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Author Topic: G C# two row?  (Read 2053 times)

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Chris Ryall

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G C# two row?
« on: October 05, 2011, 02:24:44 PM »



I'm was intrigued by (spurious) references to GC# layouts.   I've actually got these rows on my C#DG (sort of) and Blues tune lines in particular have a very strong tendency to want to play across these inner and outer rows on my kit.  It's perhaps another example of 'instability' as a plus point in an instrument  - the two scales are diametrically opposite on the 'chord wheel' so as unrelated or "out" as one can get.

So is this a sane layout - say as opposed to C#/D
   
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Owen Woods

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Re: G C# two row?
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2011, 12:44:06 PM »

I think that there is promise to this layout. All the notes, a diminished fifth apart is much better than a semitone, as it is further away from the original. Loads of interesting things would be possible. Lots of potential three row variants as well, like GBF. Interesting.
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Bergflodt D/G 4 voice, Saltarelle Bouebe D/G, Super Preciosa D/Em, Hohner Impiliput B/C+C#

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pgroff

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Re: G C# two row?
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2011, 03:02:21 PM »

Hi Chris and all,

I like this idea . . . but then I think all new instrument-design ideas have merit at least for stretching the imagination. I don't think I have ever seen this combination suggested before!  A few thoughts in response:

1) For a trial of the system, it would be easy enough to set up a pokerwork with outside row (low) G blocks from a G/C and inside row C# blocks from a C/C#.  These rows would differ by an interval of an augmented fourth -- is that exactly what you propose?

2) I like the idea of a main key row in G and have been exploring box layouts centered near G myself lately.  Diatonic accordions with rows tuned to G (for playing in that key and its modes) can have a wonderful tone quality for small to medium size boxes especially if you have some octave tuned reeds (voicings such as LM, LLM, LMM, or LLMM). The old Globe and International 1-row boxes I have seen tuned to G have been voiced LLMM instead of LMMH like the D boxes.  When voiced in LM or one of those variants, the range of sounds you can obtain over 10 - 13 buttons of a G row gives a rich full sound at either end of the keyboard, without needing 3 octaves of reeds (LMH).

3) A man named Stinson Behlen (RIP) *  once proposed a 2-row layout for 20-key concertina that would combine C major and A major, to choose diatonic keys widely used for American folk music, and also to give more cross-row accidentals than the typical combinations of C/G, G/D, etc.  This starts to approach the concept of a semitone-tuned box.   Your suggested layout would be even closer in concept to the layouts with rows a semitone apart, since the G and C# rows you propose would only have 2 duplicated/ reversed notes in each octave (F# and C natural).  Of course, the reversed duplicates for F#/G would be the notes F# and B and the reversed duplicates for G/G# would be C and G.

4) Back to your original motivation for the G/C# system, playing blues on the diatonic box.  I've played some blues over the years on a lot of instruments.  When you have the basically vocal sound of this music in your head, there are a lot of ways to communicate that feeling through the medium of different instruments. The pitches of the notes you choose (scales etc) are important, but I would say not as important as rhythm, attack, and phrasing.  Think of the simplistic way that some rock guitarists riff up and down the note of a supposedly "blues" pentatonic scale and think they are playing blues.  The so-called "blues scales" don't make music that sounds like blues if it's not played right.  And 10 buttons (7 different notes of a diatonic scale and its modes) of a 1-row box can make blues as deep as you want -- listen to some of the great creole 1-row players like Bee Fontenot **

But after the rhythm and attack, the pitch information you use can be part of creating bluesy sounding phrase and feeling.  Often people seem to assume that you have to have an instrument or a technique allowing pitch flexibility to sound bluesy (like bending notes on a harmonica or guitar) but again I think that's a superficial assumption. Already mentioned Bee Fontenot; Bois Sec Ardoin is another great example on the 1-row box. But then considering chromatic instruments, piano players, hammond organ players, banjo-guitar players etc etc have been expressing great blues feeling out of instruments without bending notes for generations. One way of working those instruments is to use crushes or short chromatic glisses, down a 1/2 step or especially up a 1/2 step -- such as hitting the F# black key of a piano and sliding that finger over to the G key.

With this in mind, I have often said that blues players on diatonic boxes ought to try a version of the Irish-American D/C# box layout, maybe transposed to G/F#, A/G#, C/B, etc.  This layout is set up with the tonic of the inside row displaced up toward the player's chin, compared to the tonic of the outside row -- so that upward 1/2 step glisses from the inside row to the outside row are really easy and natural, and feel a lot like playing that F#-to-G gliss I just described on the piano or Hammond organ.  In fact, the old Italian system of G/C/B (maybe transposed to a low E/A/G# or D/G/F#) would have a lot to recommend it, because then some of the zydeco licks from G/C boxes could be used too.

PG


* http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2646

** http://www.amazon.com/Les-haricots-sont-pas-sal%C3%A9s/dp/B002ZPVZV6
« Last Edit: October 06, 2011, 04:19:09 PM by pgroff »
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Owen Woods

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Re: G C# two row?
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2011, 05:51:49 PM »

surely extension of the same principle would suggest G B Eb as the corresponding 3-row?
Lord knows what goes on at the other end, though. Stradella I guess.

How? GBEb would be a nice system, going up in major thirds, but this is going up in diminished fifths. So either we have a diminished fifth with another one inbetween (like C#DG or or GCC# or GAC#) or have something followed by a diminished fifth. This something should have a fair few reversals, so should be a tone or two out from one of them, i.e. FGC# or GC#D#. Depends on what keys you want to play in really. I think that GBF would be an interesting system.
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Chris Ryall

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Re: G C# two row?
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2011, 06:34:29 PM »

1) For a trial of the system, it would be easy enough to set up a pokerwork with outside row (low) G blocks from a G/C and inside row C# blocks from a C/C#.  These rows would differ by an interval of an augmented fourth -- is that exactly what you propose?

Spot on - #4th is the same as b5th

Quote
With this in mind, I have often said that blues players on diatonic boxes ought to try a version of the Irish-American D/C# box layout

More or less what I've got:  F and Bb Blues are the fluid runnerss - especially Bb! 

btw: on a quint box the fluid (all pull) Blues scale is a semitone below inner row key. So F# blues on a D/G, B blues on a G/C  8)
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pgroff

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Re: G C# two row?
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2011, 06:50:56 PM »

Hi Chris,

I'll have to try your suggestion on a quint box!

So you are clear about mine (since a lot of folks on your side of the atlantic don't know how D/C# differs from C#/D), this is the D/C#
layout:


Inside row (lowest pitch to highest, press /draw):  F/A#    G#/C   C#/D#   F/F#   G#/A#  C#/C   F/D#    G#/F#  C#/A#  F/C
Outside row (same):                                      D/G    F#/B   A/C#    D/E      F#/G    A/B      D/C#    F#/E    A/G      D/B      F#/C#

The old Italian G/C/B layout:
                                                                           D#/G#  F#/A#  B/C#  D#/E  F#/G#  B/A#  D#/C#  F#/E  B/G#  D#/A#
                                                                      C/F     E/A     G/B      C/D     E/F     G/A      C/B     E/D      G/F     C/A      E/B
                                                                            B/E      D/F#     G/A    B/C     D/E     G/F#    B/A     D/C      G/E      B/F#  

Note that in the case of either of these layouts, from any button on the innermost row you can slide your finger toward the floor and out to the next outer row to get an "upward 1/2 step glissando" on either press or draw.  

PG
« Last Edit: October 06, 2011, 08:03:46 PM by pgroff »
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pgroff

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Re: G C# two row?
« Reply #6 on: November 14, 2013, 01:18:45 PM »

Here's a Savoia Luigi box, said to have its melody rows in A and Eb major; depending on their orientation, those keys (at an interval of an augmented fourth) might be a transposition of the G C# layout we discussed above.

http://bandonion.info/solo,IV-61.htm


Considered further in my second post here:

http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,13595.0.html
« Last Edit: November 14, 2013, 03:34:14 PM by pgroff »
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