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Author Topic: other keys in A/D/G  (Read 8485 times)

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Steve C.

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #20 on: May 14, 2011, 09:04:04 PM »

Jax' site as noted by Matthew is a great resource for 3 row players, but WARNING it can make you crazy.

Not as flexible, but easier to grab onto, is to play it like you are already doing, 3-1rows (an A, a D and a G box) plus 2-2 rows (an AD and a DG).

Just stay off of the French tune sites and you will be OK.  Go there, and craziness lies awaiting.

(been there, done that)

--Steve
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Chris Ryall

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #21 on: May 14, 2011, 11:38:34 PM »

Back from the Cricket Club. Just plotted the buttons out for ADG (not that I'm still avoiding Eurovison). The nub of problem is that the system lacks F, Bb  and Eb in both directions. While these aren't enormously useful notes in British folk music they become quite important should you want to swing it up a bit or play blues.  

Every single harmonic minor scale lacks either its minor 3rd, its 'Neapolitan' 6th or the 'sensitive-note' leading 7th note. That's a handicap for Baltic, Klesma, Russian, Balkan, a lot of Spanish stuff, a lot of French - be it folk or swing.  OK, you might get there via the so called accidentals. But that's sort of saying you don't ever intend to play in the second octave  :-\

The other side of this coin is that a lot of buttons are duplicated on both pull and push.  But isn't that a weakness of a system?  However we do get D and E in both directions - really useful when you cross the rows in folk keys.

Its fluent Blues scales are the standard C#, F# (in the form of 2 row pull blues that are on every melodeon) and B - that's all. So we miss out on the session popular E, A D an G blues scales. Again an 'accidental' in the right direction will suffice, but only over one octave.

All in all,  its good for its base keys playing up and down the rows ('though with that extra weight to shift) and their relative minors. In these you also a lot of cross row runs for free.   Outside those keys .. intrinsically restricted IMHO
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george garside

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #22 on: May 15, 2011, 12:28:38 AM »

the same size hohner trichord is chromatic in a practical  & logical way & A,D & G  are dead easy, the scales needed to play all 12 major keys are CADGF. As Chris has said the ADG is fine for playing in AD & G & their relative minors.  For those wishing to go beyond this the only genuinely chromatic push pull box is the BCC#

george
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nemethmik

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #23 on: May 15, 2011, 09:50:49 AM »

As Chris has said the ADG is fine for playing in AD & G & their relative minors.  For those wishing to go beyond this the only genuinely chromatic push pull box is the BCC#
Completely agree. The good thing of ADG is that you can buy a GCF and BbEbAb as well, and your problem is (mostly) solved: 3 boxes one fingering and you can play in three keys. Of course, an FBbEb and an EAD can be added to the set to increase the number of keys you can play a tune. With my son we have bought 2 ADG boxes, 3 GCF boxes (one with gleichton buttons), and a BbEbAb, all of them Hohner.
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Andy in Vermont

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #24 on: May 15, 2011, 12:32:23 PM »

the same size hohner trichord is chromatic in a practical  & logical way & A,D & G  are dead easy, the scales needed to play all 12 major keys are CADGF. As Chris has said the ADG is fine for playing in AD & G & their relative minors.  For those wishing to go beyond this the only genuinely chromatic push pull box is the BCC#

Thank you for that -- I'll have to catch a bus up to Quebec and spread the word to Denis Pepin, Gaston Nolet, and others. (Denis once took my GCF and played, fluently, a set of tunes in Bb and D.)

george garside

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #25 on: May 15, 2011, 12:36:10 PM »

which is why I play DG ,mostly  on the row,  for some session & most band work as its lightweight & highly portable & has bass rhythm & drive available as powerful but not as harmonising as  stradella on a big  box ..  

For anything else that may require other keys I use the bcc#  as it saves carting 12 one rows about in different  keys & offers the big bonus of stradella bass!.

george ;)
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sqwzboxstudent

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #26 on: May 15, 2011, 07:44:36 PM »

thanks waldo, if you see fat elvis in a session be sure to say hello! thanks for all the advise guys!
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Andy in Vermont

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #27 on: May 15, 2011, 09:28:16 PM »

which is why I play DG ,mostly  on the row,  for some session & most band work as its lightweight & highly portable & has bass rhythm & drive available as powerful but not as harmonising as  stradella on a big  box ..  

For anything else that may require other keys I use the bcc#  as it saves carting 12 one rows about in different  keys & offers the big bonus of stradella bass!.

Great, you play 2-row and a bcc#, and this thread is about neither.  I find it interesting to read a thread about A/D/G (applicable to G/C/F etc.) and read so many "contributions" from people who don't actually play the system, explaining why they think that it is so limited.  It's like reading B/C players writing about C#/D.  It really gives a mistaken impression that there aren't many people playing the standard 3-row boxes, when in fact there are tens of thousands of musicians playing this system. (Just apparently only a few of us on mel.net.)

sqwzboxstudent

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #28 on: May 15, 2011, 10:02:37 PM »

i went for ADG cause thats what my family play, very often they change keys but play the same tune ie 2X A , 2X D 2X G then back to A - its prob a romany thing ! i generaly play up and down the row but have started exploring bass hand so have been crossing, just wanted to explore a bit more!
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jb

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #29 on: May 15, 2011, 10:40:03 PM »

Every single harmonic minor scale lacks either its minor 3rd, its 'Neapolitan' 6th or the 'sensitive-note' leading 7th note. That's a handicap for Baltic, Klesma, Russian, Balkan, a lot of Spanish stuff, a lot of French - be it folk or swing.  OK, you might get there via the so called accidentals. But that's sort of saying you don't ever intend to play in the second octave  :-\
...
All in all,  its good for its base keys playing up and down the rows ('though with that extra weight to shift) and their relative minors. In these you also a lot of cross row runs for free.   Outside those keys .. intrinsically restricted IMHO

I play only 3-row quints (ADG and GCF). I operate mostly in the 'base' keys (isn't that what melodeons are about?) but not always in the standard modes, and hardly ever up and down the rows. I have customised accidentals and make frequent use of them. With this setup I manage a fair amount of klezmer and other eastern european stuff. Works for me. Good fun too.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2011, 06:46:42 AM by jb »
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Steve C.

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #30 on: May 15, 2011, 10:53:03 PM »

Give 'em 'ell Andy!

As someone who "goes both ways"  >:E, I do like the DG cause so much anglophilia and morris is played this way.

And you do get forced into that nice and punchy I/O that I guess makes melodeons what they are.

But, GCF, or other 3 rows, you can play music from all over the place, without transposing.  And 12 bass buttons can be handy.

And long runs on the push or pull are fun in their own way.

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waltzman

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #31 on: May 16, 2011, 01:15:50 AM »

I would like to weigh in in favor of the three row quint boxes too.  The third row, in my opinion, adds a lot to the versatility of the (two row) instrument without adding too much to the weight.  The reversals that someone called a waste are extremely helpful in working out fingering issues and matching up chords in the left hand and they are essential to two note harmonic styles like Tex-Mex.  The extra accidentals are also very useful when used as intended, that is to say, as accidentals and not to play in other keys.  Carrying around a whole row of accidentals on a three row diatonic instrument so you can 'play in all twelve keys' misses the whole point of a diatonic instrument in my view.  If you want to play solid rhythmic music and utilize the chords available on a diatonic you are going to have to stick with the keys it was designed to play in.   Once you add a stradella bass you start to loose the lighter weight and smaller bellows advantage of the diatonic.  It's all about compromises.  Furthermore, if you consider cost and availability the three row quint boxes win hands down. If you want lots of keys you can almost buy two Chinese Hohner three row boxes for the price of one Pokerwork.  I'm not sure why the three row quint boxes are the most popular diatonics in the world but I suspect it is because they represent an optimal set of compromises.   ???
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Chris Ryall

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #32 on: May 16, 2011, 06:56:00 AM »

.... Carrying around a whole row of accidentals on a three row diatonic instrument so you can 'play in all twelve keys' misses the whole point of a diatonic instrument in my view.  If you want to play solid rhythmic music and utilize the chords available on a diatonic you are going to have to stick with the keys it was designed to play in. .... 

Agree and disagree (so no change there!) and would like to strike another blow against this silly and probably meaningless term 'accidental'.  If you stick a Bb into a G or Em arrangement it is anthing but 'accidental! It's a flat 5th - technically as far 'out' of the home key as one can get.  You are choosing to stick in a very 'blue' note .. hold it .. play melody through that ... detente  8)  Miraculously this works and is the basis of much of the stuff I listed above.

Or play in G but with an Fnatural - that's not 'accidental' either. Blue 7th, mixolydian, Cajun, call it what you will. You've chosen to play in G using the C diatonic notes. And that's another familiar route to variation - I've even seen it raise 'Speed the Plough' dying embers to renewed flames in a session.

My Oakwood 3 row is essentially C#/D/G - so a cousin of the one we're discussing . It loves C, of course D/G and related minors too.  That's where it spends most of its playing time. It can play all the sharp keys, and in the flat ones short of Ab/Db.  Do I ever play in those keys? Well very rarely - I haven't the basses for one thing. It's thin music. It's mostly pull. You lose all that rhythmic bellows input alluded to (quite rightly) above. There's usually a guitarist joined  in the session - who has then carefully placed a capo on fret 1 or 3  ;)

But that doesn't stop me playing in a minor substituting a major 3rd from the C# row (Spanish scale), dallying between D and D# when in Em (natural<->harmonic minor), or indeed inserting that same note run over the E7 chord when we are in A- all technically impossible on straight quint system as it doesn't offer harmonic minor in any key (and it's called 'harmonic' for good reason)!

So I still feel the strength of these double quint systems is may be that they are lighter than three x one row?
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nemethmik

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #33 on: May 16, 2011, 09:22:22 AM »

I have customised accidentals and make frequent use of them. With this setup I manage a fair amount of klezmer and other eastern european stuff.
This is a very important point. Contemporary or the folk music of some regions are "modal-intesive", and you definitely need a number of accidentals. For example, to play Hungarian music on an ADG in A you definitely need F, D#/Eb in the second octave, too; since a hell lot of tunes in A requires them, and because of the nature of the music there is no workaround.
JB, what accidentals do you have? I love the concept of three-row quint-boxes, but I badly need the extra notes to play my music.
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Andy in Vermont

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #34 on: May 16, 2011, 03:39:36 PM »

So I still feel the strength of these double quint systems is may be that they are lighter than three x one row?

Could you explain your conclusion in light of this video?
http://melodeonminutes.blogspot.com/2011/05/standard-3-row-emulating-chromatic.html

I think that your posts above have massively underestimated the "standard" three-row system.

Andy in Vermont

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #35 on: May 16, 2011, 03:52:47 PM »

Quote
This is a very important point. Contemporary or the folk music of some regions are "modal-intensive", and you definitely need a number of accidentals. For example, to play Hungarian music on an ADG in A you definitely need F, D#/Eb in the second octave, too.

This is an advantage of the standard 3-row that I have not taken advantage of.  It is relatively easy to replace the "accidentals" with the ones that you need.  A standard change is to "flip" them, which some players do in order to enable certain chords, but these reeds can esaily be replaced with whichever ones you need.  You can also add a second octave by sacrificing the next reed (the lowest note on the row, the second reedblock space, which will often involve "filling" part of the reedblock space to accommodate a smaller reed).  These are minor changes, as opposed to changing the layout of an entire "alt" row on an A/D/alt box.

I don't think that it is the "perfect" chromatic box -- if anyone wanted that, I'd suggest a CBA.  There are also alterations to the standard layout that make it substantially more straightforward to play chromatically. (Ala Marc Perrone's layout.)

waltzman

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #36 on: May 16, 2011, 05:57:04 PM »

So I still feel the strength of these double quint systems is may be that they are lighter than three x one row?

 I wondered if you had really tried a standard three row system but this statement removes any doubt.
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jb

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #37 on: May 16, 2011, 07:30:04 PM »

JB, what accidentals do you have? I love the concept of three-row quint-boxes, but I badly need the extra notes to play my music.

Attached is the low end layout of my GCF. My ADG is equivalent.

It looks a bit weird at first sight. And probably at second and third too.

Most (but not all) of is designed for klezmer. By far the most important for me is the G#, which I have both ways. The pull (which I think is a standard accidental on CF and GCF boxes) gives me the raised 4th of D mi-sheberach, a klezmer minor mode. The push gives me the third of E freygish (major with flattened 2nd). In effect, D mi-sheberach is the relative minor of E freygish. And in klezmer these are common keys for these modes.

Using in addition the Db on push I can also get C freygish, as in the first part of this tune, which makes fairly intensive use of this low-end stuff. (The second half of the tune is Romanian, not klezmer, in origin.)

I have a standard 12-button bass layout. If I could have just one extra button I'd use it for a B bass on push, giving me a counterbass to the E when playing in E freygish.

btw I agree with everything waltzman says approx six posts ago.
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Andy in Vermont

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #38 on: May 16, 2011, 10:21:08 PM »

Most (but not all) of is designed for klezmer. By far the most important for me is the G#, which I have both ways. The pull (which I think is a standard accidental on CF and GCF boxes) gives me the raised 4th of D mi-sheberach, a klezmer minor mode. The push gives me the third of E freygish (major with flattened 2nd). In effect, D mi-sheberach is the relative minor of E freygish. And in klezmer these are common keys for these modes.

That's really cool -- what an ingenious (and simple) alteration of the standard 3-row layout to open doors to a repertoire!

Steve C.

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Re: other keys in A/D/G
« Reply #39 on: May 17, 2011, 02:27:33 AM »

JB--

Just when I was feeling so happy about what I already had!

Interesting.
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