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Author Topic: B/C fingering`  (Read 2916 times)

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KLR

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B/C fingering`
« on: May 30, 2017, 03:56:27 AM »

Are any of the B/C players still lurking/reading/posting here?  I'm finally getting the hang of it after switching from C#/D around Christmas, ignored a terrible leak in the air button until recently which slowed me down but that's fixed now and a new bellows will arrive from Slovenia soon too.  I actually play a 96 bass B/C/C# but what I've discovered is that the C# row mostly gets ignored when playing in G/D/A, it's nice for slightly smoothing out things in certain tunes and playing rolls on F# but otherwise just use the outer two rolls.

I'm curious what others do with the press B and E, there are a whole host of ways you can play the opening notes of the jig Trip to Sligo for instance, I've been just playing everything on the press because throwing in a pull note brings things to a halt.  I hope with time I'll develop more control and be able to mix it up more.  Or Cooley's reel, you could play a press or pull E in the 2nd part, pull E followed by pull B seems a bit more monolithic, let's say, press E gives things more bounce and I've settled on that, I'm always playing rolls on those Bs, too.  If you were tapping out 3 Bs you could press them on the outside row.  So, lots of options.  Do instructors hash out details like this?  Billy McComiskey talked in an interview about how he and his teacher Sean McGlynn would agonize over which choice of note to make in tunes, this set them apart, the dedication to detail they had, other box players were much more blase about it all.

Regarding what to do with that little finger, I've found that it can be invaluable, except where it's the last thing you want to do.  Hornpipes with arpeggios in them have to have the little finger to work for me, High Level, Poppy Leaf, Golden Eagle.  But if I try and use the pinky in the Mason's Apron things grind to a halt - that section at the end of the 1st part where you play the A major scale starting from G#.  It almost feels like I'm dragging fingers across rows to play that, kind of a strange sensation, really.  But it works! 

On my old Hohner I notice I have to lift fingers sometimes, due to the action not being good enough - the jig the Gold Ring (the one in D) is a good example, I have to actually get the fingers a bit airborne to play FE|DB'A'|DFA.  My Manfrini lets you slide across those buttons.  So there's an example where the quality of the instrument actually can dictate how you play things.

Damien Connolly's tutor shows the middle or index finger being dragged across the rows from A to F# a lot - that really puzzled me at first, then I realized you have to use this technique a lot of the time to play at speed, or I do anyway.  Maybe the Scottish players always use the little finger there, planning ahead for it.  I know they frown on sliding as a rule.  This might be a fundamental difference in thinking between the musics, for all their similarities. 

Hope this of interest.
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hallelujahal

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2017, 06:35:48 AM »

Lots of questions and thoughts in there which I'll need to agonise a little bit over myself...one for later on today I guess. However, my initial response to the pinky problem is to agree..I've found that the using the little finger can often be a dead end and leads to sometimes unnecessary contortions 😜

Interestingly the same is true on a piano keyboard...hence the method of passing the thumb under the third and or fourth fingers.

But the thumb rarely gets used by BC players which means that at times the smallest finger needs to be used. Personally I try to use my little finger only when absolutely necessary and where it makes playing a tune easier. But I'm no expert, there are others here far more experienced than I in these matters.
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Gromit

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2017, 09:58:45 AM »

Quote
Or Cooley's reel, you could play a press or pull E in the 2nd part,

In most cases I press on E's and B's as outside row notes sound slightly weaker on my Boube.

I also use the little finger sometimes in arpeggios and also to cut(?) the note I'm playing with the 4th finger.

Quote
section at the end of the 1st part where you play the A major scale starting from G#

Masons Apron - I'd play the last 2 bars |Bcde fgaf|edcB A2: as this

|B (2 pull) c (3 pull) d (2 pull) e (2 push) f (1 push) g (2 pull) a (3 pull) f (2 push)| e (3 pull) d (2 pull) c (3 pull) B (2 pull) A2 (1 pull):

I probably cross finger? (one finger under the other) more than I should but I find it easier here than sliding.
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george garside

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2017, 11:26:37 AM »

whilst you can play a bcc# as a bc using only the outside two rows  it is much easier to use  3!.  The only possible advantage of learning tunes initialy using the BC rows is that you can then do the same on the CC# rows and it will come out in the flat keys- which can be useful attimes.

The C on the inside row is very handy as iit leads in to a run of cde on the pull or t'other way round EDC on the push.  The G scale can also be played  using G(push) ABCDE(pull)F#G (push)

As to whether or not to use the little finger or indeed how many fingers to use varies with the particular bit of a particular tune and I use the little finger quite a bit but not all the time!   On the other hand the fast run down in harvest home I find works best using only the 1st and 2nd fingers (on BC rows) and 'walking 'down the buttons which can be done very quickly with a bit of practice.

There are no hard and fast rules as to 'correct' fingering or 'correct' use of the alternative buttons but it is often helpful to experiment slowly with various combinations of buttons/bellows direction/fingers to use!!!

george
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KLR

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2017, 01:31:49 PM »

gromit - I was actually meaning the penultimate part of the Apron, I think - GABc defg | a~A3 cBAF | etc.  That 1st bar is the one I had to decode.  I play the final bars a bit differently than you do too.

Well George, Daniel McPhee says he just plays the box like a B/C and only uses the C# row to control the bellows, most of the time anyway.  I'd guess his nephew plays the same way?  Fearsome musicians, these McPhees.  I think Graham McKay said he uses the C# row a bit more than that, though.  Hard to tell exactly what they're up to from low resolution camera footage and the odd posting on an internet forum.

But I've tried playing tunes in G/D/A entirely on the C/C# rows, or practicing tricky parts using the C# row more, and more often than not it just seems to be asking for trouble.  Another good example is the James Hill hornpipe The South Shore, which in Ireland is played as a reel and called The Scholar.  The first notes are dfaf gfeg and, while you can play that opening arpeggio with the C/C# rows all on the pull instead of having to break things up with the press f# on the B row, it's just as easy to break things up anyway - isn't that what we like about melodeons anyway?

Now, in the 2nd part of that tune you have a2fd fafd | faaf bfaf | g2ec egec | egec defg | etc which I am playing on the pull, for those pesky arpeggios, it's just less of a hassle, that press f# really trips me up somehow.  It seems to me that with enough practice you can express yourself more this way, ala the way fiddlers can manipulate bowing.  So long as you don't forget what to do...don't want to have to try out fingerings in the middle of a tune to remember what worked before!
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KLR

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2017, 01:27:24 AM »

Going back to just plain B/C players, I've always had the impression that they'll do anything to avoid playing in A major.  Indeed Joe Burke has never recorded anything in that key, even on records with NYC fiddlers, who play in Amaj all day.  Peter Browne wrote something on another site about how he avoided it for years, then got down to practicing it and figured out that you just need to, you know, practice.  Indeed I'm having no more or less trouble playing in A than many tunes in D or G.  Haven't done a poll of recordings to see if musicians on disc really avoid A like they're supposed to.  There are good box players around where I live but we don't run into each other much so I haven't had the chance to pick their brains, either. 
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Stiamh

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2017, 01:58:25 AM »

On a plain 8-bass B/C with bisonoric basses, if you wanted to play basses in Em you'd have to play most of the Es and Bs on the press, which makes tunes like Cooley's and Morrisons a little less fluid, it seems to me, than if you played everything on the draw. Of course this doesn't apply to unisonoric or stradella basses.

I just tried that run in the Mason's Apron from G# up to a and found it interesting. Easiest to play even the E on the draw, I thought, meaning that the only press note was the F#.

123121123 worked well for me ... but to paraphrase Sartre, l'enfer, c'est le doigté des autres (hell is other people's fingerings) :)

Steve_freereeder

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #7 on: May 31, 2017, 07:41:34 AM »

Going back to just plain B/C players, I've always had the impression that they'll do anything to avoid playing in A major.....
I know plenty of D/G players who feel just the same. ;)

Quote
Peter Browne wrote something on another site about how he avoided it for years, then got down to practicing it and figured out that you just need to, you know, practice.
It was only after many years that I actually found that playing in A major on a D/G box was often OK, but just needed a bit more practice. Being a late starter in that key, I still am not as fluent as I should be. Must do more practice...  ::)
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JohnS

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #8 on: May 31, 2017, 09:32:06 AM »

Quote
Going back to just plain B/C players, I've always had the impression that they'll do anything to avoid playing in A major.
I play B/C in a mixed session with some tunes in AMaj and F#Min.  It's probably the hardest of the common keys but by no means impossible.  A lot of the notes are on the draw, so you often have to use a push E to balance out the air, even when a pull E would be the easier fingering.
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george garside

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #9 on: May 31, 2017, 09:53:18 AM »

I don't have any problems with A on a BC box and for what its worth I use fingers 12323343  (33 being push pull on same button). On the other hand A can be a bit more buggerous on a 2 row DG if the G# has to be faked - pipe marches mostly easy as G#less.

as far as a BC is concerned I find the keys FCGDAE the easiest and with the 12 stradella (double ray 2 voice) there is a bit of accompaniment available for all of those keys

george
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Trish S

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #10 on: June 01, 2017, 12:40:11 AM »

Guess it's what you get used to (and practice!). I play a lot in A on a B/C, admittedly not much left hand, but you can throw in R-hand major chords quite easily. I use the B row E on the pull quite a lot,especially with the A bass/chord combination. And the B row B on the push, when playing in E min, along with the bass E in left hand.
I've always said, "with a B/C, you can play in any key, provided you can find the right buttons" - and this does apply mainly to R hand! Thanks to playing along with various singers I often find myself having to play in F E Bb Eb etc as well as the more familiar keys of G D A and C. Minors Am Bm Em Dm F#m are pretty Ok, Cm Gm Fm take a bit more thought. Ab is a bit of a no go area.

As for avoiding playing in A: we have so many pipe tunes in A (whether Amaj, A modal or Amin) that you cannot avoid them! (We don't transpose them into G!)

For fingering: I was taught to do some sliding and find it very useful. Also taught not to use pinkie, tho it sometimes slips in.
For that last phrase of Mason's Apron, I would do the same as Gromit up until that first e,
then I would slide on 1 to f (push) g# (pull 2) a (pull 3) f (push 2) e (pull 2) d (pull 3) slide to c# (pull 3) B (pull 2) A (pull 1)
Think this makes for smoother runs and less crossing of fingers!
« Last Edit: June 01, 2017, 10:57:31 AM by Trish S »
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boxer

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #11 on: June 02, 2017, 07:25:47 PM »

I only play B/C. 

A major's just another key.  It's not much harder or easier that D or G, just less commonly played in most sessions, and requiring slightly greater dexterity with the air key and bellows.  It feels a far longer way up the keyboard from bottom E to top C# than it does from bottom D to top B.  Another difference is than more of the notes of the A scale appear (and often play logically, in the case of E, where there's a choice) on the outside row.

Even remote keys like Eb aren't all that much harder than G or D, just different, with fewer runs of same-bellows direction steps, and more intervals in the scale where a change of row, button, and bellows direction must take place simultaneously.

As for press or draw on the E and B buttons, I use whichever best suits the fingering and phrasing of the particular figure they appear in. 

Try learning one or two of your simpler tunes in odd keys - it's great for developing bellows and keyboard technique.

And welcome to the madhouse that is B/C


 
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KLR

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Re: B/C fingering`
« Reply #12 on: June 03, 2017, 11:02:38 PM »

What genre of music are you playing, Trish?  I know a few pipe marches, was trying out the Lovat Scouts in A the other day for instance.  But they're in the minority for me.

Eb I obtain on the 3 row by just playing D fingering on the C/C#.  That was easy!  Now I just need to learn a 5th tune in that key...

I'm practicing modulating up a semitone, for yucks, too.  D to Eb or G to Ab.  Great way to irritate people. 

Another tune where I'm wondering what to do is the Monaghan Jig, where the last part's opening bars can all be played on the press, it's nothing but E/G/B arpeggios.  Or you can pull those E's and B's.  This is where knowing as many tunes as possible comes in handy!

It's been interesting trying to play in F - I used to play the C#/D and going back to that fingering is almost bizarre, I've wiped it from my memory banks.  When I started trying to play B/C I was constantly trying to use the old fingering, or thinking in its terms - you know, pretend it's the Kesh Jig in A and it'll come out in G, etc.  Now all of that stuff has been eradicated and I'm having to learn it again for F.  I always thought getting the hang of the D fingering on the B/C would be bizarre and unnatural, too.  I'm still impressed that anyone ever figured it out, too, I guess that was up to historical circumstances - the original designers of the semitone box suggested C/C# for the pitches so the makers built those and the players figured it out, later asking for B/C instead as it's more natural to play.  I've read a good few anecdotes about players obtaining B/C instruments and just playing along the rows, Hohner providing B and C basses didn't help, either.  Later on some of the figured out how to get G and D going, but one's natural inclination is to play everything like a one row.
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