There has been recently (and of course it's a perennial subject) of what to precisely play in order to acompany 'this' music correctly...
OBSERVATION:
The box players just seem to do it!
They have to make 'chord choices' when doing the basses. How come they are not always going on about this 'what are the chords?' or 'what key or mode is this in?' business.
Could the six string devil bashers learn anything from the free reed bellow squeezers?
Mostly because we don't have a lot of options to choose from. We either get it right, or we get strange looks because it's so obvious that it was played wrong.
Depending on the setup of your box you have 8 buttons, with half being bass. The tones coming from those buttons depend on the direction of the bellows (just like the right hand). Pushing (or pulling) you only have 4 options chords/bass to choose from. Also, there are a lot of players who don't use their left hand for anything other than bellows control.
Then what we need is an similar set up for guitarist!
An instrument that can only produce four/ eight tones.
I've rarely heard a box player ruin a tune with bollox basses playing!
1. alot of box player don't use basses.
2. If a box player plays basses, they have to have some background in Harmony and chord substitution, for ITM needs a good teacher to learn the right way to use that background for ITM, and a good ear to know when playing, knowing when not to play a bass.
I have a John Williams 12 bass and an 8 bass Joe Burke configuration. So there is some flexibility in the the typical ITM chord range/selection/harmony. The Traditional Soprani 8 button is a thing a beauty.....half joking, half not. It takes alot of sensitivity to play it right because it its limitations. But there are some really good Soprani Bass players out there. The trick is to know when to omit bass.
Box players have different set of data to work with. Not surprisingly, many of the button box players (myself included) started out on PA with 120 basses, learned piano or organ since PA wasn't the most appreciated instrument of my generation, and then moved to the button. So the greatest hurdle is the second point I made above. Finding someone good to show how to use/not use the chords available.
Even then it can be a challenge.
Strangely the guitar backers who are looking for chords really like having a box player who has some confidence. They follow.
Over the years I've often heard it said by Scottish accordionsts that most Irish two row button box players only use their left hands for drinking. I've always thought that someone should invent a two row button box with no bass buttons. They'd make a fortune.
yhaalhouse - I get the impression you have rarely had the pleasure of playing with a skilled guitarist. Pity. Granted, they are far and few between at most sessions, but even where I live out in the vast wilderness of the Sonoran desert, we have several delightful guitarists who play with taste, knowledge and sensitivity. Surely in your thriving metropolis there most be a FEW folks who know how to play?
I can't immediately think of examples of box playing I have come across with bad use of the left hand but I am lucky in that there are lots of great box players in the sessions I go to. I can think of plenty of recordings of Uilleann pipers however who ruin a perfectly good tune by starting on their car horns! Truly awful when done badly and so often done badly!
I was at the William Kennedy Piping Festival in Armagh in November gone and saw Tiarnan O'Duinnchinn play and it was an utter pleasure. There is someone who knows exactly how to play his regulators. Wonderful. If only he could teach the rest of them!
I play a 2 1/2-row DG with six pairs of basses, which is more than most two-rows have to play with. An advantage is that this gives me D, G and A basses-plus-chords on both push and pull.
But less can be more. Quite often I don't play the basses, or just put in the odd "parp" for emphasis or percussion. I kid myself I am slotting into fine traditions of uilleann pipes or Irish box musicianship. Really, it is because after 3 decades of melodeon playing I am still fairly wonky on the basses!
In guitarists' terms, the D/G offers a basic 3-chord trick in D, G and A Major - though in the latter you can only get an E bass note, and not an E chord. But you can get a D diminished seventh(??) by playing D basses and C, and play a drone or sustain on C basses (the same buttons played in or out) and D basses (different buttons for in and for out).
E Minor and B Minor basses are present, and mine has F# Minor which is well worth having. Apart from their obvious use in modal tunes they can be an intriguing variation in places in major tunes - as can be, sometimes, the major basses in modal tunes. The limited selection can be shuffled around in quite interesting ways, hopefully without busting the tune apart.
(A Minor is not represented - an A bass note is usually how I deal with that one...)
Mallinson's Melodeon Methods and maybe other treatises on the subject explain the Circle Of Fifths and how it should inform good bass playing on the D/G, but I've never quite got round to learning this. What I'm saying is, there's more to D/G bass playing than just instinctive vamping, but I haven't got there myself.
I think nicholas has a point there! For myself, I am just learning to use my left hand with my accordion, and use little bits of it here and there as garnish. The folks that amaze me are those who can keep a steady rhythm of bass notes and chords skipping along beneath their melody--now there is a skill!!!
Not that I would ever be seen as the exemplary box player in any case but I never use the left hand when playing with others. I find when playing with others the bass confuses them or me. Part of the reason is playing on a typical Cairdin with just eight buttons, the GDs on both push and pull, I tend to compromise and often use a bass that is slightly wrong. To my ear, they work fine--can even be "interesting"--but when you add a guitar it can just sound a mess.
Nicholas "D diminished seventh(??) by playing D basses and C"
That chord is a D Major minor 7th assuming that the F is sharp, otherwise it would be a minor minor 7th
A D diminished chord is D F and Ab and if a 7th is involved it is referred to separately, if I recall.
Yes I referenced a theory book and D F# A C is a D Minor minor 7th otherwise referred to as D Minor 7th (confusing, don't use the abbreviation) and a chord with D F Ab and C is called D Diminished minor 7th or Ddm7
Mr Cameron:
A chord spelt D F# A C is D7 (D dominant seventh- commonly said as ‘D seventh’) not what you wrote above.
There is no such thing as a ‘Minor minor seventh’!
A chord spelt D F Ab C is Dm7b5 (D minor seventh flattened fifth) and can also be called Fm6 (F minor sixth). Minor seventh flattened fifths are also known as half diminisheds (symbolized by a little circle with a stroke through it) especially amongst the jazz and classical fraternities. Not to be confused with a ’full blow diminshed’ which is sybolized by a little circle or ‘dim’. By the way D diminished is spelt D F Ab B. You will notice that the fifth and the seventh have been flattened (or diminished) as opposed to the half diminished where only the fifth has.
By the way I don’t think you’d ever use a C#m7b5 in Trad Irish- unless you happen to be doing a Capt Beefheart, John Coltraine or Birwhistle style arrangement of a Trad Tune!
On box, the melody is learned FIRST. When learning a tune the better players will already have feel of what the left hand will do; the less experienced players have to think it out, but they still have 25% chance of the righ chord, and that increases as the tune is played.
I prefer to play with guitarists who are mulit-instrumental because they have the tunes in their soul. The "mono-lingual" guitarists tend to have tough time with the rhythm needed, let alone hitting the right chords.
I remember one of the local box players relating a time that he had been at a Brendan Begley master class. Someone asked Brendan how he knows which chord/bass to use at a particular point in any given tune. Brendan's response: "If it's the right button, I'll push it." Not very helpful, but true.
Box players and their left hands...
Box players and their left hands...
There has been recently (and of course it's a perennial subject) of what to precisely play in order to acompany 'this' music correctly...
OBSERVATION:
The box players just seem to do it!
They have to make 'chord choices' when doing the basses. How come they are not always going on about this 'what are the chords?' or 'what key or mode is this in?' business.
Could the six string devil bashers learn anything from the free reed bellow squeezers?
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by yhaalhouse
Re: Box players and their left hands...
Mostly because we don't have a lot of options to choose from. We either get it right, or we get strange looks because it's so obvious that it was played wrong.
Depending on the setup of your box you have 8 buttons, with half being bass. The tones coming from those buttons depend on the direction of the bellows (just like the right hand). Pushing (or pulling) you only have 4 options chords/bass to choose from. Also, there are a lot of players who don't use their left hand for anything other than bellows control.
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by juniper
Re: Box players and their left hands...
Then what we need is an similar set up for guitarist!
An instrument that can only produce four/ eight tones.
I've rarely heard a box player ruin a tune with bollox basses playing!
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by yhaalhouse
Re: Box players and their left hands...
1. alot of box player don't use basses.
2. If a box player plays basses, they have to have some background in Harmony and chord substitution, for ITM needs a good teacher to learn the right way to use that background for ITM, and a good ear to know when playing, knowing when not to play a bass.
I have a John Williams 12 bass and an 8 bass Joe Burke configuration. So there is some flexibility in the the typical ITM chord range/selection/harmony. The Traditional Soprani 8 button is a thing a beauty.....half joking, half not. It takes alot of sensitivity to play it right because it its limitations. But there are some really good Soprani Bass players out there. The trick is to know when to omit bass.
Box players have different set of data to work with. Not surprisingly, many of the button box players (myself included) started out on PA with 120 basses, learned piano or organ since PA wasn't the most appreciated instrument of my generation, and then moved to the button. So the greatest hurdle is the second point I made above. Finding someone good to show how to use/not use the chords available.
Even then it can be a challenge.
Strangely the guitar backers who are looking for chords really like having a box player who has some confidence. They follow.
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by zippydw
Re: Box players and their left hands...
Over the years I've often heard it said by Scottish accordionsts that most Irish two row button box players only use their left hands for drinking. I've always thought that someone should invent a two row button box with no bass buttons. They'd make a fortune.
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Box players and their left hands...
yhaalhouse - I get the impression you have rarely had the pleasure of playing with a skilled guitarist. Pity. Granted, they are far and few between at most sessions, but even where I live out in the vast wilderness of the Sonoran desert, we have several delightful guitarists who play with taste, knowledge and sensitivity. Surely in your thriving metropolis there most be a FEW folks who know how to play?
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Box players and their left hands...
I can't immediately think of examples of box playing I have come across with bad use of the left hand but I am lucky in that there are lots of great box players in the sessions I go to. I can think of plenty of recordings of Uilleann pipers however who ruin a perfectly good tune by starting on their car horns! Truly awful when done badly and so often done badly!
I was at the William Kennedy Piping Festival in Armagh in November gone and saw Tiarnan O'Duinnchinn play and it was an utter pleasure. There is someone who knows exactly how to play his regulators. Wonderful. If only he could teach the rest of them!
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Box players and their left hands...
I play a 2 1/2-row DG with six pairs of basses, which is more than most two-rows have to play with. An advantage is that this gives me D, G and A basses-plus-chords on both push and pull.
But less can be more. Quite often I don't play the basses, or just put in the odd "parp" for emphasis or percussion. I kid myself I am slotting into fine traditions of uilleann pipes or Irish box musicianship. Really, it is because after 3 decades of melodeon playing I am still fairly wonky on the basses!
In guitarists' terms, the D/G offers a basic 3-chord trick in D, G and A Major - though in the latter you can only get an E bass note, and not an E chord. But you can get a D diminished seventh(??) by playing D basses and C, and play a drone or sustain on C basses (the same buttons played in or out) and D basses (different buttons for in and for out).
E Minor and B Minor basses are present, and mine has F# Minor which is well worth having. Apart from their obvious use in modal tunes they can be an intriguing variation in places in major tunes - as can be, sometimes, the major basses in modal tunes. The limited selection can be shuffled around in quite interesting ways, hopefully without busting the tune apart.
(A Minor is not represented - an A bass note is usually how I deal with that one...)
Mallinson's Melodeon Methods and maybe other treatises on the subject explain the Circle Of Fifths and how it should inform good bass playing on the D/G, but I've never quite got round to learning this. What I'm saying is, there's more to D/G bass playing than just instinctive vamping, but I haven't got there myself.
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Box players and their left hands...
"How come they are not always going on about this 'What are the chords?' business?"
The answer blinds me with obviousness.
The box players know the tunes.
The guitarists quite likely don't!
# Posted on October 7th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Box players and their left hands...
I think nicholas has a point there! For myself, I am just learning to use my left hand with my accordion, and use little bits of it here and there as garnish. The folks that amaze me are those who can keep a steady rhythm of bass notes and chords skipping along beneath their melody--now there is a skill!!!
# Posted on October 8th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Box players and their left hands...
Not that I would ever be seen as the exemplary box player in any case but I never use the left hand when playing with others. I find when playing with others the bass confuses them or me. Part of the reason is playing on a typical Cairdin with just eight buttons, the GDs on both push and pull, I tend to compromise and often use a bass that is slightly wrong. To my ear, they work fine--can even be "interesting"--but when you add a guitar it can just sound a mess.
# Posted on October 8th 2009 by nfldbox
Re: Box players and their left hands...
Nicholas "D diminished seventh(??) by playing D basses and C"
That chord is a D Major minor 7th assuming that the F is sharp, otherwise it would be a minor minor 7th
A D diminished chord is D F and Ab and if a 7th is involved it is referred to separately, if I recall.
# Posted on October 8th 2009 by Earl Cameron
Re: Box players and their left hands...
Yes I referenced a theory book and D F# A C is a D Minor minor 7th otherwise referred to as D Minor 7th (confusing, don't use the abbreviation) and a chord with D F Ab and C is called D Diminished minor 7th or Ddm7
# Posted on October 8th 2009 by Earl Cameron
Re: Box players and their left hands...
Mr Cameron:
A chord spelt D F# A C is D7 (D dominant seventh- commonly said as ‘D seventh’) not what you wrote above.
There is no such thing as a ‘Minor minor seventh’!
A chord spelt D F Ab C is Dm7b5 (D minor seventh flattened fifth) and can also be called Fm6 (F minor sixth). Minor seventh flattened fifths are also known as half diminisheds (symbolized by a little circle with a stroke through it) especially amongst the jazz and classical fraternities. Not to be confused with a ’full blow diminshed’ which is sybolized by a little circle or ‘dim’. By the way D diminished is spelt D F Ab B. You will notice that the fifth and the seventh have been flattened (or diminished) as opposed to the half diminished where only the fifth has.
By the way I don’t think you’d ever use a C#m7b5 in Trad Irish- unless you happen to be doing a Capt Beefheart, John Coltraine or Birwhistle style arrangement of a Trad Tune!
# Posted on October 8th 2009 by yhaalhouse
Re: Box players and their left hands...
nicholas is probably right.
On box, the melody is learned FIRST. When learning a tune the better players will already have feel of what the left hand will do; the less experienced players have to think it out, but they still have 25% chance of the righ chord, and that increases as the tune is played.
I prefer to play with guitarists who are mulit-instrumental because they have the tunes in their soul. The "mono-lingual" guitarists tend to have tough time with the rhythm needed, let alone hitting the right chords.
I remember one of the local box players relating a time that he had been at a Brendan Begley master class. Someone asked Brendan how he knows which chord/bass to use at a particular point in any given tune. Brendan's response: "If it's the right button, I'll push it." Not very helpful, but true.
# Posted on October 8th 2009 by juniper
Re: Box players and their left hands...
I'm learning to play a b/c Paolo Soprani box. How does the bass on my box differ from the Joe Burke bass setup?
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by anvilcoyote