Failed on the Anglo, trying the English?

[SqeezerGeezer]

I play both English and Anglo. I find the English generally faster and easier to play than the Anglo, but I prefer

the Anglo when playing Celtic or old-time fiddle music. A friend expressed concern that playing both systems

might be confusing, but I don't find it so. It takes a while to feel comfortable with either system, but there

is so little overlap, I don't find it confusing to switch between them. I haven't tried a Duet system, so I can't

say whether playing this system might be confusing with the English or the Anglo. My advice is to let the

type of music you enjoy playing determine which concertina system would work best for you. Each system

has advantages and disadvantages for different musical styles.

[Chris Drinkwater]

I have failed to make sense of my anglo. The changing notes on the squeeze thing is still messing with my mind two years on. So, I'm having a go with a Jack baritone beginner's English instead. My theory is there is less to worry about because you only have to worry about the buttons rather than the note changing on the squeeze (so technical in my descriptions!!)

 

Is this wise, foolhardy or other - do you reckon?! :-)

 

Anna x

 

It is wise, Anna. Read on!!

I have always considered the concertina to be such a 'cute' little instrument - so much crammed inside a small hexagon - and I just loved the sound produced by those tiny reeds, everytime I heard one being played. However, I knew nothing about the 3 main different concertina systems when I decided I wanted to learn to play the concertina myself, a few years ago. After finding a little bit about each system, I opted for the EC, as it seemed to have a more logical fingering system, and being fully chromatic, tunes can be played in any key. I managed to buy quite a nice restored brass-reeded Lachenal on Ebay for £450 and in a couple of days, without the aid of a tutor, I managed to work out the fingering to a couple of simple English country dance tunes, which pleased me greatly. Since then, my playing has improved immensely, with regular daily practice and the desire to improve my playing skills. Of all the musical instruments I have had a go at learning to play over the years, the EC is the one I have had most success with and I am totally hooked on it now. Recently, having seen and heard some very good anglo players playing live and at close quarters, e.g. our very own Alan Day, Andy Turner and Keith Kendrick, who also plays EC too, I decided to buy a cheap anglo and see what all the fuss was about. Why is the anglo so popular? If Keith can play both systems, then why not me? I managed to buy an as new Rochelle and original Wim Wakker tutor book, cheaply on Ebay. I have had it for one month now. I have taken it out of its case everyday to have a play on it and not managed to master playing one simple tune on it yet (a feat that took me just two days of minimal practice on the EC), despite following Wim's tutor book. I cannot grasp the system at all. Wim's tutor book might as well be written in double-dutch, for all I care. It makes little sense to me, unlike the various EC tutor books I have since bought which are so easy to follow and understand by comparison, I reckon my cat could pick it up. I won't give up trying on the anglo just yet. I am minded to bring it with me next time I go to a session that has an anglo player there and give it to them to play, just to make sure I haven't been sold a dud! Goodness knows how my brain is wired. Maybe my left-handedness has something to do with it. I reckon if I bought a duet as well, that would simply end up as an ornament in a glass case. It's obviously horses for courses, as they say. Stick with the English, Anna. The original system and still the best, in my opinion. Why play Hayden seek?

Chris

[Hereward]

Why play Hayden seek?

 

Chris

 

This must be the best one yet Chris. Good advice too you offer, if I might be so bold.

 

Ian

[Ptarmigan]

It takes a while to feel comfortable with either system, but there

is so little overlap, I don't find it confusing to switch between them.

 

I also play both Anglo & English & agree that as there is so little overlap, there is no confusion moving back & forward from one to 'tother.

 

Like most folks here I suppose, I know people who have picked up one system & just not been able to get it & yet have made great headway, when they picked up the other system.

 

Which would tend to imply that it is probably a very good idea to try both, before setting your mind on which to go for.

 

Cheers

Dick

[Dave Lawton]

I have failed to make sense of my anglo. The changing notes on the squeeze thing is still messing with my mind two years on. So, I'm having a go with a Jack baritone beginner's English instead. My theory is there is less to worry about because you only have to worry about the buttons rather than the note changing on the squeeze (so technical in my descriptions!!)

 

Is this wise, foolhardy or other - do you reckon?! :-)

 

Anna x

 

Hi Anna, My theory is that you should try sitting on the side of a hill with a harmonica.... and get a tune going... then start playing within the row of a Anglo.. and then advance to playing outside of the row. I think that's the way I made sense of it all....

 

But then again... after two years... I'd be tempted to give up to. Enjoy the English!

 

Dave

[Anglo-Irishman]

Hi, Folks,

There's been so much talk about which system is the more logical. I play Anglo, and am learning Crane duet, and to me, these both feel very logical.

I've looked at the English button layout, and that looks logical to me, too. So does the Hayden duet. I say "looks", because I haven't tried them yet. (I've picked up an English in a music shop and put it down again - not because I found it illogical, but because I found it ergonomically awkward. Probably my fingers are too long. )

 

First of all, all concertinas are small, so it's logical that they have a compact keyboard, and this means we need some alternative to the piano-type keyboard. Logical!

 

Now the individual systems.

 

Anglo (in its original 20-b form): Your hands are fixed in straps, so lateral movement is difficult, so, logically, the scale is distributed between both hands. Interesting music needs harmony, and harmony normally requires multiple notes, which mean multiple chances of hitting wrong notes. So we have a diatonic scale on each row, which eliminates the really "wrong" notes, and the push-pull (bisonoric) system, which eliminates further "wrong" notes, assuming we've found the melody note. The tonic chord in on the press, the subdominant and dominant seventh on the draw, so we can "feel" the harmonies. And the bisonoric buttons make the compass really compact, with one button covering two notes, or a whole octave on just 4 buttons. Tunes that modulate do so by a fifth, so, logically, the Anglo's button rows are a fifth apart.

 

English: Again, the hands cannot move freely, so the work is shared between them. One note left, next note right, and so on. The layout reflects the stave - lines on the left, spaces on the right - so sight reading is logical. Naturals are in the middle, sharps and flats outside - logical!

 

Crane duet: Lets you play treble and bass lines, so logically each hand has a complete chromatic scale. Like the English, naturals are logically in the middle, accidentals outside. Logically, the diatonic scale runs across a row of 3 buttons, then skips to the start of the next row, and so on. Right-handed people - the majority - find it easier to play melody with their right hand and supporting harmonies with their left, so logically, the low notes are left, the high notes right.

 

Hayden: Eliminates "wrong" notes (like the Anglo) because the basic button block gives a diatonic scale. Sharps and flats are, logically, in the button block for a different key, where they belong to the key signature. The same applies to the logical necessity for the independence of the hands and the role distribution between RH and LH as in the Crane and other duets.

 

Maccann duet: I'm sure it's logical, too, but this logic does not reveal itself to me in a printed representation of the button layout. Can anyone help?

 

Jeffries duet: I'm sure it's logical too ... (see Maccann)

 

So why do some of us have problems with one system, others with another, and some of us mix systems?

My thought on this: Logic is all very well, but it's the premisses that get you there!

 

The Anglo premiss is that you want quick and dirty, but thoroughly satisfactory, harmonised music with little effort and without long study. Two keys are enough. What you can't sing in one key, you can sing in the key a fifth up or down, and dance music is not key-critical. Chords are fine, no need for polyphony. The Anglo follows logically from this.

 

The English premiss is that you'll be playing (light) classical music, and will have to read sheet music for it, and that you'll have a piano accompaniment, letting you concentrate on the melody, like a violinist. The English follows logically from this.

 

The Crane premiss is that one needs a logical compromise between the English and Anglo, so it is easier to sight read than the Anglo, but has easy chord shapes for ad lib accompaniment.

 

The Hayden premiss is that you'll be playing basically diatonic music, and transposing a lot. And probably playing ad lib, not first and foremost sight reading.

 

Perhaps the Maccan is logical, in a way, in that it resembles the English, which was there first, and from which one would be expected to migrate to the Maccann if one wanted duet capability. The same can probably be said for the Jeffries duet, with reference to the Anglo as a first instrument. (Jeffries duets are probably so uncommon because the Anglo already offers the two-independant-hands capability, so there's little need for a matching duet?)

 

So they're all (well, most of them ) logical, so if they're based on your premiss, you'll like them.

Could it be that those of us who play two concertina systems play different types of music on them? That we have two different demands on a concertina, which makes one system seem logical for this, and another system logical for that?

 

Cheers,

John

[ragtimer]

Hi, Folks,

There's been so much talk about which system is the more logical. I play Anglo, and am learning Crane duet, and to me, these both feel very logical.

 

(lots of good stuff)

 

Cheers,

John

Thank you, John, for one of the most concise and "logical" explanations I've seen, of where the different types of concertinas evolved from, and why each has its own niche.

 

I'd like to add that "logicalness" may be overrated (even tho I'm a Haydenist). A logical layout has a big advantage when you're learning the instrument -- you can figure out where the next note should be, without having to look at a chart or book page. On the EC or Hayden you can eaily predict where the next note should be. On an Anglo I find myslef just poking, pushing, and pulling till the right note pops out.

 

But once you've learned the instrument, and/or learned a tune well, logic isn't as important. What matters is the ergonomics of the key layout, how well yoru fingers fit, and how well your fingers can play a fast sequence of notes. At this point, the different systems are more nearly equal -- each has certain intervals and passages that are tough to play, and others that just natrually fall out easily.

 

Logic implies you stop and think about it, which doesn't help much when you're really playing a tune. When trying to learn ENglish, I was wasting too much time thinking and not enough actually sounding notes :-)

 

Anyway, it's clear that different folks have different strokes when it comes to concertina systems. Try them all if you can.

--Mike K.

[David Levine]

The Anglo premiss is that you want quick and dirty, but thoroughly satisfactory, harmonised music with little effort and without long study. Two keys are enough. What you can't sing in one key, you can sing in the key a fifth up or down, and dance music is not key-critical. Chords are fine, no need for polyphony. The Anglo follows logically from this.

 

This has not a thing to do with the reason I -- and most other players of ITM -- play the anglo concertina. It might be the reason to play English music on. But this isn't our premise at all. The anglo for ITM isn't easy. And it certainly isn't logical. I used to play the English, which is easy. But the English doesn't have the splendid bark or the lovely rhythmic lift of the anglo, which is just what you want for Irish Traditional Music. I don't mean to step on any toes here or mean to give offense. But the anglo has a guttiness about it that the other systems just don't have. If they did I'd play another system because the anglo is anything but easy.

[catty]

English: Again, the hands cannot move freely...

 

Not so: the only apparatus anchoring the hands are a small thumb strap--into which one inserts only the distal phalanges of the thumb, rendering copious freedom of movement of the hands and fingers---and the fifth (pinky) distal phalanges, if one cares to.

[catty]

My advice is to let the

type of music you enjoy playing determine which concertina system would work best for you. Each system

has advantages and disadvantages for different musical styles.

 

Good advice.

[Anglo-Irishman]

The Anglo premiss is that you want quick and dirty, but thoroughly satisfactory, harmonised music with little effort and without long study. Two keys are enough. What you can't sing in one key, you can sing in the key a fifth up or down, and dance music is not key-critical. Chords are fine, no need for polyphony. The Anglo follows logically from this.

 

This has not a thing to do with the reason I -- and most other players of ITM -- play the anglo concertina. It might be the reason to play English music on. But this isn't our premise at all. The anglo for ITM isn't easy. And it certainly isn't logical.

 

David,

The logical answer to that one is that the Anglo-German (as the name implies) was not designed with the premiss of playing modern ITM, i.e. melody with decorations in keys amenable to the fiddle. It was designed for earlier German popular music (the "German" part of the Anglo-German is the button arrangement). And that's comfortably-paced, 3/4-time, oom-pah music.

So obviously it's illogical to play ITM on it!

 

On the other hand, you seem to find that a bisonoric instrument has certain rhythmic advantages, and the Anglo is the only bisonoric concertina that's light and handy enough to play at ITM speed (Bandoneons and Chemnitzers just have too much mass for those quick bellows changes). So in a way, the Anglo is the logical concertina for ITM, although the real reason why it is used is more probably a historical one.

 

Cheers,

John

[Anglo-Irishman]

English: Again, the hands cannot move freely...

 

Not so: the only apparatus anchoring the hands are a small thumb strap--into which one inserts only the distal phalanges of the thumb, rendering copious freedom of movement of the hands and fingers---and the fifth (pinky) distal phalanges, if one cares to.

 

Try attaching a pair of thumbscrews to the keyhole of a piano and trapping a pianist's thumbs in them, and see how far he can reach with his distal phalanges!

 

 

Freedom is relative ...

 

Cheers,

John

[catty]

Freedom is relative ...

 

Of course. But concerning what you said regarding english concertinas--that the hands cannot move freely--I guess I don't understand your point there either, as I tend to believe that there's MORE capacity for hand movement with english, not less; as the wrist is not fixed in any position, but is unrestricted to move about in any fashion inhibited only by the distal phalanges of the thumbs.

 

I just re-read your post and see that you are not comparing only concertinas. I was thinking the OP was inquiring about comparing concertinas--specifically, anglo to english.

Edited April 23, 2009 by catty