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[richard.fleming]

 Why are D and G the preferred Irish keys if BC accordions, fiddles, and uilleann pipes can play in any key. Is the tin whistle making this decision for them?

I'm not sure that most frequent is the same as preferred. Certainly in the tunes cluttering up my desktop there are a lot of tunes in A major,A minor, E minor, a few in C, several in D dorian or A mixolydian.

[Lester]

I'm not sure that most frequent is the same as preferred.

If they are not preferred how did they get to be the most frequent, surely if other keys were preferred that is the key theu would have been played in?

Certainly in the tunes cluttering up my desktop there are a lot of tunes in A major,A minor, E minor, a few in C, several in D dorian or A mixolydian.

All of which, with the exception of C are reasonably easily available on a D/G box

[Dick Rees]

When attempting to evaluate phenomena/trends and establish correlations between the micro- and the macro-, beware Heisenberg...

[richard.fleming]

Certainly in the tunes cluttering up my desktop there are a lot of tunes in A major,A minor, E minor, a few in C, several in D dorian or A mixolydian.

All of which, with the exception of C are reasonably easily available on a D/G box

Do you have to use chin-end accidentals or helper rows to play tunes in those keys on the DG?

[Gary P Chapin]

The early '70's essentially kick started the English music scene again after it nearly died out.

Also, in Irtrad and tradFrench. Jean Blanchard's Accordeon Diatonique album did SO much for that music.

Disdain for the changes, to me, reads like disdain for the people. It typically promotes what ordinary peeps did 100 200+ years ago over what people are doing now ...

I agree, but I'm not sensing disdain in this thread. I find it completely fascinating this idea that our tools shape our decisions by what comes naturally to them (cf. Neil Postman). You can see the same phenomenon in every shift in musical styles, from renaissance to baroque to classical to romantic era. Partly the new instruments allowed for the execution of new ideas, partly the new instruments were suggesting these ideas. This is the kind of thinking and conversation I do for fun ... which is why I love this board so much.

[Fred]

Having no direct connection to the English trad/session scene, I feel a bit lost reading through this thread.

Here's my (absolutely unqualified) 2 cents on this topic:

1. Just play in whatever key you (or your audience) likes.

2. Don't worry about what other musicians do, be it with respect to their choice of keys or their instruments' number of buttons.

3. Most importantly, don't overthink things. Just play.

[Squeaky Pete]

When you are playing in G with a gurdy and the gurdy goes into Gmin on the same drones you can't just pick up a CF box to play in a melodeon friendly key.
The half row on the (say) Mory makes it achievable to most players.
Same with pipes, major to minor is only using the Bb thumb hole these days so the melodeon has to follow.
Just my view.

[Tone Dumb Greg]

And another thing... as soon as you start favouring increased chromasticity to enable playing in wider varieties of keys, the music becomes locked in to equal temperment.

Are you saying that English music today, at least as played on D/G boxes, is not locked into equal temperament?

Surely it is the instrument that locks you in, not the choice of keys. Fiddle - No, not confined to ET, regardless of key. DBA - Yes.

Quite the opposite, really. I'm thinking from an historical perspective. The rise in popularity of instruments with fixed tuning has led to the demise of the old modal ways of putting tunes together. 

Fiddles are infinitely variable. Whistles can be genuinely diatonic and a set of them easily carried around. A one row melodeon could easily be tuned with just intonation but, as soon as you want to include more than one key on an instrument that can't be easily adjusted you have to go with equal intonation. If a DG is used for only playing tunes in G (for instance) then you can have it tuned to match. If you want to play in D and G you need to go equal temperament. Same applies to a CC# or C#D , or whatever. Play in more than one key and you need equal temperament.

I am not saying that this is a good or a bad thing. Just that it changes the music.
I suppose my core point is that, as you make the music more involved, you need to make compromises.
And if you try to overcome a melodeon (or Diatonic Accordion, or whatever's) limitations it will lose it's "melodeon" character and become something different.

[Thrupenny Bit]

Blimey..... I go for a cuppa and a quick garden and have these wonderful replies!

Thanks Rees, I knew Bob Cann changed boxes but couldn't remember. Now I know ( and hope to remember it next time!)

Gena, yes sessions are hugely affected by its' members and their playing ability.

Richard, yes the DG 2r8b has chin end accidentals ( or low notes, according to your preference ) and I use them frequently.
As Lester points out, it enables several other keys to be reached, which I do frequently and preferred!

Dick I will beware Heisenberg if ever I meet him

Gary, yes I think we are both on the same wavelength.
I've attended a little presentation about warfare and instruments, lumbering through shawm, sackbutts and bagpipes of various styles. As you say, the instruments evolve alongside the tunes they wish to play, a hand in glove symbiotic relationship. I sense this might be happening now, hence this thread.


I think Pete has summed up the problem discussed.
A time ago I don't think melodeonists would be sat in a session with a Gurdy, let alone trying to play with it.
Now we are, and I feel times are a-changing, with people wanting to play along in odd keys and unusual instruments along with researching odd keyed tunes and wanting the ability to do this. A straight 2r8b DG will struggle in such circumstances.

[Lester]

The other option if someone else is laying in the key of unobtainium is to sit and appreciate their playing.

[Steve_freereeder]

The other option if someone else is laying in the key of unobtainium is to sit and appreciate their playing.

I agree, Lester, and I wish more people would do this. In my experience, what tends to happen at a session when someone starts playing an unusual tune or in a key other than D or G, is that people rudely start talking loudly or pushing past others to get to the bar - anything to pass the time until the resumption of the 'proper' tunes or keys. 

[richard.fleming]

The other option if someone else is laying in the key of unobtainium is to sit and appreciate their playing.

Yes Lester except if you are working in a particular genre, for example, you might well want to be able (theoretically or even actually) to play the whole repertoire, not just to play the really well-known tunes but also some of the most unusual and possibly more interesting ones.

I hope Gina isn't getting her sense of disdain from anything I've written because that's miles away from what I have been trying to contribute to this thread.

[Gary P Chapin]

The other option if someone else is laying in the key of unobtainium is to sit and appreciate their playing.

There have to be some points were you go to the bathroom or get a pint or chat up that lovely someone.

[Julian S]

The other option if someone else is laying in the key of unobtainium is to sit and appreciate their playing.

There have to be some points were you go to the bathroom or get a pint or chat up that lovely someone.

Why is it that people will happily sit and enjoy a good song when they are often less prepared to do the same with a well played tune ? But maybe with the challenges of running pub sessions in the future smaller house sessions will be better - much as I enjoy the local pub !

J

[Thrupenny Bit]

It's always worth taking a break and listening to others play. After all, you might well be expecting others to listen to you if you are introducing a new tune to a session.
It also gives you a breather, letting the fingers unwind whilst you think of another tune.

In answer to Julian, perhaps it's the volume.
Others think if someone is playing, you can talk under the tune. It is annoying if you're playing and concentrating.
I also think it's rude in my opinion!
Q

[Lester]

Others think if someone is playing, you can talk under the tune. It is annoying if you're playing and concentrating.
I also think it's rude in my opinion!

My pet hate is string players who think that now they have electronic tuners they can tune whilst others are playing/singing

[Peadar]

Is the English melodeon at a point of change? Possibly....when I dipped my toe into the sea of melodia about 18 months ago (shortly before I got sucked  into the whirl pool of MAD) my initial impression was that there was a cottage industry based on converting every Hohner that ever there was to the key of DG for certain because these are the keys that teddy bears sing in chorus.

Initial impressions may have been formed by a snapshot of discussions on melnet at that time....but I am getting the impression that there is a growing interest in what came before the DG and some people are digging deeper into older localised sources which, paradoxically have become more widely available throuh the internet.

There does however seem to be a bit of a fixation with the idea that melodies have keys. They don't but tunes set into the Greek scale using standard notation (or any other notation for that matter) do. In the case of Gaidhlig music - inextricably related to song- the transcriptions of late 19th andd early 20th century field collectors are in a bewildering variety of (often flat) keys.

(Edit to add :Post unfinished- but thunderstorm on and power flickering)

[Thrupenny Bit]

Peadar, interesting observations.
I too sense a change, hence this thread.
Little things happen. I saw Ollie King do a short 20 minute set at Sidmouth Folk Festival about 3 years back. The sublime sound prompted me to get a BbEb melodeon along with others here. A sort of sub set affiliated to the DG crowd enjoying non - squeaky tunes 
There would have been a time, as you say, when everything was converted to DG but now people are spreading their wings. Different keyed melodeons, tunes, genera etc.
Things they are a- changin' !

[rees]

I would welcome a mainstream change. I get really bored with endless D/G sessions and ceilidh bands.
Luckily my local session has always been "anything goes" and my main band instruments are a B flat one row four stop and a G/C two row.

[Tufty]

I have followed this thread for a while, lots of very interesting observations. I think the big changes during my time playing (began 1978) have been the decline in one size fits all in Melodeons and a growth of interest in other styles of music beyond the British traditions I grew up with. I think there may be two approaches: 1. bigger, three row-18 base boxes, hoping to be able to play everything on the same instrument and 2. accept that different styles of music are best played on different instruments. I am firmly in the second camp but this may be due to my weakness for 1 rows! As a result I now have D/G, G/C, Eb/Bb and C/F, plus assorted 1 rows. I accept the inconvenience because I prefer to play on what I feel is the best instrument for the particular tune (also because I would get lost with 18 basses and get a hernia from a 3 row _. My only concern about the rise of the big box is that the music might become more homogeneous as everyone was playing the same instruments, perhaps this is already happening as much modern English playing is sounding more and more continental? It would be a pity if the understandable desire to go beyond the D/G just led to a different, heavier and more expensive conformity.