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Re: Cajun and Irish music

A lot of Irish music is played on a ten button one row accordion and if you want you can use that accordions for Cajun music too. One of the differences is that Cajuns use another type of tuning for the accordion. Also the way of playing is different and the amount of stops isn't allways four.
When I was in Dublin a few years ago, I bought a twin-cd(link#2) with Irish one button music of Peter Conlon (1892-1967) The music was recorded in the USA because Peter emigrated from Ireland to the USA.

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Absolutely! Irish music was originally played on a 10 button accordion. When I had my Cajun box, I played a lot of Irish tunes on it. Playing Cajun music on an Irish box can be done but it won't sound quite right due to the wet tuning of the Irish box.

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Check out website #1 (Damien Mullane) or/and search Youtube for (one row) melodeon Irish traditional music, and you will find Cajun boxes galore that produce great swinging Irish music!
Bobby Gardiner, Johnny Connolly and John O'Halloran are just a few names. There's many more. One rows are also very often played for step dancing, mostly at breakneck speed! Website #2.

Enjoy!

Re: Cajun and Irish music

And there you have it. The 'cajun' box is a 10 button accordion played all over the world, including hopping down in Kent, as a musical instrument. Go figure.

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Revisited lecture.

Much as a Cajun accordeon is an accordeon made by a Cajun.. and Irish accordeon is one made by an Irishman. There's more to it but you have heard it from me before.

Generally speaking.. when someone says "Irish Accordeon" they are referring to a 2 row 1/2 step box.. not a one row which they refer to as a "Melodeon".

A half step box such as B/C, C/C#, C#/D, D/D# and other variants allows for some chromaticism and an entirely different style of play than a one row. Closest to a one row would be a D/D# or C#/D or the rarer but fantastic D/C# as played by Joe Derraine (SP) RIP. These are used in the push pull style whereas the B/C and C/C# are played differently and are not played "up and down the row"...

Back to one row. No, Irish boxes are not tuned WET.. they CAN be tuned wet all the way to Scottish or all the way to bone dry unison.. that does not make them Irish.
Just as a Cajun box can be tuned wet or dry..does not make it Cajun.

The basic difference is Cajun or "just" tuning and Irish and English and Canadian etc is 12TET as the standard scale.

To play Cajun music on a 12TET box dry tuned.. just play. To play Cajun style the closest sound on a wet box would be to shut down the wet tuned reed.

Another box common to American Irish playing would be a one row in D with a few buttons 3-5 and more with sharps and flats or reversals on an inner row. See previous threads on 13-15 button boxes.

Many Brits and Irish players do use Cajun made boxes and have them retuned to 12 TET whther dry or various degrees of wetness.

I am primarily a one row player of Quebec, Irish music and American fiddle tunes.. I mostly play a box in D made in Italy retuned in America and slightly wet to what would be called light swing tuning.. enough that you can tell it is an accordion and not a concertina sound.
I also play Hohner HA112.HA113 and HA 114 models preferring them from the 1950s. These are quite wet.. but soon to be dried out...

If I want to play "Cajun" style I simply shut off the other middle reed to sound "dry".. Not Cajun.. but acceptable.

Playing a Cajun box in "Cajun" tuning and attempting Irish or Quebec or British tunes.. or American fiddle tunes.. it's "off" and not very pleasing.

See some of my previous links for Irish players on one rows..
I have a rather extensive CD collection of Quebec and Irish one row players
many of them simply not available to the public. I also have obscure videos of one row playing and have spent the last 25 years transcribing some of this to "TAB".

My advice if you want a "universal" one row.. Get a D box in 12TET tuning with a bit of tremolo.. (light swing).
Shut the one middle reed off for Cajun.

Second.. get a C box do the same.. and if and when you decide to play more Cajun.. Get a C box and have it tuned "Cajun"

Italian and Quebec boxes tuned Cajun suck..
However Rees Wesson of Wales and Eric Martin of France make excellent "Cajun" style accordeons.. My preference is the Wesson boxes.. as they are fully finished products. Martins are kits that need a lifetime of fiddling.


Brendan Begley Melodeon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOAIrPXh_Hc

Brendan Begley 2 row old Hohner C#/D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv2XjpuqtyA

Tony MacMahon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P26i_g_RjE4&list=PL---Dz-yU5hEXhRtNepID0qpnM2_rgMH4


Annette Owens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xBdo2uYTaI

Damien Mullane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62C6TngDeXI

Sharon Shannon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9DGQWiL9ms

Mairtin O'Connor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKfNJ_nuYbM

Grace Dowling playing an Irish made CAIRDIN Accordeon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlolXqOdf5c

Luke Daniels from Britain playing Irish Music on a Briggs 2 reed two row... around $6K US....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fpG41LwhAg

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Great information Bohemian :-)
Can you please explain what 12TET tuning means ?

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Here are some explanations..

But basically it is a western method of tuning using 12 tones or

Twelve Tone Equal Temperament.. temperamaent, in this case, would be the mathematical distance from one tone to the next.

It is not exacting in any specific key.. but messes with the tones to fake sounding ok in every key.

Simplistically.. "Cajun" tuning favors one key.. with Cajun.. usually C. And here the notes are adjusted mathematically to be exact for the key of C and there fore sounds wonky when played in other keys. Ergo a true diatonic scale.

The system of dividing the octave into 12 notes is referred to as the "Twelve - Tone Equal Temperament (12-TET)", which is the standard for almost all the music we hear.

"Equal temperament is a system of tuning in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio.

In equal temperament tunings an octave is divided into a series of equal "steps" i.e. equal frequency ratios, ascending in a geometric progression.

It is the present standard method of dividing the any octave of frequencies. Thus, the 12 steps we get are the 12 notes - A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G and G#, the following A being the 1st note of the next octave (double in frequency of the previous lower note in the scale)"


More:
http://hubguitar.com/music-theory/why-12-tet

And for laughs.. here is the usual BS you get when discussing "Cajun" or "just" tuning.. full of misinformation and speculation..

http://zydeco.yuku.com/topic/1111/Cajun-Tuning-Question#.WIIhT2czXct
Only one item seems to be close to correct and that is tuning the 3rd and 7th note of the scale to 15 cents flat and the 4th note 15 cents sharp. Not all Cajuns tune this way and notably Savoy does not... he does not go to those extremes.. ...and he being the self proclaimed king of all things "Cajun".. why is his "Cajun " system of tuning not paramount ? Just askin'.

There is one point of close but not correct.. stating that Cajun tuning is JUST tuning.. no, it is one type of JUST tuning.


A comparison and explanation of JUST tuning (Cajun tuning is a type of JUST tuning)

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html

Some 12 TET info
http://www.furman.edu/academics/mayx/Documents/MUS425_1_12_TET.pdf

Some JUST/Pythagorean/Tempered info:

"In contrast to the various systems of just intonation, temperament involves small and deliberate deviations from ideal interval ratios (as defined in a given period or style). Since at least the 15th century, the two approaches have coexisted in European music, and indeed systems such as meantone and well-temperament may combine both approaches, tuning some intervals in a just manner and tempering others.

This final section compares Pythagorean just intonation as discussed so far with three overlapping families of temperaments: meantone, well-temperament, and equal temperament.

The history of tuning systems, it is often said, has revolved around the two goals of "beauty" and "utility." While beauty aims at the presentation of intervals in their most just or pleasing proportions, utility aims at the maximum number of "tolerable" or "playable" intervals in an octave.

A standard Pythagorean tuning, for example, seems to offer a great degree of "beauty" in the context of Gothic polyphony from Perotin to Machaut (as well as for earlier music). Its pure fifths and fourths, active thirds and sixths, just major seconds and minor sevenths, and small diatonic semitones all concord well with the stylistic qualities of harmonic color and efficient cadential action (Section 3)."

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Thank you so much

Re: Cajun and Irish music

You're welcome.

I wish I understood all I know : )
I actually know very little about music and music theory, but I think it is best if we all know the same things that may be relevant.... and dispel the BS that flies around.

Another wondrous nugget of wisdom.

The 10 button diatonic,bisonoric, free-reed, bellows driven aerophone known as an accordeon, akkordeon, accordion, melodeon (the more universally recognized term) for a ten button instrument with two bass buttons...
was designed in 1829 by Cyril Damien.. a Romanian immigrant to Austria.. the box was invented in Austria by a Romanian. Fact; and not by Germans or Swedes or the English or Italians or Cajuns.
The Cajun accordion is a copy of cheaply made German,Saxon etc instruments
commonly imported and sold mail order for a few bucks.
What makes the ten button box a "Cajun" box is that it is made by a Cajun.. "Cajun" tuning is a style of JUST tuning and not A Cajun invention. Many early Euro import boxes were JUST tuned..

Saying a box is a Cajun box is just as "incorrect" as saying a particular box is an Irish box. Though many look at a one row box and call it Cajun and others look at a 2 row and call it Irish.

No fault.. just not correct.

By the way.. I own my great grandfathers Austrian made 2 1/2 row D/G box with 6 bass buttons and two treble reeds.. the first 5 from the low end are octave tuned.. virtually unheard of for an accordion made in 1880.

It has blue and red leather bellows, mostly mahogany and the treble buttons are ceramic half spheres. It has a double knocker action similar to the valve train on an early Norton motorcycle. I play it often.

PS..

You will soon find that many resent that you know anything, particularly if it contradicts the usual xenophobic, jingoistic BS. That is historically based from the inception of this discussion group. I deal with it.

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Correction.. Damien was Armenian, not Romanian.

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Interesting ans useful information.
You really know what you're talking about.
Thanks!

Re: Cajun and Irish music

There are those who know a great deal more than I do.

There is a button accordion culture in many countries to include Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Scotland, Ireland, England,
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Argentina, Cape Verde, Colombia, Panama,Quebec, Nova Scotia,Austraila...all incredible stuff.. wish I could play it all and own some of the specialized accordeons.

What makes Cajun cool, there is nothing else like it.. a subset all its own and derived from many of those countries and spiced up and evolved in a way that it cannot be mistaken for anything else. Notably there are players and groups in many of those countries who have chosen to immerse in the Cajun tradition to the point that though they are thousands of miles from Cajun Country there are nightly sessions and annual festivals dedicated to Cajun.

Incidentally, when Bobby Gardiner (usually a B/C 2 row player) plays a one row, he often plays a Hohner HA114 in G.

Here's Davis Munnelly of Ireland who usually plays a C#/D box playing a Castagnari One row in D.... same box as I play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7cfMuJQb_I

Here he is playing a C#/D made by Bergflodt of Norway..
I strongly suggest you watch the whole video.. brilliant technique even if not your style of music..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHbe5UXOskI


And speaking of Norway.. one of my favorite players.. Might be and A/D/G of possibly a G/C/F Castagnari Handry...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83B0yeRGOw4

Here's another Castagnari Hascy player from France.. this guy can play it all... from classical to folk to pop.. and beyond. This box has an outside G row then a C, then a row of sharps and flats.. or a G/C/acc box

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cayinI74kvA

Excellent player.. the Box is a SERAFINI "DARWIN" model...made in France..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H3gTTAfNm8

Here he is playing the same tune ( which he wrote) on a two row made in Italy..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ixz29YPjIw

Re: Cajun and Irish music

I really like Gilles Poutoux's playing: https://m.youtube.com/user/gpoutoux
Look for sound files of John Kimmel. His earliest recordings were on Edison wax cylinders and then shellac 78 rpm discs. He played a Globe Gold Medal one row four stop box in D.

Re: Cajun and Irish music

Gilles Poutoux on a Quebec made MELODIE and the other box is a Gaillard from Brittany France.. either a D/C# as played by Joe Derraine (RIP) or a very rare D/D#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol-lj12ZxIA

Gilles plays mostly Quebec and Irish tunes.


The next tune is played on two Eric Martin boxes in D.. made in France.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbmI9-uLwMA


Johnny Connolly of Ireland on a Hohner HA114.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcw4rDmAhb0

And here is Johnny Og (Son of) playing an Italian Manfrini in C#/D
Johnny Connolly also plays C#/D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHXwR7WNn7o

Cajun & Quebec music

Here is a video of Frank Sears, a very fine Quebec player, playing an Acadian(Savoy) made box... note the tuning is 12TET not "Cajun" tuned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BAENqoqbjE#t=7.5343684

Re: Cajun & Quebec music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twe2iAFMYdA

Leadbelly on his "Windjammer"



Jamey Hall's most excellent Cajun Accordion Music Theory

Brett's all new Cajun Accordion Music Theory for all keys!

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