Re: [Harp-L] Song Suggestions; Harmonica/Accordian?



Accordion and concertina have very strong associations with the music of many countries. 

The accordion appears to have been invented in German-speaking countries, but the best accordions have been Italian since the mid-19th century, with Castelfidardo being the mecca of accordion building. Later, Italian immigrants brought the accordion to Paris, where it became the lead instrument in the development of the musette waltz at the beginning of the 20th century, which in turn became emblematic of all France. For ideas you might check out the compositions of Gus Viseur, or get one of the CD anthologies of different classic musette accordinoist, such as the one called "Café de Paris," which is a good introduction. The best modern player in my estimation is Richard Galliano, who combines musette with several other styles, including jazz. He's even recorded a couple of duets with Toots Thielemans.

Meanwhile the bandoneon, a species of concertina invented by Heinrich Band as a sort of portable church organ, found its greatest fame as the soul of the highly disreputable (at least at first) tango in Argentina. Tango has a great repertoire of songs, such as those of Angel Villoldo and Carlos Gardel. Songs like El Choclo and Adios Muchachos, for instance, are not impossibly difficult and might sound nice on harmonica. Of course the great name in bandoneon is that of Astor Piazzola, who was a prolific composer. Harmonica players in this tradition include Hugo Diaz, a delightfully unique player, and more recently, Luis Saltos and Joe Powers. You might check out the website todotango.com for ideas and sheet music. (To add a little confusion, there are two renowned tango players named Hugo Diaz. One is the harmonica player, another is a bandoneonist.)

Mexico has a tradition of diatonic two-row and three-row accordion. French and Italian players typcially play fully chromatic accordions with banks of four or five rows of buttons in the right hand, not a piano keyboard (you can fit more notes in the same space and have all sorts of alternate fingering patterns). But on diatonic accordions, you get different notes on press and pull, like blow and draw notes on a harmonica, and each row of buttons is like a different key of diatonic harmonica. The instruments played in Mexico favor three closely related keys in the circle of fifths, such as G, C and F. This allows for all sorts of alternate fingerings and a fairly virtuosic style is possible. You might listen to some of the Norteno bends for some ideas. A lot of this music is of German origin and sounds a lot like oom-pah music - there's your German influence mixing with Mexican.

Harmonica and accordion may both be free reed instruments, but they have very different strengths on sound production. Accordions are like organs in that you have different "stops" - different combinations of reeds to sound the same note. A full complement on a four-reed instrument would have the main note, a note an octave lower, a note an octave higher, and a tremolo reed at almost the same pitch as the main note. This allows the player to combine them in multiple ways for a wide variety of sounds, but what it can't duplicate is the vocal qualities of the harmonica. The accordion can't make vowel sounds, and has a very limited ability to bend notes (and only a few players can do it, Galliano among them). So you can contrast a vocal sound with an organ-like sound in combining the two instruments.

Hope this helps a little, vague as it is.

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

Resident expert at bluesharmonica.com

Harmonica instructor, jazzschool.com

Columnist, harmonicasessions.com

--- On Wed, 7/7/10, Greg Hommert <hommertg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So I've a friend who's recently immersed herself into the practice of
playing the accordion. She shows a great passion and talent for it and has
made the request of working up a few duets with me to showcase to friends
and the like, so on and so forth. I'm unaware as to whether or not a
repertoire for the two instruments together exists, but I was wondering if
anyone had suggestions on specific songs that would fit the combination
well. She has expressed interest in French/Mexican/Italian ethnic music,
whereas I would tend to favor jazz, polkas, or classical music to suit the
sound (given the strong German/Austrian heritage of the free-reed
instruments mentioned). Would anyone happen to have any insight?

-- 
Best,
Greg






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