelo effect, such that it is heard as a note rather than an undulation in volume. i.e the tone/ frequency is the numerical difference between the two original frequncies.

 

Or is it more complicated?

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Perhaps sometimes people are reluctant to use the really high notes because it tends to use the small fingers more ( considered the weaker ones)? But is good practice to try and use both hands and all fingers you can ( particularly when beginner) to build up suppleness for more advanced ( and higher notes) music later on🌝It can pay off for those upper notes🌝

[wschruba]

4 hours ago, Clive Thorne said:

These "Tartini" tones sound like they are just a very high frequency tremelo effect, such that it is heard as a note rather than an undulation in volume. i.e the tone/ frequency is the numerical difference between the two original frequncies.

 

Or is it more complicated?

 

Undoubtedly has to do with how you perceive the "space" between the different overtone series.  There is no physical 'note', and you can see that when you look at a strobe tuner--nothing registers.

 

NB, the 'Tartini Effect' is different from the beating that you hear between overtones.  When rapid, beating can almost sound like clicking, when slow (as in equal temperament fifths), it can feel like a slow, 1 second pulse.  The tritone ('diablo en musica'), for instance, beats rapidly, and is held to be an unpleasant sound, as a result.  Western music tends to like gentle, 5-7 beats per second as "nice" sounds as a result.  This is what classically trained Western singers are encouraged to cultivate in vibrato.  Tartini tones are easier to hear in high registers--play the top of the "C" row, C and E.  Can you hear the 'ghost' of the C below?  Can you still hear it when you play the octave below?

 

I don't see it as a bad thing, incidentally--it becomes almost a part of the instrument, and you can even use it to your advantage.  A quint, on an organ, can make use of the phenomenon to make a sound bigger than would be expected, for instance.  Since normal organ stops are arranged in octaves, usually pulling stops just adds an octave up or down to the sound.  A quint plays [an octave or two octaves plus] a fifth from whatever key you depress...so principal tone, plus a fifth, played by one key.  That note sounds bigger, incidentally, than either note by itself, all neatly wrapped up in one key.