Concertina Choice For American "old-time" Music

[Mark Evans]

Ha! I've been in many old-time sessions where we only played in one key for hours (usually G, for some reason) so the banjos wouldn't have to re-tune. Old-time fiddle players often do a lot of re-tuning too (ADAD, AEAE, GDAD, etc.) which aggravates the problem.

 

Lord have mercy ain't it the truth. Banjos don't much like to be tuned. When playing a gig I take the sunflower in G and with the magic capo can do A, Bb, B and a high, annoying C. I borrow my buddy's openback Deering and tune it to drop-D and can cover C, D, Eb, E and F which oddly enough modern singers in bluegrass are using because they are coming to terms with the idea that the key should suit the voice and let the banjo pickers who seem to out number everyone else get over it. I tune both instruments before each set and do the sign of the cross before we go on .

 

Peter, I didn't mean to lay into you. In bluegrass circles around here I was known for singing and playing banjo first, so maybe they gave me a special pass, although I don't think that's the case. Back in North Carolina some 20 years ago there was perhaps a slight raising of the eyebrows as I pulled out my concertina. Only once have I had an encounter with a ichy mouthed traditionalist. I reminded him that Bill Monroe's momma played the melodeon. He shut up and later left the room. The fiddler next to me said "thanks for gettin' rid of the grasshole."

 

I've had a much harder time with some TIM folks in these parts who seem to think I'm the antichrist because my box is...English !

Edited January 22, 2006 by Mark Evans

[Jody Kruskal]

Chords don't come easily to my left hand; they come to me as double stops or triple stops. Perhaps if I were coming from guitar or piano the accompaniment on the left, melody on right of English style Anglo playing would seem more natural. Being able to control phrasing in the bellows work independent of the note being played also is closer to the way a fiddler thinks of bowing.

 

Larry

 

Larry,

 

That's exactly how I think of it. In harmonic Anglo playing my left hand plays the chords in positions, just like on the guitar (which I do play). There is what I think of as the "default" fingering for an A push chord. That is where my fingers automatically go if an A push is required. I don't think notes most of the time, just position, that leaves my attention free for other concerns. Even when I play single line, my fingers ghost the chord patterns without pushing down on the buttons. That connection between my right and left hands is always there, just as I tend to hear the chords implied in a tune even if they are not being played.

 

As for Bluegrass, I’ve tried it many times and never been convinced by my efforts. Old Time Anglo on the other hand, sounds very natural. I’m not sure why I feel so strongly about this. Perhaps Bluegrass is more technical and to my ear more instrument specific. Concertina sounds out of place. In Bluegrass, everything is in it’s place, the banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar and bass all have their specific functions and there is no room for a concertina. Yet Old Time works so well for me because... I don’t know... slower tempos, less rigid in some way, more of a party kind of thing... my ear says “yes” to Old Time Anglo, I have a place here.

 

Perhaps the reason is that in Bluegrass, the fiddle either plays a break, does chunks, or sits out. Where as in Old Time the fiddle plays continuously. I know that I pretty much emulate the fiddle in my playing.

 

Jody

[Mark Evans]

Perhaps the reason is that in Bluegrass, the fiddle either plays a break, does chunks, or sits out. Where as in Old Time the fiddle plays continuously. I know that I pretty much emulate the fiddle in my playing.

 

Jody

 

What you say has a lot of truth to it Jody. The homophonic road bluegrass went down does not encourage the "everybody play together and the devil take what's left over" of really hot old time music. I play duets and counter melodies along with folks in Bluegrass and it all works out. It is based on the fiddle styles of Vasser Clemens and of course the banjo back up of J.D. Crow. I do love honkin' out a mandolin chop back-up on the english as well. Perhaps it is because the bluegrass faction I grew up in is a North Carolina, mountain region style and always kept close to its roots in old time heterophony.

 

I find your old time playing beautiful and its connection at least to my ear with English anglo styles is wonderful and truely unique. The folks I play with would be blown away with your harmonic style as am I.

Edited January 22, 2006 by Mark Evans

[Jody Kruskal]

Now you’ve got me blushing, Mark. You’re no slouch either. I listened to your two cuts on Henk’s links page

 

http://www.anglo-concertina.net/links.htm

 

and what you are up to is pretty cool too.

 

As for homophony vs heterophony, that’s an interesting way to look at it. I’ll admit that I had to go to the dictionary for that one, I know you are not referring to my bed partners or the gender of my music buddies. There is a nice description of these terms for anyone interested at:

 

http://cnx.rice.edu/content/m11645/latest/

 

There is a connection in my playing with the so called “English Anglo style” by which I suppose you mean Morris dance Anglo accompaniment or harmonic playing. I played Fieldtown+ for years with The Greenwich Morris Men and continue to play for rapper and longsword with Half Moon (big Sword Ale coming up in Feb. here in NYC). I have played for years with fiddlers Michael Gorin, Paul Friedman and Sam Zygmuntowicz. Paul and Michael both play for Morris and also play old time and contra dances. All three play English Country dances and American contras, as do I. Sam is a Galax old time champion from way back. Playing with these guys has rubbed off, and it’s all grist for the mill.

 

But aside from who you play with, it’s who you play for. We really pay attention to the dancers and try to show them a good time, that has had a big effect on my playing. We always mix genres at the dances because it’s fun for us and the dancers. We are not purists, but we know where we’re coming from. Even in the playing of one tune we’ll get old time, mozart/baroque, cajun, northern influences, big band jazz, any thing is up for grabs.

 

Grand Picnic’s piano player Bill Peek is a great old time banjo player (among other things) and he’ll sometimes start playing the piano just like a banjo. I mean it sounds like what the banjo would be doing with that high off beat 5th string going on. Some times he imitates me, imitating the fiddle. He gets his hands together on top of each other and does this eighth note bellows shake thing that I like to do when the fiddle is really going at the bow. It’s crazy, and it all comes back to old time music. That’s the core. American music, that’s what we’re playing.

 

Jody

Edited January 23, 2006 by Jody Kruskal

[Mark Evans]

But aside from who you play with, it’s who you play for. We really pay attention to the dancers and try to show them a good time, that has had a big effect on my playing.

Jody

 

This is at the center of it, playing for dancers. I feel complete when part of a band and the dance floor is full. The passage of time stops. That is my great regret about modern bluegrass. Very few of my colleagues who live only in the post 1950s tradition have any connection to dancers and therefore no sense of a good dance tempo (whether for a barn dance or a group of hot cloggers). I'm not saying it all has to be linked to dance. Fiddle tunes can and do transcend dance to become "pure music", but as the refrain in Cotton Eyed Joe says, "Where'd ya' come from, where'd ya go, where'd ya come from Cotton Eyed Joe?"

 

Thanks Jody, now it's time for ole Roly-Poly to blush up.

 

Postscript: I just checked out that link with texture discriptions and have a major bone to pick with the editor. Heterophony rarely found in western music? Won't TIM musicians and a fairly large slice of Charlie Parker influenced jazz musicians be suprised. Perhaps we poor old timers don't even deserve a mention. So many bones to gnaw on and so little time. Move over Bulldog, I feel a letter to the editor coming on.

Edited January 23, 2006 by Mark Evans

[fiddlersgreen]

I am going the opposite way, from playing English Concertina to learning to play fiddle. I just came back from a fiddle retreat weekend in Harper Ferry, WV. At the Old Time session I played both the fiddle and concertina and I believe that the English Concertina is a good fit with fiddles, banjos and mandolins. I asked the leader of the session if he liked the concertina with the Old Time music and he said he likes having a reed instrument playing along, that it adds body to the sound. And as far as contradance music I think the English Concertina is a perfect fit. Mike

[Jim Besser]

I asked the leader of the session if he liked the concertina with the Old Time music and he said he likes having a reed instrument playing along, that it adds body to the sound. And as far as contradance music I think the English Concertina is a perfect fit. Mike

 

Hickman, right? He's very open to concertinas doing old time. A bunch of my playing buddies were at Harpers Ferry; I'd hoped to come up for the open band, but couldn't

[Mark Evans]

Don't mean to thread drift, but it just came over the New England Bluegrass net that Janette Carter, daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter passed away yesterday after a long illness. She was the force behind the Carter Fold. I'm deeply saddened for American music has lost another tangible link to our heritage.

[fiddlersgreen]

Jim Besser, it wasn't Steve Hickman, although he was there and as great as ever, I even took a hambone class with him. It was Joe Herrmann who I took the session workshop with and that class was a lot of fun.

 

It is always sad to hear that a good musician has passed on. I guess it should remind us to get as much music in as we can while we can. Mike

[Jody Kruskal]

That is a sad loss.

 

As for the EC, Mike... go for it! I think it’s great that you play OTM on the EC. I’m not trying to say the Anglo is the only concertina that can do that stuff, not at all.

 

What I am saying is if you want to play OTM or any other style, the very best way to do it, in my opinion, is to sit down with someone whos playing you admire, and get them to show you how to do it. Preferably a fiddle player who’s your friend, not your teacher. They don’t tell you about what they are doing, they just do it, and you listen very carefully and try your best to emulate their sound. At least, that’s how I learned how to play.

 

Aside from the notes and rep, OTM has a certain groove, dynamics + rhythm, a way that the accents go, the way the bow draws out the notes. The bow, the wrist, the arm, shoulder, back and all, right down to the ground is dancing the fiddlers music into the ears of the dancers.

 

That groove stuff is something the concertina can really do well. I think it comes more naturally to the Anglo because you have to work the bellows back and forth to play the Anglo and your whole body is pushing those notes in and out of the instrument. It’s very much like the way a fiddle bow works.

 

EC can play that way too (ever heard Tim Jennings from VT?) it’s just not required, so often it’s not done. The pinky support and thumb strap lend themselves to a more delicate connection to the rest of the body. This may have something to do with it, I don’t know.

 

The EC is naturally able to spin out a line on one long draw that floats above the music, it’s very nice and smooth and goes:

dee-dle, dee-dle, dee-dle, dee-dle,

dee-dle, dee-dl-y, dee-dle, dah

 

so that is what most EC players do.

 

The AC is naturally able to be a motor with the bellows working in and out that drives the groove like this:

 

dum, cha-ka, duk-ah, cha-ka,

duk-ah, cha-ka, doo-dl-y, dah

 

so that is what most AC players do.

 

The accordion is big and heavy and most accordion players play long lines on the draw or push. That’s the easiest thing to do, what the instrument does naturally. So the music has a nice smoothness to it. But check out the great dance musician Laurie Andres. Look at his bellows. He’s got his motor going the whole time. He may be basically pushing, but he is going:

 

push, push-pull, push, push-pull,

push, push-pull, push, push-pull,

 

His bellows are shaking and wiggling nonstop. Very controlled and persistent.

 

Whatever instrument you play and however you get your instrument to do it, I think that an essential quality of OTM is it’s particular kind of groove and drive, and that's makes the dancers howl.

 

Jody

Edited January 23, 2006 by Jody Kruskal

[Animaterra]

dee-dle, dee-dle, dee-dle, dee-dle,

dee-dle, dee-dl-y, dee-dle, dah

dum, cha-ka, duk-ah, cha-ka,

duk-ah, cha-ka, doo-dl-y, dah

push, push-pull, push, push-pull,

push, push-pull, push, push-pull,

 

Jody, in a nutshell you have done more to describe those three squeezers than reams of scholarly and erudite description before you. Boy, would I love to sit at your feet at a workshop and learn a thing or two.

 

I don't even play OTM, but this has been a fascinating discussion.

[Jody Kruskal]

Jody, in a nutshell you have done more to describe those three squeezers than reams of scholarly and erudite description before you. Boy, would I love to sit at your feet at a workshop and learn a thing or two.

 

I don't even play OTM, but this has been a fascinating discussion.

 

Dear Animaterra,

 

I live next to a Pakistani musician. They use syllables to talk about and demonstrate articulated rhythms. Very handy, right? Think Ravi Shanker. They sit on the floor too.

 

My voice teacher in college, Frank Baker, was famous for teaching all comers, cello, trumpet, guitar students, poets... he had a way of listening to you and holding up a metaphorical mirror, so you could get at what you were doing.

 

In my workshops, I use some of his teaching techniques. This kind of learning can be applied to any instrument, it’s basic musicianship and deep listening really.

 

But I digress...

 

Jody

[Jim Besser]

dee-dle, dee-dle, dee-dle, dee-dle,

dee-dle, dee-dl-y, dee-dle, dah

 

English concertinas in dance bands can be exquisite, but the ones I've heard and danced to don't drive the band the way a really good Anglo player can. To me , it is the dance environment that really points out that these are two very different instruments, despite the physical similarity.

 

I love listening to Wild Asparagus, with a wonderful, often really interesting EC, but it's quite different from the pulsing, driving sound of Anglo in Grand Picnic.

 

I think of the AC as driving, lifting, pushing; I think of the EC as pretty, nuanced, smooth. Individuals can break these stereotypes, but I think the physical properties of the two instruments lead to a different natural sound and an ability to work better with different types of music.

 

Mark, I've heard some of your cuts and you defy the stereotype. Your Ragtime Annie has the fluidity of an EC, but with a kick in the you -know - what. Love it. Very different from the way Jody would play it, reflecting the very different instruments.

 

Michael Reid (yoo hoo, you out there?) used to play a really wicked Ragtime ANnie on EC, if I remember from our band days, that had the rest of us scrambling to keep up.

Edited January 23, 2006 by Jim Besser

[Cliff McIntosh]

Even though there still may be more posts to come on this thread, let me say thank you now to people for sharing their knowledge, their opinions, their experiences, and their links to sound files. I appreciate your taking the time to post.

 

Cliff

[Mark Evans]

 

dee-dle, dee-dle, dee-dle, dee-dle,

dee-dle, dee-dl-y, dee-dle, dah

 

English concertinas in dance bands can be exquisite, but the ones I've heard and danced to don't drive the band the way a really good Anglo player can. To me , it is the dance environment that really points out that these are two very different instruments, despite the physical similarity.

 

I think of the AC as driving, lifting, pushing; I think of the EC as pretty, nuanced, smooth. Individuals can break these stereotypes, but I think the physical properties of the two instruments lead to a different natural sound and an ability to work better with different types of music.

 

Mark, I've heard some of your cuts and you defy the stereotype. Your Ragtime Annie has the fluidity of an EC, but with a kick in the you -know - what.

 

All very good points. My cuts hosted kindly by Henk are over 20 years old and I was only two years into the switch over from anglo. For dancing, I've managed to dirty it up a bit more recently. A lot of time lately has been spent playing French Canadian / Acadian dance music. My playing in less flashy and a good bit bumpier depending on what the fiddler gives me. It can never approach the humpity-bumpity wildness of an anglo, nor should it. I almost broke my hands trying to achieve such on the Concertina Reel as played by Nowel Hill. I did achieve a bit but realized my intrest was not immitation but inspriation much the same way I am inspired by different fiddlers. What I would really like to have is an opportunity for a serious dance music session with an anglo player (s) and enjoy the mountains and valleys that would create.

 

Perhaps if a connection can be made at this years NEFFA with some other C.Netters that can happen. I would be as happy as a hog in a mud waller!

Edited January 23, 2006 by Mark Evans

[Jim Besser]

What I would really like to have is an opportunity for a serious dance music session with an anglo player (s) and enjoy the mountains and valleys that would create.

 

Perhaps if a connection can be made at this years NEFFA with some other C.Netters that can happen. I would be as happy as a hog in a mud waller!

 

Now you're talking. I'll be there, hanging out with no responsiblities. Maybe we could agree on a few tunes in advance, and show them what multiple concertinas can do.

[Jody Kruskal]

Mark, I've heard some of your cuts and you defy the stereotype.

For dancing, I've managed to dirty it up a bit more recently.

 

"Defying the stereotype" in music, sounds like a prescription for growth.

 

I like that phrase "dirty it up". Pretty is nice and hard to do, but it can get old. A little dirt, a little grit or smudging, or extra notes that don't belong, or overdriving the reeds, or pushing the tempo, or dragging on a solo, or... whatever. All of these things and more, could be bad habits and they are things that we have practiced long and hard to avoid, but having control of them, consciously or unconsciously, and using them for effect, gives us a palette of colors that keeps things interesting and... musical.

 

OTM has a sort of dirty or messy or scratchy or wild quality to it. That's why I play it. English Country Playford tunes are fun too, but in a very different way.

 

Jody

Edited January 24, 2006 by Jody Kruskal

[Jim Besser]

OTM has a sort of dirty or messy or scratchy or wild quality to it. That's why I play it. English Country Playford tunes are fun too, but in a very different way.

 

It has always seemed to me playford is particulaly suited to the EC, while oldtime, Morris music, etc. is often best on an Anglo. Playford benefits from the smoothness of the EC, not to mention the ease of playing in lousy keys; OT and Morris benefit

from the punchiness of the Anglo. Comments?

 

One thing I like about oldtime on the Anglo: it's in TUNE. Too many modern ot players seem to feel that being out of tune, having bad intonation, is an admirable part of the tradition. You can get some of grit of the music without the caterwauling of bad intonation.