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On this page you will find information about the various instruments used by Morris musicians (courtesy of Wikpedia) English concertina
The English concertina is a fully chromatic instrument having buttons in a rectangular arrangement of four staggered rows, with the short side of the rectangle addressing the wrist. The invention of the instrument is credited to Sir Charles Wheatstone, his earliest patent of a like instrument granted 19 December 1829, No 5803 in Great Britain. The instrument is unisonoric, that is, press and draw on each button yield the same note. The two innermost rows of the layout constitute a diatonic C major scale, distributed alternatingly between the two sides of the instrument. (I.e., in a given range, C-E-G-B-d will be on one side, D-F-A-c-e on the other.) The two outer rows consist of the sharps and flats required to complete the chromatic scale. This distribution of scale notes between sides facilitates rapid melodic play (Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" was transcribed for English concertina early in the instrument's history), while to some extent rendering chords more difficult to learn than scales. Giulio Regondi was a virtuso performer and composer on this instrument as well as the guitar, and helped to popularize the instrument during the 19th century. Allan Atlas, in his book "The Wheatstone Concertina in Victorian England" identifies six known concertos written for this instrument. There are still many sonatas and other pieces that survive.
The English concertina is typically held by placing the thumbs through thumb straps and the little fingers on metal finger rests, leaving three fingers free for noting; alternately, both the ring and pinkie fingers support the metal finger rest, leaving two fingers for noting. In the classical style of Regondi, the little finger is used as well as the other three fingers and the metal finger rests are used only very occasionally. This allows all eight fingers to simultaneously play the instrument so large chords are possible. In pieces such as the Bernard Molique "Concerto No 1 in G for concertina and orchestra", or Percy Grainger's "Shepherd's Hey", four, five and six note chords are not uncommon, and would be difficult or impossible to play without using all the fingers.
Anglo Concertina The Anglo concertina (from "Anglo-German") has buttons in curved rows following the fingertips. It is bisonoric: that, is pushing and pulling the bellows (press and draw) give two different notes from the same button, just as a harmonica (which the Anglo layout resembles quite closely) produces different notes on blow and draw, and allows comparatively dynamic play.
The heart of the Anglo system consist of two ten-button rows, each of which produces a diatonic major scale, much like the layout of notes on a harmonica. Five buttons of each row are on each side. The two rows are musically a fourth apart, e.g., if the row closest to the player's wrist is in the key of G, the next outer row will be in C. In modern times, a third row of helper notes has been added, consisting in part of accidentals omitted by the diatonic rows, and in part of notes which do exists in the diatonic rows, but in opposite bisonoric orientation to make certain chords possible and certain melodic passages easier. There is some small variation between makers and models in the layout of the notes in the core diatonic rows, and even more variation in the number and layout of the helper notes.
The Anglo concertina is typically held by placing the hands through a leather strap, with the thumbs outside of the strap and the palms resting on wooden bars. This arrangement leaves four fingers of each hand free for noting and the thumbs free to operate an air valve (for expanding or contracting the bellows without sounding a note) or a drone. The Anglo concertina is often associated with the music of Ireland. Instruments in the key of C/G are the ones used in traditional Irish music sessions, although it is used in other musical contexts as well, particularly in music for the English Morris dance.
George Jones is often credited as the inventor of the Anglo concertina. British builders active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries include C. Jeffries (who built primarily Anglo-style concertinas) and Louis Lachenal (who built concertinas in both English and Anglo styles and was the most prolific manufacturer of the period).
Accordion
Modern accordions consist of a body in two parts, each generally rectangular in shape, separated by a bellows. On each part of the body is a keyboard containing buttons, levers or piano-style keys. When pressed, the buttons travel in a direction perpendicular to the motion of the bellows (towards the performer). Most, but not all modern accordions also have buttons capable of producing entire chords.
The related concertina differs in that its buttons never produce chords and travel parallel to the travel of the bellows (towards the opposite end of the instrument); there are also differences in the internal materials, construction, mechanics, and tone color, but the basic principles of sound production are similar.
History
The accordion is one of several European inventions of the early 19th century that used free reeds driven by a bellows; notable among them were:
The Aeoline, by German Bernhard Eschenbach (and his cousin, Caspar Schlimbach), 1810. It was a piano with an added aeoline register. Similar instruments were the Aeoline Harmonika and Physharmonika. Aeoline and Aura were first without bellows or keyboard.
The Hand Physhamonika, by Anton Haeckl, 1818 a hand type mentioned in a music newspaper 1821.
The flutina, by Pichenot Jeune, ca. 1831.
The concertina, patented in two forms (perhaps independently): one by Carl Friedrich Uhlig, 1834 and the other by Sir Charles Wheatstone, of which examples were built after 1829, but no patent taken out until 1844.
An instrument called accordion was first patented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian in Vienna. Demian's instrument bore little resemblance to modern instruments; it only had a left hand keyboard, with the right hand simply operating the bellows. One key feature for which Demian sought the patent was the sounding of an entire chord by depressing one key. His instrument also could sound two different chords with the same key: one for each bellows direction (press, draw); this is called a bisonoric action.
At that time in Vienna, mouth harmonicas with "Kanzellen" (chambers) had already been available for many years, along with bigger instruments driven by hand bellows. The diatonic key arrangement was also already in use on mouth-blown instruments. Demian's patent thus covered an accompanying instrument: an accordion played with the left hand, opposite to the way that comtemporary chromatic hand harmonicas were played, small and light enough to for travellers to take with them and use to accompany singing. The patent also described instruments with both bass and treble sections, although Demian preferred the bass-only instrument owing to its cost and weight advantages.
The musician Adolph Müller described a great variety of instruments in his 1833 "Schule für Accordion". At the time, Vienna and London had a close musical relationship, with musicians often performing in both cities in the same year, so it is possible that Wheatstone was aware of this type of instrument and may have used them to put his key-arrangement ideas into practice.
Jeune's flutina resembles Wheatstone's concertina in internal construction and tone color, but it appears to complement Demian's accordion functionally. The flutina is a one-sided bisonoric melody-only instrument whose keys are operated with the right hand while the bellows is operated with the left. When the two instruments are combined, the result is quite similar to diatonic button accordions still manufactured today.
Further innovations followed and continue to the present. Various keyboard systems have been developed, as well as voicings (the combination of multiple tones at different octaves), with mechanisms to switch between different voices during performance, and different methods of internal construction to improve tone, stability and durability.
Violin vs. fiddle
A violin is sometimes informally called a fiddle, regardless of the kind of music being played with it. The word "violin" is derived from Italian and the word "fiddle" is native to English. The two words are etymologically related, however, both ultimately deriving from the same Germanic word.
Historically, the word fiddle also referred to a predecessor of today's violin. Like the violin, it tended to have 4 strings, but came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Another family of instruments which contributed to the development of the modern fiddle are the viols, which are held between the legs and played vertically, and have fretted fingerboards.
One very slight difference between "fiddles" and ordinary violins may be seen in American (e.g., bluegrass and old-time music) fiddling: in these styles, the top of the bridge may be cut so that it is very slightly less curved. This reduces the range of right-arm motion required for the rapid string-crossings found in some styles, and is said to make it easier to play double stops and shuffles (bariolage), or to make triple stops possible, allowing one to play chords.
Most classical violinists prefer a more rounded curve to the top of the bridge, which allows them to articulate each note more easily and clearly. In practice, most instruments are fitted with a rounded bridge to better accommodate the shape of the fingerboard. (One exception is the 3-string kontra or bracsa, a viola used in Hungarian and Transylvanian folk music fitted with a flat bridge to allow all three strings to be played simultaneouslynot unc.) In any case, the difference between "round" and "flat" is not great; about a quarter or half a millimeter variation in the height of one or two strings. As a violin's bridge is relatively easy to replace, modifying the bridge does not permanently make a violin into a fiddle.
It is also more common to see an instrument described as a fiddle if it has steel strings rather than gut or synthetic, and fine tuners on all four strings; it is very uncommon to see four fine tuners on instruments played by classical musicians. (Fine tuners are small screw mechanisms attached to the tailpiece, which make small tuning adjustments easier.) As with the bridge, this configuration is easy to change from "violin" to "fiddle", and causes no irreversible changes to the instrument.
In construction, fiddles and violins are exactly the same. Various clichés describe the difference: "When you are buying it, it's a fiddle. When you are selling it, it's a violin," "The violin sings, the fiddle dances," "A fiddle is a violin with attitude," or, in answer to the musical joke, "What's the difference between a violin and a fiddle?", "No one cries when they spill beer on a fiddle." According to Branson performer Shoji Tabuchi, the difference lies "in how you fiddle around with it." As might be expected from the differences between classical and folk music, violinists tend to be formally trained and fiddlers tend to be informally trained, although crossing over is not uncommon.
Fiddling
In performance, solo fiddling is the norm, though twin fiddling is represented in some North American, Scandinavian, and Irish styles. Violins, on the other hand, are commonly grouped in sections. These contrasting traditions may be vestiges of historical performance settings: large concert halls in which violins were played required more instruments, before electronic amplification, than did more intimate dance halls and houses fiddles were played in. The difference was likely compounded by the different sounds expected of violin music and fiddle music. Historically, the majority of fiddle music was dance music, while violin music had either grown out of dance music or was something else entirely. Violin music came to value a smoothness which fiddling, with its dance-driven clear beat, did not always follow - in situations that required greater volume, a fiddler (as long as they kept the beat) could push their instrument harder than could a violinist. (Different fiddle traditions had different values, as detailed below; these explanations are meant to present the differences between fiddle music and violin music generally.)
Following the folk revivals of the second half of the 20th century, however, it has become common for less formal situations to find large groups of fiddlers playing together -- see for example the Swedish Spelmanslag folk-musician clubs, and the world-wide phenomenon of Irish sessions.
In the very late 20th century, a few artists have successfully attempted a reconstruction of the Scottish tradition of violin and "big fiddle," or cello. Notable recorded examples include Amelia Kaminski and Christine Hanson's Bonnie Lasses and Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas' Fire and Grace.
Bows used in fiddling
Most fiddling styles that use the standard violin also use the standard violin bow, the same as classical players. However, there are a few styles which use other bows. One notable example is the folk music from Hungary and Transylvania used in the táncház tradition. While the violinist uses a standard bow, both the kontra (3-string viola) and bass are played here with short, heavy and crude "folk bows", consisting of a stout stick, usually hand-hewn, with the hank of horsehair attached at the tip and tied around the frog. The player tensions the hair by squeezing it when playing.
Violin bows used by fiddlers are usually made from wood, but bows made from fiberglass and other materials are becoming more common.
Tabor The tabor is most widely known as accompaniment for the fife and other small flutes, and most famously as the percussive element in the "pipe and tabor" one man band configuration. The tabor is beaten on the snare side.
In Spain, a deep drum is used for a tabor by pipe and taborers, and in England a shallow tom tom is sometimes used, although medieaval icons of pipe and tabor usually display a large shallow tabor similar in shape to a bodhran.
© Copyright Porthleven Morris Men 2007- 2008
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