Chordal Accompaniment For Singing

[frogspawn]

If you use 'chordal accompaniment' for singing, what do you actually play? Obviously this will be determined/restricted by system, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who can throw some light on the detail of what they actually do.

 

Do you, for example, hit a bass note then, ideally, a three note chord an octave above, creating an oom-pah for 4/4 or an oom-pah-pah for 3/4 etc? Or is that too bouncy for song accompaniment?

 

Do you play a riff over the chord as you would with finger-picking a guitar chord?

 

Or do you do something else completely? Or much more complicated?

 

Richard

[Chris Timson]

1. Play parallel thirds based on the melody on the right hand and odd notes that fit in on the left.
   
2. Three chord trick to form block chords on the left hand, odd notes that fit in on the right.
   
3. Anything else that comes to mind at the time.
   

Chris

[jon melville]

I tend to work out the melody and the chords which would accompany it. If I sing to the melody, it sounds too thin and if I sing to the chords as block triads it's too much and jerky in the changes.

 

I try to develop a mixture of the two which fits the song (some benefit from very little melody and lots of rich chording and some from a more sparse arrangement).

 

The key to chord changes in my playing is the notes which are common to the chords. For example, the note D appears in both D and G chords, so when changing from D to G, you can leave the D note playing to smooth the change. If there are no common notes (D to Eminor, for example) I'll try a run of notes from the melody or just from the scale of the key to bridge the change.

 

Hope this helps.

[stuart estell]

If you use 'chordal accompaniment' for singing, what do you actually play? Obviously this will be determined/restricted by system, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who can throw some light on the detail of what they actually do.

 

Do you, for example, hit a bass note then, ideally, a three note chord an octave above, creating an oom-pah for 4/4 or an oom-pah-pah for 3/4 etc? Or is that too bouncy for song accompaniment?

 

Do you play a riff over the chord as you would with finger-picking a guitar chord?

 

Or do you do something else completely? Or much more complicated?

 

All of the above! It depends enormously on the song, to be honest.

 

Most of the time I play with quite strong rhythm so I'm quite a fan of little repetitive riffs and figures, especially on the duet boxes, because the ear tunes them out quickly and they contribute to the feel of the song without taking it over.

 

On duet, a nice way to do it, if the song will take it, is to come up with a simplified chord pattern to which you can fit, say, a two or four bar repeated bass line in the left hand, and play chords with the right; you don't need to double the melody (although of course that can be effective in itself) - the tune is your voice's job!

[David Barnert]

Random thoughts:

 

If playing full chords sounds too rich, try leaving out the note that's covered in the melody. Strive for a meaningful bass line. I tend to alternate bass-chord patterns with moving bass lines.

[Tom C]

If you use 'chordal accompaniment' for singing, what do you actually play? Obviously this will be determined/restricted by system, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who can throw some light on the detail of what they actually do.

 

As an English 'tina player I study Dick Miles' book Song Accompaniment for the English Concertina and work extremely hard for a three weeks and learn "Rounding the Horn". I then record it on my home recording system and listen, amazed that what I wanted to do for so long, has now become possible.

 

The best investment in a music book I have ever made.

 

Tom

[AlexCJones]

Here are site of artists who accompany song with concertina:

 

Kastles

Kastles again

David HB Drake

David HB Drake at CDBaby

John Townley

Bob Zentz

[Daniel Hersh]

And here are a few more: Louis Killen, Riggy Rackin and Carol Denney, all of whom play and sing with English concertina.

 

Daniel

 

Here are site of artists who accompany song with concertina:

 

Kastles

Kastles again

David HB Drake

David HB Drake at CDBaby

John Townley

Bob Zentz

[Brian Peters]

Do you, for example, hit a bass note then, ideally, a three note chord an octave above, creating an oom-pah for 4/4 or an oom-pah-pah for 3/4 etc? Or is that too bouncy for song accompaniment?

 

Do you play a riff over the chord as you would with finger-picking a guitar chord?

 

Or do you do something else completely? Or much more complicated?

As Stuart said: all of the above and more. I play anglo and I guess from your little piccie you're playing duet, but common principles apply. Of course it all depends on what you're trying to accompany. Traditional folk? Music Hall? Songs from the shows? Pop songs? Blues? New compositions? Some folk and music hall stuff will work very well with the kind of rhythmic oompah you describe. Some more modern stuff works well with a riff, if you have sufficient musical discipline to keep a finger pattern going while singing over the top of it and not losing the plot of the song. Slow songs often work best with long, sustained chords, or even drones (both of which challenge the anglo player in terms of bellows control).

 

I would always be thinking about the chord structure first. What are the obvious 1,4,5 chords, what other chords could be introduced to make it more interesting? Then, how are the chords voiced? Rich or sparse (modal folk tunes usually sound best with fairly minimal tonic-dominant chords), deep or higher-pitched? Is the right hand going to do something different from the left - a harmony line, a riff - or just bulk the chords out? All this will depend on the mood of the song, and is something you hope to develop an instinct for after a while.

 

I think the most important principle - bearing in mind that the song itself, and not the arrangement, should always be the focus - is not to do too much. Too many notes on the instrument distract the player from the song and potentially distract the audience from it too. There are exceptions to that rule, like Steve Turner, who plays the richest accompaniments (on an English) that you could imagine, but never loses sight of the song. Perhaps a better maxim would be to keep your accompaniment comfortably within the limits of your own ability. An experienced player can throw more things into an accompaniment without making a hash of it, but there's nothing worse than over-reaching yourself and ending up panicking over an over-complicated arrangement while trying to sing at the same time.

Brian

[hjcjones]

Perhaps a better maxim would be to keep your accompaniment comfortably within the limits of your own ability. An experienced player can throw more things into an accompaniment without making a hash of it, but there's nothing worse than over-reaching yourself and ending up panicking over an over-complicated arrangement while trying to sing at the same time.

Brian

 

I agree with Brian totally. If you are accompanying your own singing (on any instrument), then you need to focus most of your attention on the song. The instrumental accompaniment needs to be virtually on autopilot. If you have to concentrate too much of your attention on playing the instrument then your singing will suffer, and this will be far more noticeable to the audience than the occasional mistake in your playing. If necessary, keep the difficult stuff for the breaks between verses.

 

If you're accompanying someone else's singing you can afford play something more complicated. But remember you're there to support the song, not overwhelm it.

[Matthew Heumann]

Though primarily an instrumentalist, I love to compose song accompaniment. I find regular chords boring and harmonies lead my voice astray. I prefer, like my inspiration, Lou Killen, to play "above voice". I also discovered that by using split chords (layered ascending when the vocal descends, descending when the vocal ascends) that it fools the ear into hearing some harmony, some melody, some counter melody, never leading me off melody.  I'm attaching a video link and song arrangement to illustrate:

 

Weary Whaling Grounds.pdf

[Wolf Molkentin]

that’s an effective accompaniment, I particularly like the descending arpeggio / tonic minor in the first inversion 

[Anglo-Irishman]

On 1/10/2007 at 1:04 PM, Brian Peters said:

Perhaps a better maxim would be to keep your accompaniment comfortably within the limits of your own ability.

I totally agree!

My procedure for working up an arrangement (on any of my instruments) is to reach the point where I can play the melody and the accompaniment together. When I start singing, I simplify the instrumental part - for example by leaving out the melody, which is now taken by my voice.

 

In short: the accompaniment to a song should be a simplified version of your full instrumental version.

 

... unless, of course, you're accompanying someone else's singing, in which case you can play the "difficult" version. But try not to up-stage the singer!

Cheers,

John

[Syncopepper]

I have played the EC for many years but only for accompaniment. I often spread out chords for a fuller sound to balance the singing like this:

 

https://youtu.be/xA6K5GYCqDY?si=ekIr0R67NGGVYQED