Adventures in Concertina Practice

[Alison Scott]

Possibly an ongoing thread. 

So I didn’t pick up my concertina, or any other instruments, for a couple of years. It’s complicated. But then thanks to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival (great festival) I started playing a £10 charity shop ukulele, and my very sore fingers reminded me that I still had a bunch of concertina life goals. So now I have a plan, and a target (about eight weeks away) for a great opportunity to play something out (which I have never ever done because I am a coward). 

And I hit a snag! It turns out that I cannot sing sitting down, and I cannot play a concertina standing up. Whoops. “I know”, I thought. “I have seen what these players do and a lot of them prop their concertina on their knee while resting their foot on its hard case. I will just do that.”

I lasted, reader, for exactly one verse and a chorus before my other leg was complaining so much I had to have a little sit down. So apparently I have bonus left leg strength training goals. It also keeps me honest vis-a-vis ‘looking where I am putting my fingers’. Apparently I’ll just have to learn all those notes. Silly me picking a song that can only really be played on one day a year. 

 

Tools I am using – my Holden C/G Anglo, my encyclopaedic music collection, Gary Coover’s fabulous books (on Kindle), and two iPad apps – Anytune Pro, which lets me slow things down to the point where I can play them without much distortion, and Goodnotes, which lets me annotate screenshots of the notation because while Gary’s books are marvellous, they do not always exactly match the music I have. 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Welcome to the world of concertinas ..keep practicing and do not give up 🌝🌝

[Alison Scott]

I am not quite *starting*, to be fair. Just returning. 

[RAc]

Hi Alison,

 

you may or may not be aware of it, but playing and singing *at the same time* is a skill very different from each of them separately and does not come automatically without dedicated practice! For years I knew this lady whose voice I always considered thin and untrained. I only see her once a year where she performs some song accompanied with the Ukulele. The arrangements are nice, the playing is ok - but the voice never lived up to it. She hits all the notes right, but there was just no volume, no depth. Until this year when for some reason she sang something unaccompanied... I had to look for my jaw somewhere on the floor. A full, voluminous and obviously well exercised voice. I could not believe it.

 

We discussed this in private. I believe what happens is that the Ukulele either takes away too much of her concentration, or the motorics of strumming do something to the body that distracts the air flow in the lungs. Or whatever. It is day and night when she sings without or with an instrument.

 

A concertina in my theory may be even worse than a strung instrument because a concertina also works via pneumatics, and I find myself frequently and involuntarily attempting to synchronize my breathing with the bellows (or vice versa). You may query this forum for "singing," several aspects of this have been discussed before.

 

In short: Do not expect that you will be able to sing and play at the same time just by trying that over and over again. Become aware of how your body muscles (in particular hands) and lungs interact, then go from there and find the best setup for the combo. Very importantly, record yourself singing with and without and compare the results to get instant feedback.

 

And btw, it is possibly to play a concertina standing up, that has been discussed here before as well (I use a saxophone harness to which I attach the instrument with no irreversible modification). Just be aware that that initially may feel awkward and also needs to be practiced separately.

 

Best of luck for your performance!

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

45 minutes ago, Alison Scott said:

I am not quite *starting*, to be fair. Just returning. 

I see then if you are just returning after a break from playing there still should be some technique left in your memory from previous experience.. which means you don't have all the really basic stuff to have to go through. 🌝

[Johanna]

Get a neck strap!  It doesn't have to be anything fancy.  The one I'm wearing in my profile picture (which I still use, even though that's an old picture) is just the shoulder strap off my case, hooked to two loops of string tied around the thumbstrap screws (that's on an English; I'm sure you can do something similar on an Anglo).  It takes a teeny tiny bit of getting used to - the forces on the instrument are different than when sitting, as is the angle of my elbows - but it is SO much better than trying to hold the weight of the instrument in my hands or balance precariously on my bent leg.

 

And cheers to a fellow concertina returner!  I was out of practice for much more than "a couple of years," but it all came back quite quickly.

[hjcjones]

Why can't you sing sitting down? Does it affect your breath control? There is no reason why it should, but you have to find a sitting position which does not constrict your breathing.  I prefer to sit forward on the edge of the chair, which allows me to maintain an upright, open upper body posture which is not very different from when I am standing.

 

However you do need to be able to devote most of your attention to singing rather than playing the instrument, so you should not have to be looking at where your fingers are going. If necessary, simplify the accompaniment to the point where you can play it without really having to think about it. It is better to play something really simple which allows you to put the song across well than a more complicated (and perhaps more interesting) accompaniment which makes you sing badly. You may also find that it is then possible to play standing up, whereas this would not be possible if you were playing something more complicated.

 

It is always difficult to find the right balance, and a certain amount of compromise may be needed to find something which works for both singing and playing. Just remember that the song is the most important element and the accompaniment is secondary.

 

I am not a fan of neck straps, whilst they may help support the instrument they usually end up restricting the playing of it to some extent.

 

 

[Anglo-Irishman]

Hi, Alison,

your topic is one that is close to my heart as a self-accompanied singer! I play a few instrumets that are capable of providing good, harmonious and rhythmic accompaniment for my songs (mainly Irish and German folk songs and Victorian ballads, like those of Thomas Moore, Stephen Foster etc.). My main instruments for solo performance are 5-string banjo, Waldzither and of course Autoharp, but I do use the Anglo concertina for sea songs. Over the years, these accompaniment instruments have developed their own repertoires - basically, instrumental arrangments of the aforesaid ballads and folk songs, with complete melody line and full harmonisation. 

So on a particular occasion, I may sing "The Swanee River" to a banjo accompaniment, but on another occasion I may play variations on it as a banjo solo. 

To be quite clear about it: what I do on the banjo while I'm singing is nowhere near as complex or demanding as what I do in a banjo solo! (The same applies to "The Greenland Whalers" to/on the Anglo.) 

 

To take up Rüdiger's example of the lady with the ukulele: the accompaniment must be rehearsed - not until you can play it right, but until you can't play it wrong! You have to hit the right notes without thinking about it. It must be totally mechanical, on autopilot, so to speak. Some object that mechanical playing sounds soulless, but I would counter that by pointing out that, as a singer you're receptive for the feeling of the song, and your expression of it (dynamics, tempo, etc.) get transferred to the "automatic" accompaniment. 

 

And to get the accompaniment automated, it must be simple and easy to memorise. It must not overtax your technique on the instrument. Very often, it will suffice to simply play the chords that underlie the harmonies. You can forget the melody - you voice takes over that role. 

 

Specifically to the Anglo: provided you're in a favourable key, basic chordal accompaniment without elaboration is relatively easy (just as easy as on the guitar, which many singers use for accompaniment). And if you dispense with fast scale passages and high notes on the right hand, you will find that playing standing up is easier than you think. (With my banjo, I can accompany myself singing anything standing up with the banjo dangling on its strap in front of me - but if I have a solo piece with quick chord changes "up the neck" and lots of "twiddly bits," I have to sit downand take the banjo on my knee.)

Speaking of "strap:" the ability to play the Anglo standing up is much affected by the handstraps, specifically their adjustment and stiffness. But there are numerous threads on that topic here!

 

In short: keep accompaniments a lot simpler than what you would be capable of on the instrument alone, and practise these simple accompaniments ad nauseam!

 

Works for me ...

Cheers,

John