Bandoneon Question

[squeezegirl]

Hello friends. I wonder if anybody here could help me with answers.

 

1. Does one play a Bandoneon in roughly the same style as one plays a Hayden Duet… that is, play melody and drop in chords here and there? Or does one usually play melody only?

 

2. Is there a standard for a Bandoneon? By this I mean… it seems some Bandoneons are push/pull like an Anglo Concertina; whereas others seem to be same note on-the-push as on-the-pull, like on a Duet or an English.

 

3. Is the fingering of the scale anything similar to a Hayden or an English?

 

4. Since it seems to be the ‘national instrument’ of Argentina, may I assume there are quite a lot of manufacturers and they are reasonably easy to obtain?

 

Your information is valued. Thanks. Maria

[Theodore Kloba]

Hello friends. I wonder if anybody here could help me with answers.

I'll try...

Does one play a Bandoneon in roughly the same style as one plays a Hayden Duet… that is, play melody and drop in chords here and there? Or does one usually play melody only?

I've never seen (much less played) a Hayden duet, but I play bandonion with melody on the right and accompaniment/chords on the left, as I understand a Hayden is intended to be played. If you listen to a bandoneon recording, you can hear the difference in tone between the sides to know which notes are being played by which hand.

Is there a standard for a Bandoneon? By this I mean… it seems some Bandoneons are push/pull like an Anglo Concertina; whereas others seem to be same note on-the-push as on-the-pull, like on a Duet or an English.

There are several standards, if that makes sense: The Argentine tango players usually play the 71-button push/pull system known as "Rio de la Plata" or "Rheinische Tonlage". I don't own any in this system, but I do have an early (44-button) instrument whose keyboard is a subset of it. There is another wisdespread push/pull system called "Einheits" (72-button); I do have one of these. It's very similar to Rheinische at the core, but different at the extremes. There are also a few "same note on-the-push as on-the-pull" systems, but I have not run into one firsthand.

Is the fingering of the scale anything similar to a Hayden or an English?

Nothing at all like either-- a bit like an Anglo at the core.

Since it seems to be the ‘national instrument’ of Argentina, may I assume there are quite a lot of manufacturers and they are reasonably easy to obtain?

I don't know that they have ever been manufactured in Argentina, although there are certainly respected service technicians & tuners there. The best vintage instruments (e.g. Alfred Arnold) as well as most modern instruments (e.g. Harry Geuns, Uwe Hartenhauer) are made in Europe.

 

Since the Tangueros prefer instruments in the "Rio de la Plata" layout, they drive up the demand for them. You can (as I did) get an Einheits instrument much more easily (and inexpensively). I got an Alfred Arnold for about US$700 in excellent condition. A comparable Arnold with "Rio de la Plata" layout would cost US$2,000-$3,000.

[allan atlas]

Dear Maria: If you can get hold of some of the books and articles by MARIA DUNKEL, you'll find fingering charts for various kinds of bandoneons. Two places to start:

 

"Ideographies for Bandoneon and Concertina as Examples of Alternative Notational systems in Nineteenth-Century Germany," Free-Reed Journal, 2 (2000), 5-18

 

and if you can handle the German:

 

Akkordeon, Bandoneon, Konzertina im Kontext der Harmonikainstrumente. Texte zur Geschichte und Gegenwart des Akkordeons, 6 (Bochum: Augemus, 1999)

 

the latter is a standard work on the instrument...........Allan

[David Barnert]

1. Does one play a Bandoneon in roughly the same style as one plays a Hayden Duet… that is, play melody and drop in chords here and there?

I play Hayden Duet, but that's not how I play it. My playing is more like what Ted describes, above. Nothing "here and there" about the chords.

[Richard Morse]

1. Does one play a Bandoneon in roughly the same style as one plays a Hayden Duet… that is, play melody and drop in chords here and there? Or does one usually play melody only?

No. Most bandoneon players (actually - ALL bandoneon players I've seen) play *only* on the pull. One lone bunch of notes and a huge whoosh with the air dump to get the box closed to keep playing.

I've also repaired bandoneons and they all have crudded up pull reeds while the push reeds and valves look pristine. Even boxes 80 years old, so this must be pretty typical!

 

OTOH, all the chemnitzer players I've met play as an Enlgish style anglo, with melody on the right and oompah on the left. And oompah it is.... I'm sure one can play more interesting bass but maybe that's just the style they do.

2. Is there a standard for a Bandoneon? By this I mean… it seems some Bandoneons are push/pull like an Anglo Concertina; whereas others seem to be same note on-the-push as on-the-pull, like on a Duet or an English.

All the ones I've seen are built like an anglo with "core" two rows and accidentals sprinkled around. I've heard of unisonorous ones but have never met one and don't know how they're laid out.

3. Is the fingering of the scale anything similar to a Hayden or an English?

Not at all, though it does have a treble and a bass side. They also have several sets of reeds per button, sometimes set up in octaves, sometimes in tremolo, sometimes both! Sometimes different on both sides which makes it easy to tell which side of the box is playing what.

4. Since it seems to be the ‘national instrument’ of Argentina, may I assume there are quite a lot of manufacturers and they are reasonably easy to obtain?

They seems to be a fair number of them around (come up on eBay a lot) and a few people still make them

[Theodore Kloba]

If you can get hold of some of the books and articles by MARIA DUNKEL, you'll find fingering charts for various kinds of bandoneons.

There are also keyboard charts at Christian Mensing's Bandoneon Page. Look under the section Keyboard Systems, which alslo explains the history and benefits of the various systems. I believe much of the information there came from Dunkel's Bandonion und Konzertina.

[Theodore Kloba]

Most bandoneon players (actually - ALL bandoneon players I've seen) play *only* on the pull.

It seems that when playing in a Tango orchestra, the role of the bandoneon is suited to that mode of playing. When playing solo, it can end up being more "Chemnitzer-like," although some players still play only on the draw.

 

See the videos on the Bandoneons for Sale section of Musica-Argentina, a dealer who apparently has sold out of their stock or just not updated their page in a while as everything is listed as "sold." (Click on one of the instruments there, then click on "See video" near the bottom of the page.)

Edited July 31, 2006 by Theodore Kloba

[phillean]

Here is a page "BANDONEON - Restauration & Balgbau (restoration and bellows buid) - Carsten Heveling - Wuppertal / Germany" the page is in German, English and Spanish.

 

It has keyboard layouts in an interactive form (using Macromedia Flash) for a 142 tone (key / note) (71 button bandoneon). This might be useful I found it while looking for Chemnitzer (German Konzertina /concertina diagrams)

 

http://home.arcor.de/bando-bando/historisc...fftabellen.html

 

It also has printable button /note charts in pdf format.

[David Barnert]

Most bandoneon players (actually - ALL bandoneon players I've seen) play *only* on the pull. One lone bunch of notes and a huge whoosh with the air dump to get the box closed to keep playing.

I've also repaired bandoneons and they all have crudded up pull reeds while the push reeds and valves look pristine. Even boxes 80 years old, so this must be pretty typical!

All the ones I've seen are built like an anglo with "core" two rows and accidentals sprinkled around. I've heard of unisonorous ones but have never met one and don't know how they're laid out.

Am I missing something here? How does one play a bisonorous instrument while limiting onesself to playing on the pull? Aren't there notes that are only available (or at least much more conveniently located) on the push?

[m3838]

Aparently there aren't.

Apparently a bandoneon can be made with only reeds sounding on the pull, and with empty valves on the push. Apparently a bandoneon can be a unisonoric instrument.

Same goes for 3 row accordion, played in Tex-Mex style (or in any style).

Or a Russian uni-sonoric can have large air valve, diatonic scale only on the pull and accidentals on the push.

The only true diatonic instrument today is one row 10 button accordion, and one truly chromatic instrument s Continental Chromatic Accordion. All the inbetween are the snapshots of Brown Movement (?sp).

[oggie]

Hi there

 

I play a 130 tone non-tango layout Alfred Arnold, predominantly for English and Irish dance music.

 

Due to the vagaries of the layout you have to learn completely different scale patterns for pull notes or push notes, which often bear no resemblance to each other. I came to the bandoneon via anglo and melodeon so my playing tends to be a hybrid, learn the tune then work out an efficient fingering system using both push and pull notes and trying to keep radical bellows movements to a minimum. This is also dependent on any chords I want to use, a run of G/F#/E/D can be played as all push against an easy G chord or all pull against a C chord.

 

Left hand is where the fun starts - it is possible for about an octave to play unison on both sides and use the fuller sound that it gives. some tunes I play approx an octave apart with a full melodic part on the left side, otherwise it's chords and triads, the possibilities are endless and depend on what you are looking for.

 

For song accompaniment I will often use just the left side.

 

All the best

 

Oggie (aka Steve)

[ceemonster]

re: playing bandoneon on the pull.....yes, this is how many tangueros play, but i have read in more than one place that this is not considered the best technique. i'm pretty sure a quote from piazzolla himself was one of the ones i've seen on this point, that the highest, finest technique is to play both push and pull, with minimal bellows stretching, as with anglo concertina. though, the clips i have seen of piazzolla show him playing on the pull and working that air button for all it's worth.....i really have a yen to learn that instrument....

 

btw, on ebay recently under "bandoneon" there have been listings of newly-made unisonoric bandoneons with accordion reeds and button patterns that follow the "c system" chromatic accordion fingering. these instruments were developed and made by harry geuns, who partnered in the geuns-wakker hybrids, and who also makes push-pull tango bandoneons in the classic style. those items should be on ebay now or in "completed items," because i saw them within the last couple of weeks.

[inventor]

Regards to playing a Hayden concertina. I use several different styles of playing, depending on the type of music that I am playing.

1) The UmPah style as you first mention. The Hayden concertina is particularly easy to play in this manner. I use this style particularly when playing traditional dance music. I find that reversing the bellows on occasions, usually twice in a bar but not on the bar-lines or in the dead centre adds to the danciness

2) Melody on the right hand side with a counter melody on the left hand side. I use this style when playing solo or accompanying a song, (except sea shantys, when I usually use (1) ).

3) A pair of parts in close harmony on RHS with a counter melody with chords sometimes thrown in on the LHS. This seems to have often been used on The Bandoneon proper, but I have never really developed this style beyond the demonstration stage.

4) For classical music I work from the whole score and play as near as possible to the way the original composer played it. Playing the instrument holisticly (as an english-concertina has to play anyway) with the notes distributed to give the best possible fingering.

5) Recently I have been working from Dan Worrals book with all reversals to play Kimber style.

inventor.

[oggie]

Hi there

 

Couple of points that occur to me -

 

As far as purchasing is concerned there have been a lot of bandoneons on E-bay but this has all the usual caveats.

 

Also the context you will use it in is important as Tango Bandoneons are usually tuned A442 which can cause issues with other instruments. I'm lucky, my instrument never got out of Germany until I bought it (off E-bay in fact) and so is A440 and I can use it in sessions

 

All the best

 

Steve