Concertinas part 3: Other kinds and why it is NOT an Accordion

There are other types of concertinas as well that are just as distinct.

The precursor to the English variations can be found in Germany.

Title: Unknown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k23ODqfoas (My apologies for not being able to embed)

Performer: Art Ohotto

Culture:

Instrumentation: Solo Chemnitzer concertina

The Chemnitzer is a bisonoric squeezebox tuned in the diatonic scale. This is an instrument I have never been able to hear live, unfortunately. The interesting bit about this instrument is that it the only concertina tuned "wet," that is multiple reeds for the same pitch tuned slightly above and below. This is usually heard in accordions and melodeons, but as Ohotto said in the video, they are as different as a guitar and a banjo.

As an interesting note, the Bandoneon of Argentina is also descended from the Chemnitzer.

Title: The Hole in the Wall

Performer: G. J. Coyne

Culture: unknown, the McCann concertina was also made by Wheatstone.

Instrumentation: McCann duet Concertina

There were several types of duet concertinas manufactured in the late 19th century. All of them are as distinctly different as all the previous types of concertina, but are encountered far less frequently. They are designed to mimic the sound of the organ more than the other types of concertina. Duet concertinas sometimes have up to 80 keys and the complete range of a piano.

Here is an example of a Hayden duet concertina played in Kabul.

Here is an example of a Crane duet concertina.

Here is an example of a Jeffries duet concertina.

There are also some strange kinds of concertinas:
Franglo concertina
Accordeaphone: Only 8 were made
Rare Wheatstone: Extraordinarily large and with 12 sides.
Texan Anglo: Square, uses accordion reeds and is in different keys
MIDI concertina
And even a special Anglo-German concertina made with bellows long enough to skip rope with while playing.


Concertinas are NOT Accordions!
While there is a certain amount of confusion between free-reed instruments, there are a few easy rules to follow to determine what instrument you are encountering.
In short, if it has chord buttons, it is not a concertina.

Does it have bellows?
   Yes; it is a squeezebox.
   No; it is a melodica or harmonica.
Does it have keys or buttons?
   Keys; it is an accordion or melodica (no bellows)
   Buttons; it is probably a concertina.
   Both; it is an accordion.
   No; it is a harmonica.
When you push a button, how many notes play?
   One; it is a concertina, harmonica, or melodica.
   Multiple; it is an Accordion.
When you push a button, how many reeds are playing for each note?
   One; Anglo-German, English, or duet.
   Multiple; Accordion, Chemnitzer, or Melodeon
Does it make the same note in both directions?
   Yes; English or duet, possibly accordion.
   No; Anglo-German, Melodeon, harmonica.
Is it a hexagon?
   Yes; Anglo-German, English (also sometimes dodecagons)
   No, Chemnitzer, Melodeon Accordion.

On another interesting note, the poet Robert Service wrote a poem, My Accordion, although we have photographic evidence that he in fact played concertina. Brian Peters sings a version of this poem set to music on his CD Anglophilia, I believe.
Warning, it is not politically correct by today's standards, but certainly shows an attachment to his instrument.

Accordion

by Robert Service

Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you’re worthy of a rhyme,
You’ve been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I’ve trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You’ve given heaps of people lots of fun;
You’ve set a host of happy feet a-tapping on the floor . . .
Alas! your dancing days are nearly done.

I’ve played you from the palm-belt to the suburbs of the Pole;
From the silver-tipped sierras to the sea.
The gay and gilded cabin and the grimy glory-hole
Have echoed to your impish melody.
I’ve hushed you in the dug-out when the trench was stiff with dead;
I’ve lulled you by the coral-laced lagoon;
I’ve packed you on a camel from the dung-fire on the bled,
To the hell-for-breakfast Mountains of the Moon.

I’ve ground you to the shanty men, a-whooping heel and toe,
And the hula-hula graces in the glade.
I’ve swung you in the igloo to the lousy Esquimau,
And the Haussa at a hundred in the shade.
The Nigger on the levee, and the Dinka by the Nile
have shuffled to your insolent appeal.
I’ve rocked with glee the chimpanzee, and mocked the crocodile,
And shocked the pompous penquin and the seal.

I’ve set the yokels singing in a little Surrey pub,
Apaches swinging in a Belville bar.
I’ve played an obligato to the tom-tom’s rub-a-dub,
And the throb of Andalusian guitar.
From the Horn to Honolulu, from the Cape to Kalamazoo,
From Wick to Wicklow, Samarkand to Spain,
You’ve roughed it with my kilt-bag like a comrade tried and true. . . .
Old pal! We’ll never hit the trail again.

Oh I know you’re cheap and vulgar, you’re an instrumental crime.
In drawing-rooms you haven’t got a show.
You’re a musical abortion, you’re the voice of grit and grime,
You’re the spokesman of the lowly and the low.
You’re a democratic devil, you’re the darling of the mob;
You’re a wheezy, breezy blasted bit of glee.
You’re the headache of the high-bow, you’re the horror of the snob,
but you’re worth your weight in ruddy gold to me.

For you’ve chided me in weakness and you’ve cheered me in defeat;
You’ve been an anodyne in hours of pain;
And when the slugging jolts of life have jarred me off my feet,
You’ve ragged me back into the ring again.
I’ll never go to Heaven, for I know I am not fit,
The golden harps of harmony to swell;
But with asbestos bellows, if the devil will permit,
I’ll swing you to the fork-tailed imps of Hell.

Yes, I’ll hank you, and I’ll spank you,
And I’ll everlasting yank you
To the cinder-swinging satellites of Hell.

Concertinas part 2: Anglo-German

Title: Unknown

Performer:  Mary McNamara (should sound familiar)

Culture:  Irish music performed on the English adaptation of a German instrument

Instrumentation: Solo Anglo-German concertina

The Anglo-German concertina is a diatonic, bisonoric bellows-driven free-reed instrument. The best explanation of it can be found here.  I really recommend watching it. Geoff Kaufman's concertina is in the keys of Bb and F, which was used for playing with brass instruments while Mary McNamara's is pitched in the keys of C and G, which is preferable for playing with fiddle and other sharp-keyed instruments.

This instrument is sometimes referred to as the Anglo concertina since the reference to Germany was dropped in Europe during WWI for obvious reasons.

This is the type of concertina used on our listening example (and the same instrument, too).

Title:  Dallas Rag

Performer:  Brian Peters

Culture:  Ragtime originated in the United States. Brian Peters is from England.

Instrumentation:  Solo Anglo-German Concertina

Brian Peters has been one of my free-reed idols ever since I heard him play at the Mystic Sea Music Festival many years ago. He is an incredible musician on concertina, button accordion, guitar, and also a great vocalist.

If you have ever heard a squeezebox played in the show Spongebob Squarepants, that is Brian Peters as well.

An interesting thing about Brian Peters' instrument is that it features a third row of keys pitched in diatonic C#, which makes it a chromatic instrument capable of even ragtime.

From Brian Peters' website:
"The Anglo-concertina is the kind where each button produces a different note depending on whether you're pushing or pulling the bellows. None of the other sorts does that, so at least we've put clear blue water between us and them. This push-pull system is often held to imbue the music with intrinsic rhythm, since successive notes of a melody are generally punctuated by changes in bellows direction, but of course it's perfectly possible to play Anglo with all the rhythm of a drunkard falling downstairs, or to produce crisp and driving music on any of the other types. Nevertheless, the common conception is that the Anglo is good for bouncy dance music, the English for smoothly-phrased melodies and subtle song accompaniments, and duets for really clever stuff. The Anglo is also notoriously limited as to its range of keys, and its ability to play tunes containing accidentals."

The Anglo-German concertina is most closely associated with dance music, and can be occasionally used to accompany singing, such as here.

"A barbed rivalry exists between factions of the concertina fraternity: English players look down on Anglo exponents as musical illiterates who can't play outside the key of C; Anglo afficionados, on the other hand, regard players of the English as effete snobs who wouldn't attempt Three Blind Mice without setting up a music stand first. Both views are a little unfair, but it's certainly easier to knock a basic tune out of an Anglo without prior musical knowledge - it's only a glorified mouth-organ, after all. This, and its low price compared with the other types during the late Victorian period, made the Anglo the instrument of choice for traditional musicians."  -Brian Peters (emphasis mine)

However, this rivalry certainly doesn't prevent the different systems from playing together in a jam session. 

Concertinas part 1: English

Everyone in this class has memorized that the concertina was a cheaply-made german instrument that could be bought by women in hardware stores. While all of that is at least to some extent true, I would like to take this opportunity to tell many more faces of the story to those who are interested. 

I am structuring this differently form my previous posts, but I will still include the important information. 

Title: Juberju

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFYVBUxnBxY 
(My apologies for no embedded video-Blogger refuses to show it)

Performer: Jeff Warner

Culture: From the Jeff Warner's website: "This is another song from the northern lumber camps.  It was collected by the Warners from John Galusha (1859-1950), a logger from Minerva, NY, in the Adirondack Mountains.  John said a woodsman could make $4 a day in the late 1800s being in charge of a “jam boat,” rather than a dollar a day working from the shore.  The boat would go out into the middle of a log jam to clear the key logs.  Joe Thomas wanted the extra money but apparently didn't have the extra experience.  “Juberju” seems to descend from “The Bigler's Crew,” a song about a schooner on the Great Lakes and its slow trip from Milwaukee to Buffalo. The song made its way through various US regions - and becomes “The Dogger Bank,” about fishing in northeast England."

Instrumentation: Solo voice and self-accompanied baritone english concertina.

The English concertina was patented in 1829 by Professor C. Wheatstone, a scientist who also invented the stereoscope, a mechanical microphone, and many other musical instruments, and contributed to the developments of spectroscopy and the telegraph. He also measured the speed of electricity in a wire and created the process by which the speed of light was later measured. You can see the amount of engineering that went into it here. 

"Many factors contributed to the popularity of the concertina, not least of which was the instrument’s versatility in terms of its technical capabilities. With a tone that Berlioz described as ‘mordant et doux’,14 the concertina could sing, fly through scale and arpeggio passages at breakneck speed, and—if the composer knew the instrument well—handle both thick chords, strings of parallel thirds and sixths, and true contrapuntal textures." -Allan W. Atlas

"Much variety of tone can be obtained by a skilful player, and it [the concertina] has the power of being played with great expression and complete sostenuto and staccato. Violin, flute, and oboe music can be performed on it without alteration; but music written specially for the concertina cannot be played on any other instrument, except the organ or harmonium. Nothing but the last-named instruments canproduce at once the extended harmonies, the sostenuto and staccato combined, of which the concertina is capable." -George Grove (1870's)

The English concertina had a place as a classical instrument in Victorian England. It was created with an advanced knowledge of European music theory in mind, and lends itself well to classical compositions. This quote is taken from W. Caldwell's 1866 pamphlet on English concertina playing:
"Although the Concertina may seem at first sight particularly adapted to the Solitary, it is equally favorable to the most social occasions, such as festive parties, whether musical or terpsichorean: for myself, I frequently take my instrument with me when visiting my friends; and for playing with the Pianoforte, I usually take the melody, but, on the contrary, if my companion should play the Violin or Flute, I leave him the melody, and play under, at one time full chords, at another a running accompaniment. In concerted Vocal Music, you may, with a Treble Concertina, take first or second line, or accompaniment according to taste."

The manual does also mention women playing the concertina: 
"I must not omit to speak of lady concertinists; I have heard of the dangers of Croquet to young men of a susceptible turn of mind, but I think that those perils cannot be compared to the fascination of a group of young ladies in a magic semicircle practising selections on several concertinas. I remember once being present at such a scene, and I went home suffering from heart affection and Concertina on the brain combined. I recovered entirely from the first, but the effects of the latter have not quite disappeared. Ecce signum in hoc libro."

Victorian England had very strict rules about gender and instruments. The acceptable instruments for a woman to play were piano, harp, guitar, and concertina. A study on this can be found here. This shows using sales ledgers, that women only accounted for 12% of concertina purchases. The reputation of concertina as a woman's instrument is due to it being a culturally acceptable instrument.

The english concertina had a large classical repertoire ranging from variations to fantasias, opera transcriptions, and chamber works that were performed in salons and recital halls. 
Now the English concertina is mostly used in folk musics, and the classical repertoire has faded, although a few pieces are still being composed, such as by Chung Wan Choi. 

English concertinas were known for their good quality, engineering and craftsmanship. Because of this, many older instruments are still in surprisingly good condition. For instance, I play a turn of the century Lanchenal that still has the original set of bellows and is in amazing condition regardless of its age. While there were student models made, the English concertina was an instrument associated with the upper class and those with a previous knowledge of music theory. 
When you hear about cheaply-made concertinas they are mostly referring to the Anglo-German system (to be discussed next), which had connections with lower-class music. This is partly due to the relative ease of playing a tune on it. This is all discussed in the next post. 

English concertinas exist in several ranges. The Treble has the same range as a violin, the Tenor the range of the viola, and the Baritone and Soprano an octave below and above the treble. 

Because of its versatility, this instrument is well-suited to adapting new musical styles and compositions. 

The concertina in this video is a 48-key Stagi Tenor model. It is more of a student instrument, but it was my very first, and has an excellent low range.