How to Play the Concertina in Tune

[Jody Kruskal]

I was responding to the

 

Two-notes vs. Three-notes chords, Is the third interval a dissonance?

 

thread when I found myself describing a technique I use to play more in tune on my concertina. My post started on topic but veered into this new subject so it makes sense to start a new topic... and an interesting challenge for advanced players.

 

Here is a bit of David’s post that got me going:

 

yes, the third on the concertina is out of tune, and for some reason it sounds more jarring than thirds on other instruments that are out of tune, like the piano.

 

I think that the ear accepts the out of tune interval of the third more readily on the piano for two reasons. The first is that the swift decay of the struck string gets the offending interval out of the way before it starts to hurt too bad. You can do that on concertina too by making one of the two notes or both very short or let the third in the chord be part of an arpeggio or run of pitches so it has a function in the harmony without the actual interval being played. If the third is in a distant octave that can also reduce or mask the beating.

 

The other reason that the piano sounds less jangley with thirds has to do with the complexity of its sound. Play just a single piano note and the sound is full of rich harmonics. The concertina timbre has a more simple shape... fewer or more organized harmonics, not sure which.

 

Do you have a sound editor like Audacity?

 

Record a single piano note and also a single concertina note and look at the wave shapes up close, that is, way way up close where you can see the pressure wave of each vibration. The concertina looks like little discrete packets of pressure with silence between each packet, much like a sine wave. The piano vibration is visible as a wave too but more like the average of many vibrations, all fuzzy with harmonics flying around and not getting quite to silence between vibrations. Much more chaos going on. This gives the piano (and all strings) a delightful shimmer, an "out of tuneness" that can be controlled to sound in tune. This is inherent to their sound and is part of why they are much more forgiving when it comes to equal temperament.

 

Flutes and whistles on the other hand have almost a perfect sine wave, an even more unforgiving timbre than the concertina. Flute players get around that by using vibrato and adjusting their pitch slightly to play in tune. That means using their ears to make micro-tonal adjustments to zero-in on the pitch required by the musical context.

 

Concertinas can't quite do that and in fact have only one means of expression (aside from note choice and duration), namely volume or dynamics. This quality of loudness is directly related to pitch however. As you play a single note from quite to loud and back to quiet again you might not notice, but there is a slight shift in pitch. You can see this effect if you have an electronic tuner. The effect is more pronounced in the lower notes. By using a wide range of dynamics in your playing you can, to a small but noticeable extent, zero-in on pitch to play more in tune. This is not something that I do consciously, but my ear takes over and I adjust my dynamics to play more in tune when I choose to play with wide dynamics. I'm talking about single line playing here with few to no chords though at times I can use this technique when playing melody along with full out harmonic accompaniment.

 

Try it yourself. Play single line along with your favorite band or recording (if you don't have a band handy). A session might work, though they tend to be noisy so you might not hear yourself enough, this is a subtle exercise. The difference in pitch between loud and soft might only be a few cents on the concertina in the upper range. At the lowest notes the difference in pitch can run as large as 20 cents. The out of tune thirds are out by about 15 cents so five or ten cents can make a big difference toward being more in tune.

 

Try this with music that is slow so you will be playing long notes like quarters and halves. A waltz like Planxty Fanny Powers would work well especially if you improvise a long line with whole notes too and don’t play all the notes of the tune. Play with as much expression as you can, from very loud to very soft. Do it musically and pay attention to your pitch in relation to the other musicians as you play. Try to play in tune as much as you can and notice as you play what volume level sounds best in terms of pitch and at what point in the tune you are playing loud or soft.

 

Soft notes tend to be higher in pitch than loud notes.

 

This is a technique that I use all the time, though more often when I'm playing an improvised exposed solo line with few notes. In practice, I don't pay any attention to actually playing in tune but just try to sound my best. I don't think to myself "OK Jody, play in tune now" instead I think of it as playing as much like a singer as I can. I try to let the concertina do the singing.

Edited January 2, 2009 by Jody Kruskal

[Hereward]

thanks,but lets bear in mind that button accordions are often tuned 15 cents ,sometimes 25 cents,tremolo[dissonance]

 

That's one reason why I moved to concertina from melodeon: button accordeons have too wet a sound for my taste. The chap who bought my melodeon is tuning it even wetter, so tastes vary.

 

Ian

Edited January 1, 2009 by Hereward

[David Barnert]

I'm confused, Jody.

 

How can you use your "controlled dynamics" technique to correct for the intonation problems manifested by equal temperament (as your thread title suggests)? You'd have to change dynamics every note, playing the 3rds loud to flatten them and the 5ths quiet to sharpen them. That would make for a rather angular playing style, to say the least. And of course, if you were playing two notes at the same time (which is where the real problem is), you couldn't adjust one without throwing the other out of tune.

 

One thing you say above that I totally agree with is

 

You can do that on concertina too by making one of the two notes or both very short or let the third in the chord be part of an arpeggio or run of pitches so it has it's function in the harmony without the actual interval being played. If the third is in a distant octave that can also reduce or mask the beating.

I find both of these techniques to be quite helpful.

[Jody Kruskal]

I'm confused, Jody.

 

How can you use your "controlled dynamics" technique to correct for the intonation problems manifested by equal temperament (as your thread title suggests)? You'd have to change dynamics every note, playing the 3rds loud to flatten them and the 5ths quiet to sharpen them. That would make for a rather angular playing style, to say the least. And of course, if you were playing two notes at the same time (which is where the real problem is), you couldn't adjust one without throwing the other out of tune.

 

One thing you say above that I totally agree with is

 

You can do that on concertina too by making one of the two notes or both very short or let the third in the chord be part of an arpeggio or run of pitches so it has it's function in the harmony without the actual interval being played. If the third is in a distant octave that can also reduce or mask the beating.

I find both of these techniques to be quite helpful.

 

Hi David,

 

Well, it's not a science. I don't figure out ahead of time how my dynamics might be adjusted to play any particular note more in tune. Instead, I'm reporting on this cool experience I've had where I seem to be using wide dynamics to play more in tune. The most obvious kind of playing where this can be noticed is single line soloing over a band. My solos often use improvisation (I'm not just playing the tune alone) and long note values.

 

So, here is an example I'll make up right now. If I'm holding a note over a chord change, then the intonation might need to change to keep in tune. For instance, if I'm playing a D over a DM chord, my D will not be as in tune when the band moves to Bm, right? So I can slide into tune by musically using dynamics to shift the pitch a bit. Once you get the hang of it, it does start to make sense and though subtle, it's noticeable.

 

Another point that I did not quite make is that the presence of shifting pitch (even though micro-tonal and accompanied by dynamic shift) brings the concertina tone to life and keeps it from sounding dull and slightly out of tune. The ear can accept a shot at a moving target as a bullseye much better than an a stationary and obvious miss... sort of a clumsy analogy... but you know what I mean?

 

You'd have to change dynamics every note, playing the 3rds loud to flatten them and the 5ths quiet to sharpen them. That would make for a rather angular playing style, to say the least.

 

Well, I do change dynamics every note anyway. I don't think my playing sounds angular but rather I would call it bouncy and rhythmic. Every note I play has some kind of dynamic shape, intonation is just one more factor to influence dynamics and probably not the most important factor either.

[Leonard]

For me this is inspiring teaching , Jody.

It brings me more than just: 3rds are no good on the concertina. The comparison with piano and flute makes me understand so much better what's going on. And your suggestions about how to cope with it brings together the techniques with the musical feeling. "Playing like a singer" explained a lot for me.

 

Thanks,

Leonard

[david fabre]

Hello Jody,

 

Interesting suggestion. I'll try this. But I'm not convinced that playing along with a recording would

be efficient for practising just intervals as the recording will most likely feature equally tempered instruments.

 

 

The other reason that the piano sounds less jangley with thirds has to do with the complexity of it's sound. Play just a single piano note and the sound is full of rich harmonics. The concertina timbre has a more simple shape... fewer or more organized harmonics, not sure which.

 

The main difference between concertina and piano (or indeed between wind and string instruments)

is that for wind instruments upper partials are exact harmonics (i.e. their frequency is a multiple) of the fundamental note,

while on string instruments they are very close to harmonic but not exactly. This is particularly true for the piano

which is substantially "inharmonic". As far as I understand this is due to the stiffness of the strings.

That's why the piano signal looks "fuzzy" : the upper partials slightly shift with respect to the fundamental sine at each

new period. On the other hand, in the concertina signal the upper partials are "phase-locked" with the fundamental,

and thus the signal keeps a fixed shape at each period. So in your last sentence "more organised harmonics" would be

more suitable for the concertina, certainly not "fewer".

 

Another point which contributes to the complexity of the piano sound is that the intensity of each specific upper partial

evolves as the note is hold. If you hold a long note on the piano and concentrate on the harmonics, you can noticably hear

them become stronger as time goes on.

 

For all these reasons the piano is generally recognised as the instrument which supports equal temperament the best,

since it is already substantially "out of tune with itself".

I once had an electronic keyboard that could be set to various temperament.

With an organ sound, chords in "just" tuning sounded very pure.

On the other hand, with a piano sound, they gave me a strange impression of "emptyness".

 

 

Flutes and whistles on the other hand have almost a perfect sine wave, an even more unforgiving timbre than the concertina.

 

For instruments with a softer sound and less harmonics, the Helmholtz book leads to opposite conclusions.

Consonance (or dissonance) is due to the matching (or mismatching) of upper partials. If those upper partials are weak

or missing, then distinction between consonance and dissonance vanishes.

Indeed, Helmholtz experimented with tuning forks which have a very pure sound, with even less harmonics than flutes.

He reports that just thirds do not sound noticably better than tempered ones, and indeed than any other interval.

 

I beleive that concertina, with its strong harmonics, is actually among the most unforgiving instruments with respect

to consonance of intervals... For accordeon the issue is not so pronounced as the beating of thirds is somehow

masked by the tremolo.

Edited January 2, 2009 by david fabre

[Jody Kruskal]

Hi David,

 

I am agreement with most of what you are saying and you seem to have a better handle on the science involved than I do.

 

I'm not convinced that playing along with a recording would be efficient for practising just intervals as the recording will most likely feature equally tempered instruments.

 

Well, most of my playing is in live situations where all the musicians are trying to play in tune together, but if you don't have a band it still works to recorded music. My bands include a piano and concertina so we are pretty much stuck with ET. I'm not trying to play just intervals exactly, I'm trying to sweeten my intonation to improve my tone.

 

Consonance (or dissonance) is due to the matching (or mismatching) of upper partials. If those upper partials are weak or missing, then distinction between consonance and dissonance vanishes.

 

I find that hard to swallow but it would be interesting to try. Do you mean that a pure sine wave (fundamental only) at a particular frequency would sound consonant against another at any frequency? Surely I misunderstand you.

 

Let me try to be more clear about what I'm trying to explain here. Intervals that are pure ratios is not my goal and not one that can be easily achieved playing tunes with chords in a number of keys as most of us do (with some notable exceptions). The best instrumentalists on strings and winds can come close, as can singers, but if they are playing with fixed pitch instruments they are stuck with the ET system and so they adjust and compromise when it comes to pitch. ET does a pretty good job of spreading the ugliness around in a democratic way and keeping the fifths very close to pure... thank goodness.

 

Well tuned concertinas in ET sound basically in tune when playing with other ET instruments, but that's not quite good enough if you want to sound really in tune. Really in tune requires the means of having dynamic control of intonation because the ET system is a compromise and slight adjustments are needed all the time as you play. The fiddles and winds are sweetening their intonation whenever they can and so can the concertina... a little bit, by using this controlled dynamics technique I'm talking about. I think lots of players already do use it, but I've never heard anyone talk about it much.

 

I'm suggesting a real fix to the problem of Concertina Intonation Deficiency.

 

Aside from that, there are a number of creative ways to mask the problem and the best players all do some of those things most of the time. I'll list a few (techniques, not players),

• play with thick harmony
  
• play real fast, no long held notes
  
• play with lots of ornament
  
• play with popping bouncy rhythm and short durations
  
• play with other instruments in your range and let them do the sweetening
  
• play accompaniment and let the melody be carried by instruments that can play better in tune
  

These six techniques are great ways to obscure the intonation problems that all concertina players face and distract the ear from dwelling on them. As Dick Miles points out, melodeons and accordions get around this problem by having two or lots of reeds sounding at once, all deliberately out of tune. It's a cool sound, lots of people like it and by being deliberately out of tune in a very even and controlled way the ear does not hear it as being wrong. Some ears anyway.

 

I'm suggesting a seventh way to deal with CID: play with wide dynamics that are informed by the needs of being better in tune. Works for me.

[david fabre]

Hi David,

 

I am agreement with most of what you are saying and you seem to have a better handle on the science involved than I do.

 

I happen to teach physics and fluid mechanics at university...

 

 

Do you mean that a pure sine wave (fundamental only) at a particular frequency would sound consonant against another at any frequency? Surely I misunderstand you.

 

I have not experimented myself, I was just quoting Helmholtz. I could find back the page. Here is what he wrote :

(in this passage he actually refers to stopped pipes of the organ, not tuning forks)

 

Two stopped pipes, giving tones which lie between a major and a minor third appart, will give just as good a consonance as if the

interval were exactly either a major or a minor third. This does not mean that a practised musical ear would not find such an interval

strange and unusual, and hence would perhaps call it false, but that the immediate impression on the ear, the simple perception of

harmoniousness, considered independently of any musical habits, is in no respect worse than for one of the most perfect intervals.

 

As I already said, I warmly recommend the lecture of this book to anyone interested in such subjects.

You may not know that if you are not versed much in physics, but Helmholtz was one of the leading scientists of the 19th century,

and one of the last universal genius. He left his name in diverse areas such as electromagnetics, acoustics, fluid mechanics

(my own field of expertise), and physiology. You will learn a lot, from the functionning of the ear (which he was first to understand)

to the constitution of scales in european and extra-european musics, and to the theory of chords.

 

 

 

ET does a pretty good job of spreading the ugliness around in a democratic way and keeping the fifths very close to pure... thank goodness.

probably the best definition I've ever read !

 

The fiddles and winds are sweetening their intonation whenever they can

 

As a wistle player I never did this consciently, and I don't think I do it inconsciently either.

However I don't play much with others at the moment, except at sessions (and as you said

it is not the right place to experiment such things)

[Dana Johnson]

think that the ear accepts the out of tune interval of the third more readily on the piano for two reasons. The first is that the swift decay of the struck string gets the offending interval out of the way before it starts to hurt too bad. You can do that on concertina too by making one of the two notes or both very short or let the third in the chord be part of an arpeggio or run of pitches so it has a function in the harmony without the actual interval being played. If the third is in a distant octave that can also reduce or mask the beating.

 

The other reason that the piano sounds less jangley with thirds has to do with the complexity of its sound. Play just a single piano note and the sound is full of rich harmonics. The concertina timbre has a more simple shape... fewer or more organized harmonics, not sure which.

like a singer as I can. I try to let the concertina do the singing.

One thing to remember about pianos, for most of their range they have three strings per note, one tuned to the exact note ( as close as possible, and one tuned to either side of it off by around 13 cents +/- which increases the volume, yet allows a much longer decay time than if the notes were in unison. Also, the hammer striking the string close to the end point generates a lot of harmonics ( some purposely damped by the softening of the hammers) from each of the three strings, all of which lead to a sound that can absorb quite nicely the relative dissonance of tempered intervals. Concertinas are also harmonically rich, but all the harmonics are very closely in tune with each other, and don't blend as well with the other tempered chord notes ( each with their own nicely in tune harmonics).

Dana

[David Barnert]

The fiddles and winds are sweetening their intonation whenever they can

As a wistle player I never did this consciently, and I don't think I do it inconsciently either.

I wouldn't be surprised if you are doing it unconsciously. If you were playing and heard that the note you were playing was out of tune, you'd adjust it until it sounded better, right? Well if pure tones sound better than equal tempered ones, what you'd wind up with is an "adjusted" ( certainly purer than ET) scale, just by following your ears, not your brain.

[Jody Kruskal]

One thing to remember about pianos, for most of their range they have three strings per note, one tuned to the exact note ( as close as possible, and one tuned to either side of it off by around 13 cents +/- which increases the volume, yet allows a much longer decay time than if the notes were in unison. Also, the hammer striking the string close to the end point generates a lot of harmonics ( some purposely damped by the softening of the hammers) from each of the three strings, all of which lead to a sound that can absorb quite nicely the relative dissonance of tempered intervals. Concertinas are also harmonically rich, but all the harmonics are very closely in tune with each other, and don't blend as well with the other tempered chord notes ( each with their own nicely in tune harmonics).

Dana

 

Hi Dana,

 

That's interesting about the three strings of the piano being tuned wet. I didn't know that, but it makes sense. If they were all tuned to exactly the same pitch then the decay would be shorter because... perhaps there would be a dampening effect caused by phase cancellation? Is this similar to the problem that sound engineers deal with when they use multiple mics?

 

Reminds me of my gamelan, Son Of Lion. Barbara Benary built most of the instruments herself. Many have stopped resonator tubes under suspended bars (like a vibraphone) and she tells me that the resonators (a Helmholtz resonator) are tuned a bit flat from the pitch of the bar. If tuned the same then the note sort of blooms and dies, instead of ringing on as we like it.

 

Our gamelan is modeled after the Javanese and tuned dry. The ones in Bali though, have instrument pairs where the pitches are deliberately and precisely tuned wet to make a beating, wobbly sound that they prefer.

[Ivan Viehoff]

Keeping choirs sounding in tune is also curious. Sometimes a choir sounds collectively out of tune, but no fault can be located in any of the individual parts. Conductors refer to this as the problem of balance. It is often solved by changing the relative volume of the different voice parts - most commonly the fault of the tenors who are always too loud or too quiet it seems. Choirs can also sound out of balance if there is too much diversity in the vowel sound being given to a note by the individual singers. Balance problems seem to increase if there are only few singers, one or two to a part say.

 

In terms of temperament of choirs, I can't really account for why conductors need to tell us to keep the third nice and sharp. We usually take our chord from a piano or other equal temperament instrument, where the third is apparently substantially over-sharp. Surely we can let it fall a bit. I suppose if we continue to be accompanied by an equal temperament instruments, we need to keep in line with them and keep our thirds nice and sharp. But in fact it is when we are unaccompanied that the conductor is even more insistent on keeping that third nice and sharp.

[Hereward]

Keeping choirs sounding in tune is also curious. Sometimes a choir sounds collectively out of tune, but no fault can be located in any of the individual parts. Conductors refer to this as the problem of balance. It is often solved by changing the relative volume of the different voice parts - most commonly the fault of the tenors who are always too loud or too quiet it seems. Choirs can also sound out of balance if there is too much diversity in the vowel sound being given to a note by the individual singers. Balance problems seem to increase if there are only few singers, one or two to a part say.

 

In terms of temperament of choirs, I can't really account for why conductors need to tell us to keep the third nice and sharp. We usually take our chord from a piano or other equal temperament instrument, where the third is apparently substantially over-sharp. Surely we can let it fall a bit. I suppose if we continue to be accompanied by an equal temperament instruments, we need to keep in line with them and keep our thirds nice and sharp. But in fact it is when we are unaccompanied that the conductor is even more insistent on keeping that third nice and sharp.

 

I heard four singers recently who practise a traditional art whereby a fifth voice is heard when the four of them sing. They say this voice comes from the Virgin Mary and it is quite impressive to hear. Unfortunately I can't remember further details at the moment and would have to check with the person who played it to me.

 

Ian

[bellowbelle]

This was helpful food-4-thot. I've been annoyed by some of the things I play on my concertina that have sustained intervals of a major 3rd. I do try to lighten them up but it's not always easy. Now I know it's 'not just me.'

 

So, I've done some re-arranging, and sure enough things are sounding a bit better.

 

It seems that it's the major 3rds that can sound the worst -- the minor thirds aren't as jarring. Now, is that 'just me,' or is that right?

[Jody Kruskal]

This was helpful food-4-thot. I've been annoyed by some of the things I play on my concertina that have sustained intervals of a major 3rd. I do try to lighten them up but it's not always easy. Now I know it's 'not just me.'

 

So, I've done some re-arranging, and sure enough things are sounding a bit better.

 

It seems that it's the major 3rds that can sound the worst -- the minor thirds aren't as jarring. Now, is that 'just me,' or is that right?

 

So sorry Wendy, not have replied to you sooner. I must have gotten sidetracked by something for the past five months. I just reread this thread because I linked it to this interesting discussion.

 

I seem to remember that Major thirds are out by 17 cents and minor thirds are out by 13 cents from their just or ratio ideals, so what you are hearing is probably correct. This is not to say that playing thirds is "wrong" on the concertina, I do it all the time. Every major triad is built from a minor third on top of a major third. Still, these intervals can be jarring so there are three ways to mitigate that.

 

1. is to play thirds of both types in the upper ranges and avoid low thirds. Low intervals should be octaves and fifths or better yet, just a single bass note.

 

2. is to play them short rather than long durations (as you point out.)

 

3. is to substitute 6ths for thirds. That means shifting the octave of one of the two notes to widen the interval while keeping it's harmonic character. In general, spelling chords to play wider intervals than a standard close triad makes the chord sound better on the concertina (pianists and composers do it all the time for the same reason). This preference of mine for a wide interval spread is also the reason that I like the G/D Anglo tuning in that it allows me to play melody at the top of my range, leaving the bottom for bass notes in my favorite keys of G, D, and A.

 

Bear in mind that these are not offered as rules but rather guidelines. The bottom line is... if it sounds good then it is good, and if it sounds bad, do something else.

Edited June 11, 2009 by Jody Kruskal

[david_boveri]

3. is to substitute 6ths for thirds. That means shifting the octave of one of the two notes to widen the interval while keeping it's harmonic character. In general, spelling chords to play wider intervals than a standard close triad makes the chord sound better on the concertina (pianists and composers do it all the time for the same reason). This preference of mine for a wide interval spread is also the reason that I like the G/D Anglo tuning in that it allows me to play melody at the top of my range, leaving the bottom for bass notes in my favorite keys of G, D, and A.

 

can you give an example? i'm not following... here is how i understand*, and please tell me where/if i'm wrong:

 

normal chord (abc notation.... key of D, F means F#, lower case means an octave higher)

{DFA}

and what you are saying is to play

{DBa}

 

that doesnt seem right, but i cant tell what else it means.

 

*i'm a music theory newb.

[DavidFR]

For me this is inspiring teaching , Jody.

It brings me more than just: 3rds are no good on the concertina. The comparison with piano and flute makes me understand so much better what's going on. And your suggestions about how to cope with it brings together the techniques with the musical feeling. "Playing like a singer" explained a lot for me.

 

Thanks,

Leonard

Of course, the other alternative is unequal temperament. The thirds sound nice and sweet! But of course it brings with it other issues, like the same note sounding a bit different in different locations. And playing with equal-tempered concertinas can be a bit interesting, too.

 

-David

[Jack Bradshaw]

Do you mean that a pure sine wave (fundamental only) at a particular frequency would sound consonant against another at any frequency? Surely I misunderstand you.

 

I have not experimented myself, I was just quoting Helmholtz. I could find back the page. Here is what he wrote :

(in this passage he actually refers to stopped pipes of the organ, not tuning forks)

 

Two stopped pipes, giving tones which lie between a major and a minor third appart, will give just as good a consonance as if the

interval were exactly either a major or a minor third. This does not mean that a practised musical ear would not find such an interval

strange and unusual, and hence would perhaps call it false, but that the immediate impression on the ear, the simple perception of

harmoniousness, considered independently of any musical habits, is in no respect worse than for one of the most perfect intervals.

 

As I already said, I warmly recommend the lecture of this book to anyone interested in such subjects.

You may not know that if you are not versed much in physics, but Helmholtz was one of the leading scientists of the 19th century,

and one of the last universal genius. He left his name in diverse areas such as electromagnetics, acoustics, fluid mechanics

(my own field of expertise), and physiology. You will learn a lot, from the functionning of the ear (which he was first to understand)

to the constitution of scales in european and extra-european musics, and to the theory of chords.

 

 

I think you are referring to page 199. He's talking about the lack of beats between very pure sound waves resulting in what we might refer to as a lack of dissonance rather than consonance today. This would be quite rare in practice due to the difficulty in generating very pure tones (even electronically)

 

I've always been fascinated by the diagrams on page 193, figs. 60, A and B.

 

See: (dynamic pages won't image here)

http://books.google.com/books?id=x_A5AAAAI...brr=1#PPA193,M1

Edited June 11, 2009 by Jack Bradshaw