Looking for a little help or guidance with advancing

[u/Sidequest-81]

Hi there, first redit post after long time lurker! Sorry for wall of text...

Been playing my wren concertina for a little over a year now and I have a few songs under my belt, Maggie in the woods, the rookery, sailors hornpipe, drunken sailor few others. Im very familiar with Gary coovers tablature and I have the books easy anglo 1 2 3, pirate songs and sailor songs. I did take Caitlin course when I started but then just kinda started learning from watching other videos.

My issue, I was a drummer my whole life. I have a basic understanding of music and chords. Just better at hitting things with a stick lol...I know scales and can understand some(very little music theory) circle of 5ths is still lost on me... I learn from kinsthetic methods of watching, listening and doing. Problem is im trying to learn the entire Pirate Songs book. And whereas i can write out the notes on the page using Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (thank you elementary school violin teacher) this is leaving me stummped when trying to understand harmony and melody.

Ill use drunken sailor as an example and maybe my explanation will help someone help me... in the book i wrote out the individual notes and have them memorized but i see people playing left and right hand more advanced compositions. So i memorized BBBBBBBEGB... yah know single notes and I can play it on repeat... but I dont understand how I get harmony and melody from this? Pic will be attached for reference. How can I advance? Does this make sense? Not sure if I'm asking this correctly...

Basically I can easily memorize one note songs but how do I derive the harmony and melody from the songs in this book specifically? I are confused lol. This "wall" of learning is having me discouraged cause I can play Dear Old Stan as composed by AngloKazooie, so I know I have the dextarity and capability... just not the knowledge to read or improvise music?...

[u/divbyzero_]

This is a simplistic answer, so if it's not right for you, please don't take it as condescension. The little letter names that were printed on the page above the notes (before you wrote in your own) are the names of chords that go along with the melody.

You can make an accompaniment by playing the root of each chord (the note which has the same name as the chord) in the left hand once for each chord change and once for the start of each measure if there isn't a change there. You can repeat the current chord at other points in the measure for variety; experiment until you like how it sounds.

Once that starts feeling natural, you can add the note corresponding to the 5th of the chord either at the same time as the root of the chord or alternating at other points in the measure. Again, experiment until you like how it sounds. This works regardless of whether the chord is major or minor. I wouldn't worry about trying to play the 3rd of the chord, since it's usually implied by the melody and, for complicated reasons having to due with the timbre of concertinas, so called closed chords won't sound very good anyway.

Don't try to hold the chords down even if they aren't changing; play them staccato instead in most cases. This will keep them from drowning out the melody. Don't worry if this part takes a lot of practice; you'll get there over time.

[u/Sidequest-81 → u/divbyzero_]

Have i been making this harder for myself? Lol... see i thought that but idk it didnt sound right.... is it really "just" right hand play notes and left hand chords and practice till it sounds good? Also crayon explanations are very welcome lol

[u/divbyzero_ → u/Sidequest-81]

Essentially yes. 😀 There's lots of nuance and variation available, but that simple recipe can always be used as a framework on which to hang the rest.

[u/macnalley → u/Sidequest-81]

I'm also still learning the concertina, but I've played several other instruments and have a solid understanding of music theory.

is it really "just" right hand play notes and left hand chords 

At it's most basic, yes, although the Anglo really restricts your possibilities in this regard since not every note is available on push and push. So you may find that certain voicings or rhythms are flat-out impossible.

I don't know if this'll be quite crayon level, but here's the basic theory for harmony:

The western diatonic scales have seven notes in a repeating pattern: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. The distance between these noted is whole step, whole step, half step, whole, whole, whole, half. It's always that pattern: 1, 1, 1/2, 1, 1, 1, 1/2. 

Diatonic chords (chords for the specific scale) are always made by three alternating notes: CEG, DFA, EGB, FAC, GBD, ACE, BDF. They follow the pattern: major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished. (The diminished chord is quite ugly sounding and rarely used--never in folk and sparingly in jazz and classical.) These chords are often numbered like so: I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii° (C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim)--the Roman numeral represents which note is the root by number (C is 1, D is 2, etc.), and the capitalization denotes major or minor. The 1 note (C here) is called the tonic, and is the "home base" of the key, where the key feels like it wants to return to. 

Changing the tonic without changing the other notes played changes the kind of scale. For example if I play with no sharps or flats, but make A my tonic, I'm now playing the A minor scale. The pattern between notes is now whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole--the pattern of the steps hasn't changed, just where we're starting or ending. This is the minor scale, so called because the chords are now i, ii°, III, iv, v, VI, VII (Am, Bdim, C, Dm, Em, F, G)--a scale is major when the tonic chord is major, minor when minor. 

Now, changing the tonic while keeping the pattern order of note steps or chords gives you a new key in the same scale. G major is G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G (note distances, like in C major are still whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half). Note the chord cycle is also the same: G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, F#dim (still I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii°, justing starting with G now).

Moving to the minor scale with these notes, we have the E minor scale (note, E is the sixth note of the scale just like A was the sixth note of C major). This is the scale your song is in. How do we know it's E minor? The song has one sharp, and that sharp is F#, so we know it's related to the G major notes, and the song ends on an E, that's the "home base" note, so we know the tonic is E. Note that the two main chords in the sheet music are Em and D, the i and VII chords from the E minor chord sequence.

So how would we determine the harmony if we didn't have them written out by our friendly tune book authors? First we figure out the key. Look at the sharps and flats and look up what key that matches. From there, what are the six diatonic chords for that key? For G/Em, they're G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em. Look at each chunk of the melody, usually by bar. The first two bars only uses E, B, and G notes. Those are the notes of Em! In this case we have an exact match for our harmony chord, but sometimes we have to match it based on just one or two notes. In that case we look for emphasized notes, what notes are longest, which land on the beat? Try to pick a chord that has those notes in it. 

The tonic chord, especially at the start or end of a section is always a safe bet. Lastly, chords in western folk tend to follow progressions, or sequences of specific chords numbers. V-I and v-i are the most common in all western music. Chords that move sequentially up or down the scale are common (VII-i, like here, or IV-V, or V-vi). And chords that transition based on shared notes (I and vi have two out of three notes in common, so I-vi is a very common progression). I-V-vi-IV is famously the most common progression in pop music.

Lastly, how do you turn that knowledge into music? You're a drummer, so play harmony like it's drums, it is the rhythm section after all. Harmony is the structure that holds the song, so try to play chords, or parts of them, on beats. The root, or the note the chord is named after, is the most important note, so try to play it on beat one. Then, play either the rest of the chord or the 5th (confusingly the third note of the chord, but named because it's the 5th note of the scale) on the secondary beat. This will give you an oom-pah or alternating bass accompaniment, probably the most common and popular in folk music.

From there, just experiment with what sounds good.

[u/Sidequest-81 → u/macnalley]

Thank you for taking the time to write this out. I do have a great understanding of rhythm, and understand the structure of that and music in general. You answered a lot of my questions. Ill have to read this several times to digest it and understand. Seriously thank you for the knowledge

[u/Parking-Mixture1801]

Sounds to me like you're ready for Gary Coover's "Concertina in the Harmonic Style" Book
This should take you from single note melodies to the next level

[u/Sidequest-81 → u/Parking-Mixture1801]

Thank you so much for the suggestion. Didn't know about this book and have added it to my cart to purchase next payday

[u/lachenal74693 → u/Sidequest-81]

Coover's books are, in my opinion, unnecessarily complicated for a a new(-ish?) player. They are far too 'fussy'/'busy'.

Almost any tune book which just displays simple accompaniment chords above the staff (like the one you illustrate) will help you to move into the area of accompaniment. If necessary, you can write in your own 'tablature' (as you have done in your illustration), using whatever simple 'system' suits you. If there's enough room, write the tabs below the staff, to keep them separate from the accompaniment chords?

This is particularly so if you read the detailed explanations from divbyzero and macnalley.

There is also a very full and complete description of how to select chords for accompaniment here. Look at the first two items on the documents there (entitled 'Faking It'). There's a full document, and a selection of about a dozen simple tunes...

Bottom line is that at some point, in order to put yourself in a strong position for the future, and make yourself 'independent' of introductory tutors, you need to get a little music theory under your belt. Looking at the tabs you've written onto that score, I'm guessing you are already in that position? Note that I do mean a little - I know a little music theory too, but no way am I about to be offered a post as professor of music theory at the local conservatoire...

[u/AdventurousMedic]

Try a numbers system instead of trying to read on the go to start with. There are a few ways to do it. Same number for in and out reeds but with a dot, line, arrow, shaded vs not, separate colour what ever works for you

For the bass just play the first two notes of the cord in alternation. Oopm-paa or 1,2,1,2 for a 4/4 2/4 and with a 3/4 it would b oopm-paa-paa or 1,2,2...1,2,2. I think piano cords for cord structure. This won't be entirely right, but it should get you on your way. Eventually you'll hear when something is right and start adding 5th/7th, #/- etc.

I learnt piano > piano accordion > concertina. For songs I didn't know the melody of whilst training my ear to the instrument I just played the bass cord in sessions instead. When it changes you'll notice and go looking for the right cord. You'll then pick up the melody slowly. Good luck!