Comparing Concertina Types

[Brian Peters]

Case in point; when I heard those fine Brian Peters tunes on the links page I was struck, I thought “that's just how I play Sally Gardens!” Well not really, but the same buttons and pitches anyway. The same with The First Of August. When I went to play that tune along with Brian, he was playing just the buttons my fingers went to. There are only a few ways to skin this cat. Once you figure them out, you’ve got it.

Thanks Jody, I hope we can sit down and have a tune or two together some day. Sounds like it would work pretty well.

On my G/D, I know where things are in G, D, A, Em, Bm, A modal and that’s it. I am not comfortable playing in C or E or even Dm, though I sometimes do anyway.

Personally I really like playing in F on my C/G box, but most of the time I'm doing that for song accompaniments where the instrument isn't obliged to hit all the melody notes (quite the opposite in fact). To play the entire melody of a tune in the key of F, with added chords, you have to pick your tune very carefully. But yes, I quite agree the Anglo is a bizarrely illogical instrument outside the home keys.

It’s insane! But it works great and it fits the hand and it can make dancers jump and shout to a fiddle tune like nothing else I've ever heard with a bellows.

Very well said!

Brian

[Richard Morse]

For a recently made Chromatic button accordion in concertina form see Don Severs Ergon concept.

Ergon Concept

[geoffwright]

The Anglo doesn't seem intuitive to me, I have a hard time picking out tunes by ear

I found it intuitive and took to it straight away - just like playing a mouth-organ. You have to practise your scales though, if you want to pick tunes out in different keys.

But there again, I can do the same on English (and swap mid-tune).

 

Once you get into cross-row fingering, there are usually two or three different ways to play any one tune so it is not surprised people get confused.

[Jody Kruskal]

The Anglo doesn't seem intuitive to me... I have a hard time picking out tunes by ear

I found it intuitive and took to it straight away - just like playing a mouth-organ.

 

Yes, some people take to the harmonica, Anglo, German, melodeon or whatever you want to call it system. As Dan Worrall has illuminated in his research on early concertinas, the development started with ten buttons, went to twenty, went to thirty, and has been further developed to include various arrangements with even more buttons. The basic ten button system makes perfect sense if you want a one row push pull instrument to play in the home key, and, if the music you are playing is diatonic and doesn’t need to get much beyond 1, 4, 5 harmony. This is true for many European and European diaspora folk songs and tunes. Even the 4 chord is really not required for lots of old fiddle and pipe tunes. So it’s a very efficient system, ten buttons play lots of music.

 

Efficient and limited, yes. However, it’s not a natural system but rather a man made one. Instruments based on a tube or string use natural systems for getting pitches. Basically, long is low, short is high. Our minds can easily grasp the logic. The piano keyboard system is a great invention. It’s also diatonic in origin and man made but feels natural because it is simple, linear and consistent throughout it’s extensive range and because you can understand it graphically. It’s relatively easy to build a mental map of the pitch relationships of those black and white keys.

 

As more and more rows and buttons were added to the core ten or twenty, the Anglo system breaks down and you get so many exceptions to the rule that they outnumber the core system. Though my 38 button Jefferies layout makes sense culturally and ergonomically it does not make sense graphically or intellectually.

 

When you say that a system is intuitive, I think you mean that using it is instinctive and based on what you feel to be right without conscious reasoning. Two different but related attributes contribute to that feeling. The mental map (your mind can understand the system graphically) and the ergonomics (your fingers know what to do).

 

So is the Anglo intuitive? Yes and no, says I.

 

No, because even after years of playing, my mental map of the layout is quite deficient. I’m still using the hunt and peck method to find notes when I stray from tried and true patterns that I’ve developed.

 

Yes, because through use, my fingers know what to do without any help from my intellect. The production of the music comes from a very deep place in my brain. It’s not coming from the intellectual, reasoning, logical part of me, but rather from the part of me that is concerned with dancing, emotions, with prioperception or 'body awareness', with language and story telling. Ever try to have a conversation while playing? I get totally tongue-tied because those neural pathways used for speaking are busy playing music. At least that’s how it seems. Singing while playing is also hard, but easyer than talking.

 

I’m not thinking about fingering, bellows direction or buttons when I play. My mind is focused on the aural experience. I’m listening real hard to the music and responding intuitively. I’m also deep in the social situation and paying attention to what is being communicated by and to those folks I’m playing with. That's an intuitive thing too. If I have to read staff notation, for instance, or think about some tricky fingering then the music suffers and I feel like I’m having to divert my attention from the main task at hand, which is after all, playing music.

 

Jody

Edited February 9, 2006 by Jody Kruskal

[Boney]

Yes, Jody, exactly! I'm wondering if a more straightforwardly laid-out instrument would be easier to gain a natural proficiency on -- even though I know it'll take a long time on any instrument.

 

I'll add that even simple "natural" instruments with tubes and strings can have more-or-less artificial layouts. Adding keys to a flute, and how you decide to tune adjacent strings on a guitar, for example, has a large influence on how natural and direct the instrument feels to play. The brain is an amazing thing, it can adapt to these artificialities and "feel" like it's playing something straightforward after a time -- up to a point. I think the anglo layout stretches that ability, outside of the simpler keys at least.

Edited February 10, 2006 by Boney

[John Wild]

The Anglo doesn't seem intuitive to me, I have a hard time picking out tunes by ear

I found it intuitive and took to it straight away - just like playing a mouth-organ. You have to practise your scales though, if you want to pick tunes out in different keys.

But there again, I can do the same on English (and swap mid-tune).

Those lucky people who can play anglo and English seem to have an extra level of intuition that is hidden to us mere mortals.

 

- John Wild

[Theodore Kloba]

For a recently made Chromatic button accordion in concertina form see Don Severs Ergon concept.

Ergon Concept

Even more concertinalike in shape is Uwe Hartenhauer's C-Griff Bandoneon.

[JimLucas]

Those lucky people who can play anglo and English seem to have an extra level of intuition that is hidden to us mere mortals.

Some can play both banjo and fiddle, or control both auto and motorcycle. I don't see much difference here, except maybe for a psychological block that feels that because anglo and English come in the same shape box, they must somehow compte with each other. To play, they are utterly different instruments.

[JimLucas]

For a recently made Chromatic button accordion in concertina form see Don Severs Ergon concept.

Ergon Concept

I think there's more to "concertina form" than having the keyboards of both ends flat to the bellows. Aside from that detail, it look like that monstrosity () is still held and manipulated like an accordion. And in appearance, it looks more like a large guitar amplifier than a concertina.

 

Even more concertinalike in shape is Uwe Hartenhauer's C-Griff Bandoneon.

Much closer, both in appearance and -- in my opinion -- in principle. Of the many charactersistics that have been put forth to distinguish concertina from accordion, my own favorite is that the keyboards of both ends share a common design. (That would exclude the Dipper "Franglo". Well, what would the world be without exceptions? ) This is certainly true of the English and most duets. I would say it's also true of anglos, Chemnitzers and bandonions, and Jeffries duets. Though the layouts of their two ends differ in detail, the central concept is the same.

 

Not intending to reopen an old debate, just to present my perspective. Others are welcome to their own.

Edited February 12, 2006 by JimLucas

[Richard Morse]

For a recently made Chromatic button accordion in concertina form see Don Severs Ergon concept.

Ergon Concept

Rich, I think there's more to "concertina form" than having the keyboards of both ends flat to the bellows. Aside from that detail, it look like that monstrosity () is still held and manipulated like an accordion. And in appearance, it looks more like a large guitar amplifier than a concertina.

I don't think I said anything about the Ergon being a concertina. I was just trying to be helpful in providing the link (which was quite buried) for folks to access easily.

 

While let's NOT open up the "old debate" (unless someone wants to start a new topic), I personally think that while the Ergon may better fit the various definitions of "concertina", I would still consider it to be an accordion (though guitar amp does come close ) as I consider a CBA with bassetti bass to be an accordion. Similarly I would consider the Franglo to be a concertina.

[JimLucas]

I don't think I said anything about the Ergon being a concertina.

Oops! You're right. I misread the quoting.

 

I will edit my earlier post to remove my mention of your name.

 

Sorry.

 

Edited to add: Done.

Edited February 12, 2006 by JimLucas

[ragtimer]

The Hayden drawings seem almost theoretical, as Jim notes. What are the Hayden options these days: Stagi (46 key), the Bob Tedrow 52 key (which I play), waiting a very long time for Steve Dickinson (? keys), eventually the Morse (55 buttons?). Am I missing someone? So in terms of 2006 options, I would say the Hayden choices are Stagi 46 c0 to d3, missing the low C# and D#, and the Tedrow 52 button, which has those notes and a few extra overlap notes.

 

As I understand it, Rich Morse seems to favor using extra buttons to create a wraparound keyboard, so you can keep the standard patterns for another key or 2 and don’t have to make those big stretches, as for a Cmin triad. Personally, I’d trade the low C# and D# on the right side (highly useful as Jax notes) for a high D# and E, which I need often. I think the extended range is the great advantage of the traditional systems over duets, although of course there a great many other factors as well.

 

And while you're at it, Bob, how about a Venetian blind type of baffles on the left side, which can be engaged with your LH thumb, for damping of the bass line on the fly?

 

 

	   LEFT HAND			||		RIGHT HAND
						||
Bb  C					   ||  Bb  C   D
 F   G   A   B			 ||	F   G   A   B   C#
Bb (C)  D   E   F#  G#	  ||  Bb  C   D   E   F#  G#
 F   G   A   B   C#  D#	||	F   G   A   B   C#  D#
C   D   E   F#  G#	  ||	 (C)  D   E   F#  G#
			  C#  D#	||					C#  D#
						||

Tedrow (shown)  52 buttons
Stagi 46 buttons LH c-b1 RH c1-d3

 

I think the Tedrow layout has misplaced the low D# on the left side, by putting it in the partial row below the normal 1st row. It would be much more useful as an Eb to the left of the low F in the second row. There it can be used as the root of an Eb major chord (almost impossible to play otherwise) and the minor 3rd of a C minor chord. I don't see it doing much good as shown.

 

On the right side, the D# makes more sense, for melody playing.

 

I'm interested in this, as a Hayden player who's already thinking ahead to when my 46-key Stagi wears out. The Tedrow looks like a good alternative if Rich Morse doesn't get his own Hayden into production soon.

 

I hear that Tedrow likes to customize -- maybe he would move that bass Eb for me, someday.

 

BTW, I really think the Hayden is the best Duet scheme by far, especially if you want to be able to play like an accordion on occasion. The Hayden advantage more than makes up for the deficiencies of the Stagi Hayden Duet, which I think are exaggerated anyway. I wouldn't want to be stuck with a Crane or Maccan just because "there aren't any good affordable Haydens around", as one seems to hear.

 

Well, it's 130 AM, and I should be wary of expressing any more opinions! --Mike K.