Why do we teach English concertina like we do?

[David Hanssen]

Most people who play the English concertina play it more like a fiddle than like a piano with a weirdly folded keyboard. I’ve played concertina a long time but never thought hard about what that meant until I taught myself to play chords on it and started learning to play piano. Today’s emphasis on teaching how to play melodies while treating chords as an afterthought wasn’t always the case and the modern approach to teaching piano is a good model for teaching both at the same time.

 

From what I understand, most people who played English concertina from its invention in 1829 through the early 20th century were classically trained, knew how to play piano, and learned to play the concertina from musical scores. 

 

Most new players were already familiar with chords and polyphonic playing on the piano and naturally embraced them on the concertina. Classical arrangements and music written specifically for the instrument often included rich harmonies with several notes being played at the same time. The concertina became popular as a parlor instrument and was common in music halls and bands, including with the Salvation Army Band. 

 

After the First World War, people began listening to the gramophone and radio. Tastes changed and many musicians lost interest in the English concertina. While a few dedicated enthusiasts carried on, its association with complex harmonic music largely faded from memory.

 

During the mid-20^th century folk revival, traditional musicians who played fiddle, pipes, flute, and whistle took up the instrument and brought it into a very different musical world. Instead of harmony and counterpoint, they focused on melody, ornamentation, and rhythm. Most played by ear using phrasing that echoed the playing patterns of their primary instruments.

 

All the instruments I owned before the English concertina played one note at a time. I knew nothing about chords and followed the tutors that taught me to play the concertina like a fiddle. I liked to add complementary notes and worked out a few chordal accompaniments for songs, but chords were hard work and each arrangement took a long time. 

 

I’d always wanted to be able to play chords and accompany tunes on the English concertina like my guitar playing friends, so about 3 years ago, I decided to learn how. I couldn’t find any useful instructional material, so I worked out what I needed to teach myself and put it into a book, which I’ve had on the market for about a year at https://hanssenstudios.com.

 

The concertina keyboard obfuscates many of the patterns of intervals, chords, and progressions that are clear and obvious on the piano keyboard, so I bought an electric piano a few weeks ago to see what it would be like to play one.

 

After watching a few YouTube videos, I tried to play some simple things and found that the skills I’d developed playing chords on the concertina applied directly to the piano. Within a couple of minutes, I could coordinate simple patterns with both hands at the same time and quickly recognized the patterns for root, 1^st, and 2^nd inversion chords. Playing the piano is both similar to and different from the concertina and I’m not reliable on it yet, but I do know where each finger is as I play. I imagine a pianist would have a similar experience picking up the English concertina for the first time.

 

I’ve found a lot of resources for learning piano, and all of them integrate playing melody and chords with one and both hands from the very beginning, which is very different from how English concertina is taught today.

 

All the modern English concertina tutors I know of focus on teaching melodic playing and devote at most a few pages to playing chords. My book, on the other hand, assumes you have some familiarity with those tutors’ topics and focuses on helping new players develop hand independence, explore how chords work in music in different modes, and work out chordal accompaniments for tunes. A new kind of integrated tutor would introduce melody and harmony together from the very beginning.

 

Instead of separating single-note tunes and chord studies, an integrated tutor would guide players through small, practical harmonic shapes and progressions that fit comfortably under the fingers and show how they connect to the tunes they are learning. It would treat chords not as advanced theory but as an everyday part of practical musical expression, just as modern piano tutors do.

 

Playing chords opens up a world of music you don’t have access to if you’ve only played single line melodies. A tutor for English concertina written in the integrated manner of modern piano instruction would help more English concertina players gain access to that world. 

 

I don’t have time to write this tutor myself at the moment, but I think there’s a real opportunity here for someone who loves the instrument and understands harmony to shape how the next generation learns the English concertina.

 

[Luke Hillman]

Thank you for these thoughts. I'm currently teaching myself English after playing Anglo for a few years. Coming from Anglo (and melodeon), I think in terms of melody and chords. Interestingly, even with Anglo, I found myself referencing a piano keyboard—as a non-pianist—for the simple fact that it's an uncomplicated and straightforward chromatic layout.

 

I made this thing primarily for Anglo players like myself, but have been using it to figure out chords on the English as I go. (It's built around Anglo-style rows, rather than English-style columns, which is why the layout is the way it is).

[David Hanssen]

Hi Luke. My book on learning to play chords on the English concertina is available for you to read free on my website, https://hanssenstudios.com. I included a lot of diagrams showing how chords work on the keyboard. I would be very interested to hear whether you find them helpful.

[Pianist]

Yes, the concertina was used for complex music. Somebody like Dave Townsend makes it look easy when he plays Bach. The Salvation Army Tutor gives loads of details about chords and includes things like Handel's Largo However, most people now play conertina in sessions as a melody instrument with chord players on guitars and such providing the rhythm rather than the harmony.

 

Chord playing or vamping on a piano (or piano accordion as second box in a dance band) is mainly about rhythm. This means that you don't move your right hand much and play the chords with your hand between A3 and A4 regardless of inversions or voice leading with a base octave on the root note in the left hand. A walking base in the left is a nice touch. You can add left hand chords below a melody but you tend to move between a base octave and the rest of the chord in a typical oompah pattern.

 

If concertina players want complex harmonies, they often play in groups with different instruments taking on different parts.

[RAc]

21 hours ago, David Hanssen said:

Today’s emphasis on teaching how to play melodies while treating chords as an afterthought wasn’t always the case and the modern approach to teaching piano is a good model for teaching both at the same time.

 

...

 

All the modern English concertina tutors I know of focus on teaching melodic playing and devote at most a few pages to playing chords. My book, on the other hand, assumes you have some familiarity with those tutors’ topics and focuses on helping new players develop hand independence, explore how chords work in music in different modes, and work out chordal accompaniments for tunes. A new kind of integrated tutor would introduce melody and harmony together from the very beginning.

 

I am not sure if the implied claim that this is new and uncharted is justified. There are several references to the William Meredith EC chord chart (copyrighted 2000, just to provide a time reference), for example here:

 

https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/13292-understand-chord-use-and-the-english-concertina/

 

or here:

 

https://irishcremeband.blogspot.com/2013/05/hints-and-diagrams-for-playing-english.html

 

On top of that, there are several discussions about chording on the EC, for example in this forum (see for example the thread mentioned above) with folks sharing their experiences and approaches.

 

I had a brief look at the free sections of the book, and so far I fail to see the added value of your approach over the existing material or references to it. 

 

Yet of course, anyone who goes through the trouble of writing up his/her journey to pave the way for others is much appreciated, thanks!

 

[David Barnert]

I think it’s less a question of “what kind of music do concertina players choose to play” than “what are the musical preferences of people who are drawn to play the concertina.” While this is all spelled out in the above posts, it is looked at from an inside-out point of view. Concertina players 100+ years ago were largely classically trained musicians, while players today are largely folkies uninterested in sophisticated arrangements. Two different populations, two different goals, two different teaching styles.

[Ed Nardell]

While this discussion is about the English concertina, with passing mention of the Anglo instrument, there is curiously no mention of the Duet concertina as a solution to playing melody and chords - classical, popular, or folk.  I am only familiar with the Wiki-Hayden fingering system Duet, which allows the same triangular finger patterns to play major or minor chords - or even easier partial 1-5 chords - by simply playing the button one row up and to the right of the root note. And for melodies, repeating the same finger pattern from any starting point transposes to a new key without fussing about accidentals as with a piano keyboard.  While I realize that I am off-topic, it is hard not to sing the praises of Hayden, and Wiki before him, for inventing and re-inventing such an amazing fingering system for the concertina.  Reading the above discussion makes me appreciate that advance all the more. I appreciate that those invested in other instruments, having learned those fingerings, are not about to jump ship - especially since good Wiki-Hayden instruments are rare and hard to acquire. 

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Like with other instruments, writing chords for a specific instrument is worthy, however on the other hand, it can make it more difficult if you need to consider playing a tune on another instrument altogether.

I have transcribed hundreds of tunes from other intended works, and it is a skill in itself.. finding the melody, and separating out the chords, from the  tune, to work for other instruments.

Not say it is not a good technique to learn of course.🌝

 

[David Hanssen]

Foks brought up a number of important topics.

 

Assuming you agree that there’s a reason to play chords on the EC at all, I’m saying that modern piano instruction’s teaching of melody and chords at the same time would be a better way to learn EC than how people typically learn today. If you don’t already play piano or another chordal instrument, learning to play melodies before chords makes learning chords much harder. Also, there’s an enormous world of music you have no idea of if you’ve only played one note at a time and never visited it. Playing the EC like a fiddle leaves you unaware of an awful lot of interesting and wonderful stuff. 

 

I outlined how the EC changed from an instrument mostly for classical musicians to one that’s now commonly used by traditional musicians. I agree that’s the most common way people play today. Many players, however, like creating chordal accompaniments for songs. And I know more than one player who would like to be able to sit in a session and work out chords and harmonies like his guitarist friends do. 

 

There’s a difference between playing arrangements where you play the melody while enhancing it with notes and chords, and playing chords as backup like a guitarist or piano player commonly would. The skills I’m talking about are applicable to both.

 

If you want to play more than mostly root position chords or parallel 3rds or 5ths, you need to be able to play sequences of chords with notes on both sides of the instrument at the same time. Each chord in a progression may use different fingers and change whether a given finger is playing root or some other note at each transition. Keeping track of and controlling all my fingers at the same time was the single most challenging skill for me to learn. Piano players call it developing hand independence. 

 

Once you can control your fingers, you need to learn the patterns for playing the chords you want to use and become familiar with playing their different voicings, or arrangements of notes. I learned hand independence by practicing transitions between simple chord patterns.

 

Third, if you don’t want to be limited to reading from chord sheets, you need to understand how melodies and chord progressions relate to each other so you can create your own arrangements. If you discover you want to accompany tunes in something other than a major mode, then it helps to understand how things change when you go from one mode to another  My book covers four modes often used in Celtic-influenced music: Ionian (major), Dorian, Mixolydian, and Aeolian (minor).

 

As you become familiar with how to play chords one at a time, you need to practice and internalize how to finger the transitions so you can play progressions rhythmically and confidently.

 

I was frustrated when I couldn’t find anything useful related to these topics on the EC while there are millions of websites and YouTube videos that address them for piano and guitar. Then I thought about how there are many hundreds of millions of piano players and probably only a few thousand EC players.

 

William Meredith’s chord chart shows the notes used to produce all the root position chords and it’s good if that’s all you want to do. But how would someone who encounters this chart know that there are two other ways to play every chord called their 1st and 2nd inversions, and how would they find out how to use these different voicings in tunes? 

 

David Barnert made an interesting observation when he said, “Two different populations, two different goals, two different teaching styles.” I agree with all of that, but would never suggest using the teaching style of the 19th century. if you are a new player who wants to learn to use all of the capabilities of the EC, the best way to do it would be to follow an approach similar to what modern piano instruction uses.

 

I agree with Simon Gabrielo’s comment about the sound of chords being instrument-specific. I can play several progressions with a nice flow on the EC that have a different sound on the piano. I think that’s one of the reasons why we play different instruments.

 

If you know of anything available besides my book that covers these things for the EC, please let me know. The entire book is available to read for free, not just some sections, and I include keyboard diagrams and figures showing everything I’ve talked about. It’s long and may be a lot for some, but it covers what I thought was important for me to know to begin to learn to play chords. I hope that if others think these things are worthwhile to teach that we might do a better job someday.

 

Thanks for all the comments.

[hjcjones]

The folk revival was largely isolated from what had gone on before.  Alistair Anderson was probably the most influential EC player from that time, and that has probably shaped how many EC players approached the instrument.  EC players would either play a bare melody or they would play only chords to accompany a song, but few played both at the same time.  Today, probably thanks to the influence of players like Rob Harbron, I hear more playing it in a harmonic style.

 

 

[Tiposx]

Very thought provoking. I started to learn the ec mainly through the repertoire and strong influence of Alistair Anderson's published material. That is also how my closest concertina friend had started.

Given that Alistair was originally a Northumbrian piper (amongst other things) perhaps we are unwittingly playing in the style of pipers. I have never intentionally played a chord on the concertina! My mentor has just begun to experiment with chords on the ec after playing it since the early 1970's!

I had never even considered the harmonic style of playing.

Edited October 21 by Tiposx
Spelling

[David Hanssen]

Tiposx's comment made me realize my intent could be misinterpreted. Im not suggesting that the modern approach to the EC is wrong in any way. I've enjoyed playing the instrument mostly like a fiddle for many years and that's still how I mostly play. I am only saying that if you want to learn to play chords on the EC, there's a better way to learn that is commonly available today.

[Robby]

Thanks for this discussion. I started the EC with the intention to play dense harmonies. I am still a beginner, having been playing just over 10 months now, but I have thought over this topic. Also to note, I come from a strong musical background and am pretty good at classic guitar, but I am not at all good at piano!

I think of the EC as a highly polyphonic violin. It sings melodies in a similar way but exchanges some violin-specific expression for harmonic expression. It lacks the direct touch of the bow and manipulation of the string (reed in our case) and thus cannot play vibrato or similar effects, but it can play a rich variety of effects through harmony. Both EC and violin may be used as  soloist instruments to be played with accompaniment or on their own! Also to be notes, every violin piece may be played on EC, but not every EC piece may be played on violin.

 

I have arranged a few melodies to be played with accompaniment, similar to violin but with more harmonies, and a few solo piano works as well, with reduced harmonies but a worthy effect, no less. However, I can not think of it as a piano because its lack of a sostenuto pedal and true hand independence make too many pieces impossible to properly express.

 

These are just my thoughts as a beginner, still with so much to learn, but I enjoy writing about the these topics because I learn a lot! I'll attach some of my music so you may listen and reference the score.

 

Solo:

Anton Rubinstein, Melody in F: https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/29549-anton-rubinstein-melody-in-f-video/

Robert Schumann, Träumerei: https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/29220-robert-schumann-träumerei-on-ec/

 

With accompaniment:

Ilya Shatrov, On the Hills of Manchuria: https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/29139-on-the-hills-of-manchuria-ec-guitar/

 

Edited October 22 by Robby

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Just a thought (Anglo) in my case you can play 'vibrato' using the  bellows to give the note a gentle wavering quality. I imagine it is similar for English system.

[Richard Mellish]

17 hours ago, David Hanssen said:

Tiposx's comment made me realize my intent could be misinterpreted. Im not suggesting that the modern approach to the EC is wrong in any way. I've enjoyed playing the instrument mostly like a fiddle for many years and that's still how I mostly play. I am only saying that if you want to learn to play chords on the EC, there's a better way to learn that is commonly available today.

Guidance for someone who already plays English on how to play chords seems a very worthy addition to what's available. I am far less convinced of the potential value of a book on learning everything at once on the English because all the other systems seem inherently more suitable for that. Duets are specifically designed for playing melody with one hand and adding harmony or chords with the other. Anglos give you a few chords on the left hand with simple shapes that automatically include notes that harmonise with notes in the same direction on the right hand, though it gets more complicated if you want s wider range of chords.

[Paul_Hardy]

9 hours ago, SIMON GABRIELOW said:

Just a thought (Anglo) in my case you can play 'vibrato' using the  bellows to give the note a gentle wavering quality. I imagine it is similar for English system.

 

Vibrato on a string instrument is done with the finger (rocking it), not with the bow. So it is a fluctuation of pitch.

 

On an English concertina one can jitter the bellows to produce a similar variation, but it is a variation in volume rather than in pitch.

 

I do it occasionally, to give expression to a long note in a slow air, but its not as common or as useful as a string vibrato (I played cello as a child).

[Pianist]

Have a look at the Salvation Army Tutor, After some basic scales and tunes it's off into exercises in thirds, sixths, octaves and tenths. It suggests that you should start by playing a basic tune and then add start adding thirds and sixths below where appropriate. Basic exercises on dotted rhythms and syncopation are followed by tunes with harmony parts.

 

It's teaching it all at once in a sensible manner.

[alex_holden]

24 minutes ago, Paul_Hardy said:

On an English concertina one can jitter the bellows to produce a similar variation, but it is a variation in volume rather than in pitch.

 

I think that's called tremolo.