chords on the melodeon

Subject: chords on the melodeon
From: stevethesqueeze
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 03:56 AM

Hi folks

I am looking for a resource that helps me to find right hand chords on my D/G melodeon. I have found more than i thought there was already. I can find some on the push, some on the pull, some a mixture of both and some using bass buttons and treble buttons. I wondered if anyone could point me to a resource, maybe a chart or something on the net. Just wondered.

anyway best wishes everyone

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: IanC
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 04:53 AM

This help? If it's a different model, try going up to Melodeon.net.

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: fogie
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 05:21 AM

melodeon net is a good idea. I wish I could draw diagrams on this set-up -you should be able to get as well as the obvious chords Am on the pull using A and c , Em on the pull , and probably Bmaj or min on the squeeze, depending on your set up -you could alter the chords by having the middle note retuned - You should also be able to do a scale C D E () G A B - the F#(m) on a 12 bass 2.5 or 3 row is useful in G and D as you can do bass run fill-ins. If you play an Em you can add a G note to it which is an interesting chord.
Try going to Andy Cutting's web page -that'll make your mind boggle!

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: treewind
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 05:38 AM

Get in touch with Ed Rennie. Last time I spoke to him he was talking about compiling a "how to play any chord on a melodeon" book, but I don't know how it's progressing.

If I need a fancy chord I just work it out by trial and error. Coming out with an Eflat7 on a D/G two row is guaranteed to turn a head or two...

Anahata

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Schantieman
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:04 AM

You mean it has chords?!

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Dazbo
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:23 AM

Try this page:

right-hand chords

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Leadfingers
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:35 AM

Dazbo - http://homepage.ntlworld.com/goldfrog/melodeon/chords.pdf - would seem to be what your link is for but it didnt go anywhere for me !

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:39 AM

"... some on the push, some on the pull, some a mixture of both ...".

I'm trying to get my brain round the idea of a chord made up of some buttons on the push and some on the pull.

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: GUEST,Martin Ellison
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:41 AM

To Dazbo: You got there first - I remembered this looked helpful as a bit of an academic excercise and was going to post it as soon as I could remember where I'd seen it.

I have to agree with Anahata that trial and error is the most useful (and satisfying)way of finding chords - if you stick rigidly to what a Bmin7 is (or whatever) by reading it, you may never experiment and find that head-turner. Being an ear player, I often don't even know what the chord I'm playing is called and wouldn't remember if someone told me.

And finally to Fogie: Unless I'm missing something, adding a G note to Emin just makes it Emin all over again doesn't it? (E+G+B=Emin).

Cheers
Martin

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 08:14 AM

Anahata: I congratulate you on finding an Eflat7 chord on your G/G..but you can't find much use for it I would think. Except possibly in the B music of the Trumpet Hornpipe?

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Dazbo
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 08:24 AM

Leadfingers, it works for me. Is anyone else having problems? (Looks like it worked for Martin)

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: IanC
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 08:31 AM

Folks

As an academic exercise, this is fine. Anyone innocently reading this thread, though, might think it made some kind of sense to do this sort of thing.

To me, one of the most fundamental things about what we tend to call "folk" music (as separate from "classical" or "art" music) is that we accept the basic characteristics of our instruments and don't treat them as limitations but rather as part of what fashions the style in which we play. If you want to get loads of chords why not take up the piano accordion (or use one of the chromatic button accordions with loads of basses). A D/G melodeon's actually designed to be played diatonically and generally sounds better that way.

;-)
Ian

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 08:55 AM

IanC: homo sapiens is a great innovator. if there are fancy chords to be found on a D/G poker work, people will find them and use them(appropriately or not). Neanderthal people, on the other hand, were quite content to use the same kind of flint knife for 100,000 years, and are doubtless still wheezing out Winster Gallop with a monotonous um cha on the G pair of bass buttons.

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: GUEST,Martin Ellison
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 08:59 AM

IanC
Just playing devil's advocate . . .
Are we to understand that, even though a melodeon is capable of playing more sophisticated* music that straight up and down the rows D/G stuff, we shouldn't?
I wouldn't take up the accordion to play "loads of chords" - I actually enjoy the limitations of the melodeon and, like many others, I like pushing against the boundaries. Surely its' limit has been reached when there is absolutely nothing else to be learnt or played.
Martin

* I mean technically sophisticated - I actually think that most traditional music has its' own inherent sophistication which belies its' deceptive simplicity.

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: IanC
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 09:08 AM

* I mean technically sophisticated - I actually think that most traditional music has its' own inherent sophistication which belies its' deceptive simplicity.

Just so.

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Rowan
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 05:15 PM

And just remember, next time you start slagging off at us Neanderthals, we provided all the genes you've got; you wouldn't want us to start calling y'all "Mutants" now, would you?

From one who has always thought of melodeons as the single row boxes with the cotton reel thingies on the melody end and only the two spoons on the bass (and loves them); those two-row boxes are button accordions where I come from. They're nice too, when Tony Hall's playing Fieldvole music.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: treewind
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 06:06 PM

Dazbo:
Nice PDF. Sorted!

Greg:
I found a use for Eflat7 when trying to work out whether I could make a convincing fist of Sousa's "The Washington Post".
There's also a momentary E flat in the penultimate bar of the Dam Busters march if you do most of it in D and G.

I really must learn up some of these party pieces to a performable state.

Anahata

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: stevethesqueeze
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 03:20 AM

many thanks boys and girls. i do agree that for traditional music simple chords are best. Its just that in my current role as melodeon player for Dawson Smith and the Exiles, www.dawsonsomith.com, I am playing accompinament to dawsons excellent songs and I havent the money to lash out on different instruments. The meloedon chords sound great on the right hand. Some of them need you to play one note on the push and the others on the pull, like playing D major on the G row, d push, f s and a on the pull. Because of the bellows you need to be able to play chords with some planning.

Ed Rennie looks like the man for the job and compiling some material so thanks for that link.

best wishes

stevethesqueeze

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 06:36 PM

Oh for 10 days in a week. Chase me again after Miskin at Easter and I will come and play digits with you.
Meanwhile, I had a shufty at Dawson Smith Site (corrected link here) Interesting stuff.

Andy

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Marilyn
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:14 AM

Just curious and wondered if anyone could explain to me -

why, when the B maj chord is on the PUSH does the D# accidental only occur on the PULL?

There are several tunes where I need to play a D# and want a B chord underneath it. Yes, I know I can play that B major chord all on the right hand (and it's very easy to do) but that's really not the sound I want; it's very important, in some cases, to have that lovely low B in the bass.

My melodeon is only a cheap one (Hohner Pokerwork) so paying to have the F natural and D# accidentals switched round seems like overkill.

I suppose whoever designed the layout thought that the F natural needed to be on the PUSH, but does it? Or, the times when the D# is an E flat might have had something to do with it.

However, it seems daft to me (unless someone can put me right!).

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Fidjit
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:33 AM

Gosh, those buttons. They have names too! I see I still have a lot to learn.

Already booked in for Melodeons and More at Stowmarket, Suffolk in March 2008.

One of the teachers is doing chords, but I think it's on a concertina.

more here

Chas

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: GUEST,baz parkes
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:37 AM

Marilyn...if you go to melodeon.net somebody much more erudite than I will have an answer...and some more answers to questions that you never thought of

Baz

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Marilyn
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 11:27 AM

Thanks, Chas that looks very interesting and I recognized one or two faces. Am hoping to buy a concertina soon(ish) so will have a whole lot more stuff to learn.


Thanks, Baz

I've used melodeon.net quite a lot for keyboard layout info and so on. It's a good site. Have never got around to joining their forum, though, because I feel guilty enough about the time I spend hanging around here without adding another place too!

Right! back to work!

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: treewind
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:31 PM

Marilyn
I have here at home, on loan, a Castagnari Lily that has the accidentals reversed. The same notes on the same buttons but push-pull reversed. Very interesting to play - some nice things become possible, others don't work any more.

I've heard of other players reversing them in this way.

It looks like a good idea though. You can play decent right hand F, E and B major chords and the E and B fit the basses too. You can still do C minor and Eflat but in quite a different way. Tunes in G minor work better with the Bflat in the right direction but D minor doesn't works so well.

You can't really do a G7 anymore, nor the Eflat7...

Hmmm... it's a big change to make, and have to re-learn everything that uses accidentals...

Anahata

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Marilyn
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 03:28 AM

Thanks, Anahata - that's exactly what I was hoping for: someone who has reversed the accidentals and can give me an idea of whether or not it's a good idea.

I wouldn't bother having it done on my Pokerwork but, if I buy a Castagnari, I think it would be worth it, even though I would have to relearn everything that uses accidentals. Surely that justifies getting the Casta sooner rather than later ... !!

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 03:36 AM

We've got about 8 melodeons in the house if you want one to practice reversing over....

And I'm pretty sure there are more chords hiding in the things, they need letting out with the aid of a good sharp knife down the bellows...


































(Joking!)

LTS

Subject: RE: chords on the melodeon
From: Marilyn
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 04:16 AM

Oh, Liz - you really had me worried for a minute!