The Concertina and Dissonance

[Jody Kruskal]

One of his most popular works--and one of my favorites, is his "Fratres." It is a wonderful piece--lots of space.

 

Thanks, that is not the piece I remember but I'm listening to "Fratres for String Quartet here. Nice use of dissonance with an intermittent drone in this one. I think this would sound great on EC quartet though the pizzicato would have to be finessed somehow.

[m3838]

Here is a YouTube clip of a Japanese gagaku performance...

 

Not a clip from some low-budget science-fiction movie?

 

Compared to this, an Irish "slow air" is a frantic race.

More seriously:

It is interesting, but definitely not my cup of tea.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNfUgTxFoJk...feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i1FznZT7fU...feature=related

 

Have you noticed how much playing of traditional tune reminds the sound of Chinese language? Could be that the dissonants are not two notes with "wolfe" interval, but one sound, familiar and unseparable to native ear , so the "chords" presented do not consist of close intervals at all. The Japanese trio presents very unmusical cacophony, and I suspect that to judge such performance, one has to a: speak the language, b: understand the context, c: be aware of mainstream tradition.

I would also like to point, that real folk music of Europe is not much different from that of Asia. If you dig very old recordings of Swedish or Russian Folk songs - they are full of "dissonants". Cajun singing and violin playing too, is not particularly harmonic, but only if to consider many deviations from the pure pitch to be distinct musical tones. But they are not.

Edited December 18, 2008 by m3838

[Anglo-Irishman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNfUgTxFoJk...feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i1FznZT7fU...feature=related

 

Misha,

Thanks for the links! Very well chosen - a Chinese and a Japanese instrument, each in "native mode" and in "crossover mode". The Chinese Czardas knocked my socks off. I've had the pleasure of hearing the Chinese fiddle live, and in this recording it comes across as more pleasant to listen to than a violin. Less scratchy, more mellow (probably because of the skin head) but just as articulate.

In the tap-dance clip, the shamisen came across as a very interesting banjo.

 

What can we as concertinists learn from this?

Obviously, that crossover is possible: music from one culture played on an instrument from another culture.

But both instruments in these clips are fretless stringed instruments. That means that the intonation is under the full control of the player - the only fixed pitches are the open strings (2 on the fiddle, 3 on the shamisen). So the player is at liberty to adapt his or her intonation to the style of music they're playing.

The only European classical instruments capable of that are the violin family and the trombone. The American banjo was originally fretless, too, but soon after it changed from Afro-American to European-American hands, it was "tamed" to equal temperament by having frets added.

We as concertinists are completely at the mercy of our instrument, as far as intonation goes. Englishes and Duets are no better than pianos, and with 20-b Anglos you have to choose between meantone for purely solo work, and equal temperament for ensemble work. (With my 5-string banjo, I can at least tweak my 1st string to optimise the fifth of my G-major chord or the third of my C-major chord, or to compromise between them. Concertina tuning will always have to be a compromise.)

 

I believe Regondi wrote a piece for EC that exploited the difference between the notes Eb and D# at one point, so the enharmonics must have been unequal-tempered in his day (or was this movement from one enharmonic to th eother merely a ploy to make the fingering easier?) If the concertina had emerged in Japan, would it be differently tempered? And could one use it to play European classical music?

 

Cheers,

John

[catty]

Have you noticed how much playing of traditional tune reminds the sound of Chinese language? Could be that the dissonants are not two notes with "wolfe" interval, but one sound, familiar and unseparable to native ear , so the "chords" presented do not consist of close intervals at all. The Japanese trio presents very unmusical cacophony, and I suspect that to judge such performance, one has to a: speak the language, b: understand the context, c: be aware of mainstream tradition.

I would also like to point, that real folk music of Europe is not much different from that of Asia. If you dig very old recordings of Swedish or Russian Folk songs - they are full of "dissonants". Cajun singing and violin playing too, is not particularly harmonic, but only if to consider many deviations from the pure pitch to be distinct musical tones. But they are not.

 

Quite.

 

The modal form is quite old, and is found in most traditions. When it surfaced in American contemporary jazz in the late 50s, it was an exploration of an older aesthetic...as usual. Even though modalism is likely a popular (musical) lexiconic aspect of most of our ancestors, it usually comes off as "foreign" or exotic to our--(collectively, contemporary Western society -- sorry A-Iman, but when discussing cultural contexts, it is useful to broaden our scope) ear.

Edited December 18, 2008 by catty