Post by whatsanikePost by sidIs it possible to play tangos well on a chemnitzer concertina, or
will it sound like hell?
Are these mutually exclusive? either/or, or and/or?
Well, it seems tangos are usually played on a bandoneón. I know a
chemnitzer is a close relative of the bandoneón.
With regard to the sound, I should think so. Chemnitzers may tend to be
somewhat smaller than full-grown bandoneons.
If I played tango music on the chem. would it sound funny because of
the natural timbre of the instrument, or would it be just fine?
I don't think that this should be much of a problem.
And is the button arrangement for the bandoneón specifically arranged
to facilitate the playing of tangos?
No. The bandoneon was developed in Germany, quite independent from
tango. The preferred system in Argentina is "Rheinische Lage" IIRC.
The German instruments few years later converged to the somewhat more
versatile "Einheitsbandoneon".
Besides fingering, what separates a chemnitzer from a bandoneón?
Fingering. If you take a look at the layouts and how people play it,
the Chemnitzer usually has three distinct rows on both sides, whereas
the bandoneon has buttons all over the place (which is an exaggeration,
but the number and breadth of rows gives it a more uniform appearance).
Now with diatonic instruments in general, it sort of happens that close
buttons sound reasonably well when used together or after one another.
So for instrument-driven inspiration and composition, speaking the
bandoneon fluently might make it easier to give you ideas about tango
than if you use an instrument with a more logical or uniform key layout.
However, learning to speak a language fluently without accent takes
years. Piazzolla was a child prodigy on the bandoneon, and it took his
music professor and educator Nadia Boulanger years to wrestle this piece
of information from him and then convince him to write what amounts to
his musical poetry in the natural raw and rich language of his youth,
the tango and the bandoneon, that shone through his early scholarly work
on classical composition.
When I met her, I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She
“It's very well written.” And stopped, with a big period, round like
a soccer ball. After a long while, she said: “Here you are like
Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I
can't find Piazzolla in this.” And she began to investigate my
private life: what I did, what I did and did not play, if I was
single, married, or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent!
And I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango
musician. Finally I said, “I play in a night club.” I didn't want to
say cabaret. And she answered, “Night club, mais oui, but that is a
cabaret, isn't it?” “Yes,” I answered, and thought, “I'll hit this
woman in the head with a radio....” It wasn't easy to lie to
her. She kept asking: “You say that you are not pianist. What
instrument do you play, then?” And I didn't want to tell her that I
was a bandoneon player, because I thought, “Then she will throw me
from the fourth floor.” Finally, I confessed and she asked me to
play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes,
took my hand and told me: “You idiot, that's Piazzolla!” And I took
all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell
in two seconds.
--
David Kastrup
Here's the upshot. I have a chance to get a nice chemnitzer handed
down to me, but I don't care for polka music. I do like South
American music though.
respect to what type of music can be played easily. It's not like
little more complicated.
Thanks for the answers so far.