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Best Staff For Left-hand Of Duet?


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It's not just a matter of learning the bass clef or not. The problem is that most of the notes on the left side of a duet concertina are above the bass clef, so that many ledger lines become necessary.

 

This is a question I asked many years ago on the Hayden duet discussion listserv (back when there was one). It's pretty clear there is no ideal answer (a clef for the left hand that is centered on the range of the left hand, reasonably familiar to musicians, and continuous with the treble clef notation for the right hand). Brian's solution of the octave treble clef satisfies two of these, being the right range and familiar, but it's a mess in juxtaposition with the right hand notation in that a pitch that is on a line in one clef is in a space in the other, and vice versa. So a melody line that moves between the hands will be very unclear.

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...but it's a mess in juxtaposition with the right hand notation in that a pitch that is on a line in one clef is in a space in the other, and vice versa. So a melody line that moves between the hands will be very unclear.

Like so many things... until you get used to it.

 

I have little trouble playing tunes an octave above where they're written on an English concertina, even though that puts every note in the opposite hand. But the reason it's easy for me is that I've practiced it until the relationships (not the notes, but the relationships between them) are fairly well imprinted on my brain.

 

On the Crane duet, my brain understands the directions and distances involved in octave jumps, and then hand crossing is just "same note, but played as if in the adjacent octave". I have long since learned that the same absolute pitch is in different locations on the keyboards of the two ends, so having them in different places places on the staff seems quite reasonable. Meanwhile, using the two-treble-clefs (one octave-shifted) may not map the same absolute pitch to the same staff location in both hands, but it does map the same button location to the same staff position in each hand.

 

By the way, if you get used to that system, then instead of piano music you can try playing duets written for two recorders... soprano and alto, or soprano and tenor. The relative pitch relationship between the two hands will be the same as with the recorders.

 

(I have to do some adjusting on the rare occasions when I pick up a friend's 70-button Crane, because with it's greater range, the difference in pitch between the hands for the same button location is two octaves, not one. :o)

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Re use of word "Baritone Clef":

When I first started teaching Hayden concertinas in particular and Duett concertinas in general I found that people were having difficulty on the left hand not so much playing the buttons but reading the Bass Clef. Many had previously been english-concertina players and were familiar with baritone EC music which uses a treble clef but sounds an octave lower on a baritone english-concertina.

At one of the WCCP playing days a year or so before I started teaching Hayden concertinas, no one turned up with a baritone concertina and I was the only person who had a concertina with notes below the g (lowest on the treble EC) and a piece of baritone english-concertina was thrust in front of me as a challenge by the Musical director who hated Duets and Anglos. At that time I was reasonably confident at reading treble clef slowly, but was totally lost on the bass clef; however I had recently taught myself to play in octaves. To my surprise I found that I could play the "baritone music" by playing octaves but just touching the right hand buttons but pushing down the corresponding left hand buttons to sound the baritone part.

I consider it is important for a beginner on a duet to immediately start playing both hands. This is why I wrote the music for the left hand part of a duet on the "beginners tunes" that I arranged; and called it "baritone". Crane and Maccann Duets have corresponding buttons on the left hand side which play an octave below the right, Jeffries Duetts have a very large section of buttons which also do this, and of course all the octaves on a Hayden are arranged in the same manner anyway.

One bonus that I have also found with music with two parts which look the same an octave apart is that I can give it to a couple of beginner english-concertina players to play together, which is very usefull as a cheap baritone english-concertina (The Jack) is now available.

In the present group of Duet concertina players I work with in WCCP one (Maccann) can only use octave notation, some insist on Piano type notation (treble clef with bass clef) and some are happy with either. Fortunately I now have a computer program (Sibelius) that can cope with this automatically provided I pretend that the octave notation is intended for soprano and tenor singers.

Inventor.

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Been a busy week, so I'm late checking into this topic, sorry!

 

I play Hayden Duet and have arranged a couple of my march and ragtime compositions for it, and have grappled with the question of which staff clef to use for the LH parts. ISTR Rich Morse and I talked aobut this once before.

 

Being an old piano player, I ended up using the Bass Clef, tho, as others have noted, this does put the upper chord notes way up on the ledger lines. I'm used to reading up to B above Middle C for trombone parts and Dixie jazz piano parts, but I won't say I like it.

 

For someone who isn't used to Bass Clef, I'd recommend the oft-mentioned Guitar/Vocal Tenor clef, or "Ottava Clef" as I once heard a music theorist call it. It's the perfect match to the octave-apart sides of a Hayden 46. It's used for classical guitar as well s choral vocal tenor parts. The Alto and Tenor clefs, with their "Beta" clef symbol, are best left to viola and classical trombone players.

 

My notation software is my own UltiMusE, which runs only on Linux, tho I sometimes use NWC. UltiMusE easily switches a part from one clef to another, and can convert MIDI files to notation (warning to Hooves: that's quote a job to undertake!).

 

For most stuff I use "fake" notation -- melody and chords, but there are so many ways to voice the same chord on a Duet that sometimes you'd like to write out the notes. BTW, my UltiMusE program also tranpsoes the chord symbols, when you tranpsoe a section fo msuic to a different key -- something we do a lot of till we find the best key for our 'tinas.

--Mike K.

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I have long since learned that the same absolute pitch is in different locations on the keyboards of the two ends, so having them in different places places on the staff seems quite reasonable. Meanwhile, using the two-treble-clefs (one octave-shifted) may not map the same absolute pitch to the same staff location in both hands, but it does map the same button location to the same staff position in each hand.

This is probably the best argument in favor of the choral-tenor octave-down treble clef (we really need a formal name for it -- not sure if "ottava clef" is "official" or not).

 

On a Hayden 46, "middle C" is always the lower-left corner button on either side, when using Treble and Octave-Treble clefs.

By the way, if you get used to that system, then instead of piano music you can try playing duets written for two recorders... soprano and alto, or soprano and tenor. The relative pitch relationship between the two hands will be the same as with the recorders.

Very true. --Mike K.

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I'm originally a pianist, so I'm comfortable with bass clef; having done a reasonable amount of orchestration and choral stuff I don't mind alto/tenor/octavo treble clefs either.

 

It strikes me, though, for more advanced concertina music, that the most flexible approach might be one that a lot of Romantic and 20th century composers have used for the piano (and one that will probably fill a lot of people with absolute horror): three staves - two treble, one bass.

 

There's potentially a lot more information to process, of course, but it does work...

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It strikes me, though, for more advanced concertina music, that the most flexible approach might be one that a lot of Romantic and 20th century composers have used for the piano (and one that will probably fill a lot of people with absolute horror): three staves - two treble, one bass.

I'm just trying to figure out where to put the third end on my concertina. :unsure: :wacko:

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This does make sense to me, i.e. (as I understand it) treble and bass clefs for the melody and an octave-down treble clef for the bass accompaniment. I don't know if I could ever play from that, but it would be a very logical and convenient aide memoire.

 

Richard

 

It strikes me, though, for more advanced concertina music, that the most flexible approach might be one that a lot of Romantic and 20th century composers have used for the piano (and one that will probably fill a lot of people with absolute horror): three staves - two treble, one bass.
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This does make sense to me, i.e. (as I understand it) treble and bass clefs for the melody and an octave-down treble clef for the bass accompaniment. I don't know if I could ever play from that, but it would be a very logical and convenient aide memoire.

 

all these suggestions are interesting and seem workable, but unless you have some software for actaully transposing to the alternate staves, won't you have to manually re-write the music for these additional staves? I'm thinking of playign already written music, which frequently comes as treble/bass.

 

I try to get away from the written music once I have learned a song (at least for my other instruments, for example the tune "Maggie Lauder" I can play on my guitar, learned it from music written on the treble staff).

 

If you want to play in an orchestra, thats a different situation, where the players almost exclusively play from the score.

 

Once you have the tune memorized, it won't matter how its written out.

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This does make sense to me, i.e. (as I understand it) treble and bass clefs for the melody and an octave-down treble clef for the bass accompaniment. I don't know if I could ever play from that, but it would be a very logical and convenient aide memoire.

Richard

For an oom-pah style of playing, I don't think it makese much sense to separate the bass and the chords. For really complex arrangements, it may make good sense. See below.

It strikes me, though, for more advanced concertina music, that the most flexible approach might be one that a lot of Romantic and 20th century composers have used for the piano (and one that will probably fill a lot of people with absolute horror): three staves - two treble, one bass.

This is the stock setup for organ music (I used to play organ), except the middle clef (mostly LH) is Bass, and the bottom (Pedal) clef is Basss also, but the notes on it sound an octave lower, due to the way organ pedal pipes are built.

 

I also learned a piano piece or two written in organ style notation -- for these particular pieces, the three staves did indeed simplify the reading. Especially when a part hopped from one clef to another.

 

I'd like to see (and hear someone play!) a concertina piece that could truly benefit from three staves.

Till then I don't see much use for this. Someone prove me wrong, please :blink: --Mike K.

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all these suggestions are interesting and seem workable, but unless you have some software for actaully transposing to the alternate staves, won't you have to manually re-write the music for these additional staves?

True. That's why I hardly ever write anything down by hand anymore, since I just know that I'll want to try it in other keys. My own composing program even transposes "fake" chord symbols along with the notes -- a real incentive to keep it digital!

I try to get away from the written music once I have learned a song (at least for my other instruments, for example the tune "Maggie Lauder" I can play on my guitar, learned it from music written on the treble staff).

Once you have the tune memorized, it won't matter how its written out.

True -- once I learn one of my tune arrangments, I don't look at the spots much either.

However, when working out a tune, its chords, and then countermelodies and bass runs/riffs, it's nice to write the stuff down as you go along so you don't forget it and keep re-inventing the wheel.

 

Sometiems I sit in font of the computer with the tina in my lap while I mouse in the notes, picking up the box at times to check things out and see where it goes from here.

 

Some Duet work is too complex to capture in chord notation, so I use a second, Bass staff. Usually in conjunciotn with fake chord symbols to make the spots easier to read, or when I feeel like being lazy and jsut playing oom-pah with whatever bass runs I feel at the time.

--Mike K.

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OK Mike, I can't resist it. A piece (of piano music actually) that would benefit greatly from some form of sorting out, whether it's a third staff or colours for lh notes in right hand staffs and vice versa (the solution I dreamt up when thinking aout this a while ago)

 

It's an arrangement of In A Sentimental Mood, by Elllington.

 

Here's the music; note the 'b'section goes into D flat; that's where it takes a lot of pencil scribblings to reduce it to playable level.

 

Now this is me playing; it tipped down yesterday so I was playing with the audacity thing; it's second take, unedited,,and I expect to do considerably better. Sal (wifey) comes in at the end and you hear me yell to her; I play almost all the notes as writ apart from a few I bring up an octave (and one I seem to have forgotten to let go of at one point...); I use all the tricks of changing fingers, dropping lots of melody notes into the left etc; there are several one finger 3 note chords. I use most of the register of a 71 key Wheatstone Aeola Maccan duet dating from 1921 At the moment it still sounds pretty raw to me. Oh and the breathing's rotten too. NOW says he, finally cracking; tell me you would expect to do this on a bloody Crane.

Edited by Dirge
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NOW says he, finally cracking; tell me you would expect to do this on a bloody Crane.

Okay.

I don't know about the blood, but with practice I would expect to be able to do that on a Crane.
:)

I just read through the part with one flat: very slowly and stumbling, but I found workable fingerings for it all. The five-flats part will take a bit more work, but still seems doable. Oh, with a bit of octave jumping or hand crossing where the parts go too low, but you're doing that, too. If I had an instrument with better range -- mine's a 59-button (basically a 55, but with 3 extra low notes in the left and one in the right), -- it would be easier. E.g., with friend P's 70-button or friend J's fourth-lower 55-button.

 

Don't hold your breath waiting for me to record it. I won't have time to look at it again at least until the new year. (Really shouldn't have taken the time now, but I'm easily distracted by both concertinas and challenges, and when the two occur together... :o) Feel free to remind me in 2008, though. :)

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Well that's not playing it is it? That's mangling it to fit your instrument. That's half the point of the comment. Few Cranes have the range. You can't play what I'm playing in that clip until you get an instrument with a bass F. Until then you can't play it full stop; your comment is nonsense.

 

As you suggest, I won't be holding my breath.

 

My original comment was off the point and needlessly provocative and I apologise to the Crane enthusiasts on the site.

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Well that's not playing it is it? That's mangling it to fit your instrument. That's half the point of the comment. Few Cranes have the range. You can't play what I'm playing in that clip until you get an instrument with a bass F. Until then you can't play it full stop; your comment is nonsense.

 

As you suggest, I won't be holding my breath.

 

My original comment was off the point and needlessly provocative and I apologise to the Crane enthusiasts on the site.

 

 

I will always have a soft spot for the much Maligned MaCaan duet, the first concertina which spoke to me. But I play mostly on my Crane now, I'm quite happy with it, but I think both systems are actaully good.

 

My Macaan will be restored by a competent proffessional, as I myself have concluded I would rather play the beast than develop the skills to maintain it.

Edited by Hooves
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Obviously, if you want to read piano music on the duet concertina you will have to become familiar with the grand staff (treble/bass clefs), as that is how piano music is written. Similarly, if you want to read orchestral scores on the duet, well, you get the picture. But that's not the question here. The question is what clef makes the most sense for the notation of the left hand part of music that is intended to be played on a duet concertina? That is, if I compose or arrange a piece of music for the duet concertina, what clef should I use to notate the left-hand part?

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Obviously, if you want to read piano music on the duet concertina you will have to become familiar with the grand staff (treble/bass clefs), as that is how piano music is written. Similarly, if you want to read orchestral scores on the duet, well, you get the picture. But that's not the question here. The question is what clef makes the most sense for the notation of the left hand part of music that is intended to be played on a duet concertina? That is, if I compose or arrange a piece of music for the duet concertina, what clef should I use to notate the left-hand part?

Yes, I believe that was the original topic.

And I replied to that in my first posting: Being familiar wiht piano's bass clef, and playing trombone, which is written in bass clef but goes up pretty high in the ledger lines, I myself use Bass clef for my Hayden left hand.

 

But I would advise anyone else to use the octave-down Treble (octava?) clef.

Lotta help I am, eh? --Mike K.

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