Arranging a Lead Sheet Melody
Besides playing music especially written for the concertina, it is of course also possible to adapt any piece of music for the instrument. Arranging music for the concertina requires solid knowledge of harmony, voicing and the character of the concertina. Unfortunately many arrangements that have been published show very little knowledge of both music theory and the possibilities of the instrument.
Lead Sheet notation
The following example consist of the first 16 measures of the ballad "You
don't know what love is" by G. de Paul. This form of music notation, a melody
line with chord symbols, is called a lead sheet, and is the standard form of
music notation for all forms of popular music.
This ballad, in the key of F minor (4 flats), consist of a simple melody with a constant harmonic rhythm. The chords change about every two beats. When you're going to arrange a melody like this, you first should play it through a few times, in order to get an idea of the character of the song. This ballad is rather slow, with an expressive melodic line. The expressive character should not be disrupted by the accompaniment you are going to add. This means that you should give the melody 'room' to be expressive.
How to determine the type of
accompaniment
When you examine the melody more closely, you'll see that most of the
rhythmical/melodic action is on the first and 4th beat of the measure. The
second and third beat often consist of long notes. When you combine these two
aspects, the accompaniment should be played on the 2nd and 3rd beat, leaving the
melody enough 'room' on the 1st and 4th beat to be played expressively. If you
would play an accompaniment on every beat, the melody would loose the necessary
freedom. Considering the limited time available in each measure, an
accompaniment consisting of block chords, rather than arpeggios or a counter
melody, would be the most effective.
Chords on a Concertina
Playing chords on a concertina requires special attention. Close chords,
e.g. C-E-G, do not sound good on a concertina (or any other free reed instrument
for that matter). The harmonics of the three tones, being so close together,
tend to clash. Chords sound a lot better when played in a wide position, for
instance C-G-E. The spacing between the notes prevent the harmonics from
clashing.
Especially on instruments with metal ends close chords are a problem. Because
the metal ends create a high sound reflection, overtones can become a serious
problem. On the other side of the spectrum, brass reeded instruments suffer a
lot less from clashing overtones. On these instruments close chords can sound
quite good. This fact becomes more relevant when playing Victorian concertina
music. In 19th century compositions, when brass reeded concertinas were the
standard, composers frequently wrote large close chords. Also Victorian
concertinas with steel reeds were suitable for close chords, because of the
leather baffle, which muted the higher harmonics.
When arranging music for the concertina, either for treble, tenor-treble,
baritone or bass, pay attention to the following points:
This arrangement, complete with fingering and bellows signs, is for
tenor-treble concertina. If you compare this arrangement with the lead sheet,
you'll notice that the melody has been moved up one octave. This will give you
enough room under the melody for the chords. Listen to the sound file below.
Necessary variation
The 16 measures of the example actually consist of a repeated 8 measure
melody. Repetition of a melody is common, especially in popular music. When you
arrange such a piece, don't just repeat the first melody. Repeated melodies
become boring very quickly. Do something different in the repetition. You can
make small changes in the melody such as measure 12 in this example (triplets
instead of 8th notes), or you can change the accompaniment.
In this example I exchanged the wide block chords I used in the first 8 measures
for a counter melody (measures 12-14) with a poly-rhythmical element (two eight
notes against a triplet), and a short 'bass-chord' pattern in measure 15.
To illustrate that such an arrangement sounds good on any concertina, listen to this version of "You don't know what love is" played on a single action bass concertina with brass reeds, built by Edward Chidley in the 1860s. The example below is exactly the same as the tenor-treble version, only notated in the bass clef.
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