English Concertina Tutorial

Subject: RE: English Concertina Tutorial
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 08:52 AM

no,I disagree,it is possible to use an instrument to its full capabilities.
I have in the past recorded with NMECQ[brass band music]recorded marches and rags with full accompaniment without over dubbing,Washington Post,DillPickle Rag, Primrose polka,WoodlandFlowers etc,all using conventional English concertina bellows methods and produced good music.
However latterly, I have realised after 35 years of playing,that despite a reasonable degree of competence,I have not been using the bellows to their full potential,there is no reason to wreck ones bellows,just because one might decide for certain pieces,that a little more bellows reversals might have a beneficial effect[morris tunes spring to mind].
what I have been advocating is not to copy anglos entirely,but to use some of the ideas that irish anglo cross row players use.
take the scale of g major,play three notes g d g on the push and the others on the pull[cross row anglo players sometimes use four notes on the push gcdg so we are already compromising]this will not wreck your bellows but will produce bounce without having to use finger attack,try it on winster gallop,or on the morris tune stamp and clap[glorishears].
I have found that once I got the hang of this, that I didnt always stick faithfully to playing certain notes on the pull or the push occasionally I added anther change of direction,where it seemed musically appropriate,so a certain amount of flexibilty is included in the approach.
then I found by copying fiddlers bowing on polkas,mainly bowing paired quavers ,with occasional singles and threes,I was getting the effct that I liked for sliabh luchra music.
I then analysed how I was playing jigs,and notice that I was changing bellows every two bars or every four bars,so I decided to experiment buy changing approximately every bar,I believe this gives more variety,so I now use all three[this is not going to wreck my bellows]
at the present moment for hornpipes and reels I have gone back to the way that I have always played them with little bellows reversals,I have not altered bellows on any song accompaniments.
the key to all this is experiementation,sometimes an experiment works sometimes it doesnt,and it does not mean that I am rigid in my approach [for arguments sake to irish polkas],sometimes I go back to my old way of playing them,or I might go once through using fiddle type bowing and once through using a more conventional approach.
http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: English Concertina Tutorial
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 09:03 AM

on the subject of wrecking bellows,you would have a hard job wrecking john connors bellows,they are as sturdy as any I have seen on an Anglo.

Subject: RE: English Concertina Tutorial
From: Guran
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 03:32 PM

tinasqueezer,
Although you modified what you said a little I still don't quite get the point and if I believe I get it I basically agree with what Dick says.Of course there are some differences in what can be done with Anglos vs Englishes but if we are not talking violin concertos but the standard folk and dance tunes I really see m(any) important ones.
The basic playing methods can be practised with both and I like Dick I think 'bellows articulation' has been sadly ignored among english players by "tradition" - something I regard as just bad habits or ignorance since the quality of muscial performance may suffer from it.

"I suppose my rant was kicked off by the assertion that we want EC's to sound like Anglos, and the way to do that was to be to use the bellows. Consider how the anglo player has to use the instrument: If a rapid run of notes is needed that require changes of bellows direction then the action is something like: Press first note, release first note, change bellows direction, press next note....etc. Getting this to sound continuous is what distinguishes a good Anglo player".

RE: I don't quite see what you mean here unless you are talking about staccatto playing only, but even so you can do staccatto by bellows articulation too but it likely comes out a bit different unless you are extremely good at it.
If talking legato playing there is nothing for the english player to assimilate from anglo playing but in the reverse the anglo player may have certain difficulty simulating english playing for long phrases.

"(yes I realise that some beginers will hold a button down and use the bellow to change note, but to me that just sounds like a donkey braying)"

RE: ?? again only IF you only look/listen for staccatto all the time,
do you?

"The fact that a note has to be released before the bellows direction can be changed is what leads to the distinctive anglo sound, not the use of bellows per-se".

RE: This I don't understand at all.By "released" - do you mean stopped? - That the note has to be ended "before the bellows direction can be changed" ro what do you mean?

"I have played with a number of accordion players who can produce strong rhythmic music and they certainly do not use bellows changes to achieve it. They use the technique which I mentioned in my first post, i.e. to use the note cut-off to give punch to a tune".

RE: Maybe so and maybe they were just lazy..:-) but "strong rhythm" definitely with any squeezebox is easier and more efficient to do by the bellows than by finger articulation so why not usse the option??It is difficult enough to produce "strong rhythmic music" with an english anyway but even so bellows reversals may help on the way.
(Better handles would also - have I said that before?..:-)

" I hope I am offering a technique that will lead to EC players not wrecking their bellows by trying to emulate the anglo!"

RE: "Wrecking bellows" I think is a myth but the argument does come up now and then.Old brittle bellows ( or cheap ones for exammple on the cheapest german style 20 key concertinas) , more or less broken already,may risk breaking a bit more from vigorous playing. I have tried intentionally to break some bellows a couple of times from pure curiosity but by any kind of violent playing I could not do it! Only by using a lot of force far beyond any practical musical activity and without sounding any notes I finally managed...