bellows reversals on english concertina

Subject: bellows reversals on english concertina
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jun 11 - 12:32 PM

most morris tunes can be played satisfactorily, by copying a lot[not necessarily all] of the anglo bellows reversals, and even by reversing sometimes where an anglo player would not have to, for example two notes, of the same pitch, where a morris dancer might clash sticks.

Subject: RE: bellows reversals on english concertina
From: GUEST,Dave in Michigan
Date: 08 Jun 11 - 01:28 PM

I find that when I'm playing _marcato_, the important thing is getting a clean separation of the stressed beats; whether this actually involves a bellows reversal is, for me, a trade-off involving how close I think I will be to running out of bellows if I do/don't reverse. There are very similar issues with bowed and flatpicked instruments.

Subject: RE: bellows reversals on english concertina
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jun 11 - 06:44 AM

of course it is possible to play marcato using just finger attack.
but we have to ask ourselves why do anglos sound more rhythmical the answer is because they are forced most of the time to reverse bellows to play a particular note, of course it does not follow that their phrasing is automatically correct, nor does it follow that because they[anglos] are forced to reverse in certain places that this is the best phrasing for irish music., for example a fiddle player has many options as to how he bows phrases.
but there is no denying that attention to bellows reversals, can produce a more dancey feel as does finger attack.
I would suggest for beginners, that it is a good idea to experiment with the following, reversing in jigs on the first beat of the bar, for irish polkas reversing after every crotchet[the equivalent to paired bowing on a fiddle], then experiment with playing the tunes with conventional english concertinsa bellows reversals[perhaps changing after ever 2 bars], then mixing it up .
I think for morris tunes copying anglo reversals[with slight adaptions is a fairly good idea], this means that most notes of an interval of a second get reversed, but compromises can be made, a player may decide to reverse only between say g and a, but not d and e, but by putting in more reversals the sound is going to be more rhythmical.
plus, most anglo players would not reverse notes of the same pitch[they often cant] but english players have no such restrictions if they deem it appropriate.

Subject: RE: bellows reversals on english concertina
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 06:15 AM

here is a different tutorial that i put up yesterday, just some ideas on ornamentationhttp://www.youtube.com/user/dickmilesmusic#p/a/u/0/h18W_uixChs