Learning new tricks for Melodeon!

[**DTN**]

Just an idea .. I made 2 quick videos and put them on my own website to show basics of a simple Triplet (one way anyway) and the other to add simple ornamentation to a tune
If the idea has value i'll add more!!

http://www.diatonics.co.uk/tuition.htm

Derek

[ladydetemps]

So that's what you sound like?

[zubz]

Of course that's a good idea DTN!

I've PM'd you on this subject ....

Chris

[**DTN**]

So that's what you sound like?

Yes .. and i don't always have a severed head!!

[Andy Simpson]

More please!.

I always imagined you with a cockney accent for some reason, though...

[Rob2Hook]

I love the idea of a DTN cockney accent.

"Nice one, Del boy!"

Oh god, that make me Trigger.  "Alright, Dave?"

Rob (born in SE5)

[Andy Next Tune]

Nice one DTN!

[GbH]

Yes, very worthwhile.  Thanks, Derek.

For some reason, I'd not previously considered playing triplets with 4 fingers.  I'll have to give it a try.   

I must admit that I find it both fascinating and perplexing that you clearly have a great command of the practical application of music theory, yet don't appear to consider knowledge of note names to be of any great value to you.  I find it really hard to understand how that can possibly work - yet it most clearly does.     

[**DTN**]

Yes, very worthwhile.  Thanks, Derek.

For some reason, I'd not previously considered playing triplets with 4 fingers.  I'll have to give it a try.   

I must admit that I find it both fascinating and perplexing that you clearly have a great command of the practical application of music theory, yet don't appear to consider knowledge of note names to be of any great value to you.  I find it really hard to understand how that can possibly work - yet it most clearly does.     

I've never been taught music ... can't read music and have never found the need to know what the actual note is i'm playing Bass or Treble! .. so i do "tune" out when the wordy waffle gets going! ... But i do have perfect pitch and if i hear a tune (if its in the English folk world its often in D G am Em so i can recognise the sound and away we go .
Mostly i learn new tunes from CD , playing of Melodeon players so i know the notes are on one of my boxes somewhere!
If the tune is awkward i.e in A C or Gm Dm (im told these are the keys .. but i'm not bothered why)  on a DG box .... i hunt around across the rows on the box to find the best note flow ... whilst working out where a good chord can slot in and as before i instantly know whether a chord fits or not!

This all gives me the flexibility to freelance any tune i play and real time harmonise and alter the chord sequence as i can hear its right and instinctively I know the limits of whats available  based on what im hearing to put in chords!

Most Keys have fixed chord patterns or different sequences that you just recycle in a tune as you go along .... change key and you change the sequences!
I know what is a C chord on my DG box as its the one that works the same both ways but thats about it in terms of button recognition! .... If i play that same bass position on my CF  i don't know what note it is! ... I don't feel the need to know .. i like the freelance flexibility of simply managing sound!
Derek

[LJC]

Slightly at a tangent here, but hang with me! I do a lot of peripatetic music teaching in schools and one of my students is 12, grade 8+ piano/organ/clarinet and has perfect pitch. He is really 'normal' otherwise (no offense intended, I just mean to say he doesn't have any of the conditions which result in extra musical ability).

He has got quite irritated in the past with instruments (box, mandolin, etc) or synth patches which are to his ears 'out of tune', but in reality are like a melodeon with two in tune/out of tune notes beating together.

So, Derek, does having perfect pitch have any bearing on your perception of the sound of the melodeon? I've always been fascinated by this, but never found anyone to ask!

[Fidjit]

Yes, very worthwhile.  Thanks, Derek.

For some reason, I'd not previously considered playing triplets with 4 fingers.  I'll have to give it a try.   

I must admit that I find it both fascinating and perplexing that you clearly have a great command of the practical application of music theory, yet don't appear to consider knowledge of note names to be of any great value to you.  I find it really hard to understand how that can possibly work - yet it most clearly does.     

In a lot of ways I'm with Derek. Though not really in the same street.

What I mean is I'm hopeless at names, therefore what the notes are called. Forget it !

Hit a button. If it fits remember it. 

 

[**DTN**]

So, Derek, does having perfect pitch have any bearing on your perception of the sound of the melodeon? I've always been fascinated by this, but never found anyone to ask!

I have 6 DG melodeons ... all of them sound different to me and thats why i have so many (thats what i tell the wife anyway) its not so much perfect pitch its the instinctive knowing in real time while playing a tune even one i've never heard ... go round 3 times and i will play it in key and develop chord structures and harmonies as i go along knowing instinctively where the boundaries are to keep the tune sounding right! ( Rob of Hook knows i stretch the boundaries too far sometimes!  ) if im playing on my own or with hook musos i like to shift the rhythm real time too within the boundaries of the tune... i like the sound of doing that but can't explain actually what i'm doing  maybe ROB can explain as hes the victim of it mostly!

Derek

[GbH]

That's really interesting Derek, thanks.

I've played (or tried to play) instruments for most of my life, but until my relatively recent 'conversion' to melodeon, I never really used to consider the rationale behind chords, keys, progressions, modes, rhythms and a lot of other things too.  I just played music from the dots, exactly as it was written, and left all the theory to the composer or arranger.  However, with the melodeon, ignoring the theory just doesn't seem to be an option.  Right from the start, I found myself having to go back and learn about chord patterns and suchlike, because it seemed so much a part of how melodeons work.  I'm getting better (I think) at understanding the posts that Chris and others make in this respect, but I still don't feel on top of it in the way that others seem to be.

So, it's quite intriguing for me to discover that there are people, like yourself, that have managed to acquire a really solid grasp of theory and technique (it's obvious that you have this...), but via a route that doesn't rely on conventional teaching or terminology.


Guy

[Anahata]

So, it's quite intriguing for me to discover that there are people, like yourself, that have managed to acquire a really solid grasp of theory and technique (it's obvious that you have this...), but via a route that doesn't rely on conventional teaching or terminology.

Trial and error... but it requires a good ear (which Derek obviously has) to know what sounds wrong and what sounds right, to "hear" in your head very clearly and unshakingly what you are expecting and to experiment till you've found it. Or to try things (e.g. chords) at random and know immediately when you've hit on a good'un...

Melodeons are particularly suited to this instinctive approach, I suspect.

[Lin Erica]

Great idea, if only i could hear you.  I dont seem able to get any sound 
Lin

[Anahata]

By the way, the "triplets with 4 fingers" thing is often associated with Sharon Shannon as it's a notable feature of her playing, but I heard it was Phil Cunningham who taught her how to do that; it works equally well on piano keys or buttons. In fact I believe it's related to a standard technique for concert pianists when playing rapidly repeated notes, usually involving the thumb.

A lot of Irish and Scottish box players do it now.

[Chris Ryall]

Am I going daft - but how do you play three notes - with four fingers  

[edit per below] OK ... so it's actually a 3 finger job, but done with little/ring/middle .. continue 

[Anahata]

Am I going daft - but how do you play three notes - with four fingers 

I think the idea is you sometimes use 4th, 3rd and 2nd for the triplet and then 1st finger to hit the next note, especially if it's a further repetition of the triplet note, which it often is.

You can't really have a triplet without the note before or after it. (philosophical twiglet zone question...)

[mikesamwild]

I think Derek is in the company of most great intuitive traditional, folk and pop musicians.  Hear it, take it away, hear it in the head and play it and practice.
To much theorizing can drive you mad methinks

[nfldbox]

I can do the four finger triplet but not when I have used the pinky for the last note. I guess I still find the pinky is rather the weakest and slowest of my fingers.
I am sure Steve will just tell me to use three fingers anyway.