All these accordion ornaments...

[Yffisch]

I dont want to be grumpy, I really have to take this subject up! I just saw a video of someone playing Silent Night on facebook. And Ive seen many people on the streets playing this and other tunes on the street this month. I may be very conservative now, but always...ALWAYS when people are playing the accordion, they are always supposed to do these accordion sliding up-scale ornaments. Do you know what I mean? Every tune they play has to be like playing halfnote before the actual note or a couple of half notes sliding up to the actual note.
Almost NO ONE plays the tune as it is. Its not only with this tune - it is like this with every single tune. I mean, its not bad and it gives some kind of personal touch to the tune. But why cant people just play the notes clean and simple on accordion? They can do it dynamically changing and some vibrato and a lot of other stuff, but it is always this balkan style half notes before everything that they play.
I hope you understand what I mean. Its not really a problem for me, but somehow it kills the tunes as the writer wanted the tune to be. Music is what you make of it etc etc and there are no rules of course. But everything sound very generic doing these accordion ornaments on everything. Maybe it fits very well in balkan or something, but it does not fit in nordic or irish for example

And again, there are no rules and what fits to what is deeply individual and everything should be okay, otherwise it would sound the same. But there is still something about this.

Use this video as a reference. This guys is doing it very good and it sounds awesome - Im not saying that. But think doing these ornaments to ALL the soungs you play

 

[RodionGork]

Perhaps you could record a short explanatory video giving the sample of the few passages with and without such "ornaments"? Though I think I understand you right... And I have a deja vu here.

As I have no music education, I can only slowly read music sheets. Meanwhile I often sing, murmur and whistle various tunes, themes, songs etc. Sometimes I'm trying to reproduce them with some instrument (usually piano or melodica, though it also could be guitar or recorder - I can't really play any of them so anything will do). And it is quite often that my wife starts protesting "Where have you got these notes? There is nothing like this. It is more simple and straight! Read the sheet!"

And I go and read the sheet, and become very surprised seeing that really I "over-engineered" the tune, while trying to play it by memory. What seemed "just natural" for me, is completely absent from author's version. Sometimes it is even a passage intuitively stolen from other similar tune. E.g. it is quite easy to end the "Marmotte" with the tail of "Greensleeves" without noticing it - just imagine:

Avecque sí, avecque là,
And who but my lady greensleeves

So this could be an answer. I believe many people play the tune as they remember it, not as they read it from the verified source. And such "recollected" variant is easily "amended" by minor things not existing in original. What do you think, could this be the case? Or have you meant some more specific "ornaments" which I completely misunderstood?

 

[bocsa]

sounds like the 'Curate's egg' to me. Good job he supplied the title, I'd never have known ... :roll:

 

[JerryPH]

I have a measure of how far is too far (lol). If it's so embellished that you cannot tell what the song is, they've kind of failed the reason to play that song, IMHO.

Like anything in life, a little is fine, and too much of anything is rarely a good thing... unless it's jazz. :lol:

 

[Yffisch]

RodionGork: Well, not really like that. Ornaments are decorations of a melody and if you have for example C C C E E E D D D C C C as a melody in 4/4. Then these guys would have played it like BC BC ABbBC on the first three C. You put the before notes slightly before the tone its supposed to be. They do this in balkan music all the time. They bounce back and forth on the half note above or below the actual note. Or like playing very jazzy just because they play it on an accordion. Because the that is natural doing that with the fingers, not that its made on purpose.

Hmmm..this was harder than expected to describe.
I came to think about this once when a teacher of mine taught me a tune. It was actually this tune:

As you hear, I dont play a single ornament at all. When he taught me that song, he got annoyed by me doing all these natural triplets and half note bounces and all shit so he strictly forbid me to do anything on that tune, just to learn not ornaments like that on every tune I play. And ever since then I have kept that in mind.

As you can hear, I play the first round without bass, and then comes the bass. But there are still no ornaments in the melody. And that thinking really cought me. I decided to not do my ornaments on completely EVERYTHING I play because its easier to play doing all these ornaments. To play it strictly like that is much harder and that was the purpose learning that tune. And I really love playing that tune just because Im not supposed to do all these jiggly juggly accordion stupid stuff So this video was actually the opposite of this thread. Maybe you understand?

 

[Yffisch]

I have a measure of how far is too far (lol). If its so embellished that you cannot tell what the song is, theyve kind of failed the reason to play that song, IMHO.

Like anything in life, a little is fine, and too much of anything is rarely a good thing... unless its jazz. :lol:

Haha, exactly what I mean. To do it a little, having an inner measure when you should do it automatically or on purpose, or not at all. That is a good balance! But this thread was more like doing balkan ornaments on tunes that are not really supposed to have that. Like Silent Night or similar. Even if its fully legal to do it. But I think its not very cool to do it all the time on everything you play. As I described in my video above. Playing some tunes just clean and simple

 

[Yffisch]

While speaking about the devil!
Just found this on facebook:


Should explain more about what kind of ornaments suitable for different types of music. Of course its cool to decorice other tunes with these ornaments, but as I mentioned above....

 

[JerryPH]

Yes, *that* style. Respectfully, I cannot listen to that at all (I cannot close the window fast enough... lol). It also sounds a lot like Gypsy or Klezmer to my uneducated ears (I know its not and I can tell the difference, it just falls in the same category for me). I know many that love it and I can respect the skill it takes to play in those styles... however, I am not one of those people that enjoy it at all.

By the way, that does not mean that I am not guilty of doing my share of "embellishment notes" myself, but I think I am doing ok... no one ever asked me what was the song that I just played, so I think I am not past that line. :lol:

 

[Barron]

In my opinion, different regions employ different ornaments to compliment different dance styles and idioms.

To each his/her own.

Some folk music is a simple waltz. Others, a more complex series of steps. The same can be said for the approach to the violin or fiddle. The further west you go, the more the vibrato and scales change from Oriental to Occidental. Neither one is "wrong"... it's all in the dance...

 

[Yffisch]

JerryPH: Haha, not my style either. Even if I wish I could play bulgarian Horos and stuff, but I don't give it the time since I'm not fond of that music

Barron: Of course, I'm not telling people to NOT use ornaments. Of course you shall use your own ornaments, that is what makes the music interesting to listen to.
This thread is more about people doing the same jazzy/balkan thing on every tune they play with an smile on their face. Damn it. So hard to explain. I'm NOT at all complaining about the ornaments Ornaments are the most personal thing you can do apart from the melody so I highly recommend doing ornaments.
Imagine the finnish menuett I linked above with this jazzy balkan/klezmer ornaments. That would be so annoying
I have to give you a recording of what I mean when I come home from christmas!

 

[losthobos]

My kind of accordion ornament... merry xmas http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-WOB...ORNAMENT-WEARING-FEZ-/222309816902?nav=SEARCH[/url]

 

[donn]

Yes, well ... my theory is that there's a sort of natural cycle between art and style, such that the soaring art that captured everyone's imagination yesterday, today imprints a style that stagnates in the lifeless fetid pool where small things that annoy us breed in great number. If we're lucky, the things that we remember from an era are mostly the former, and not so much the latter, and of course that includes the present era if we're so lucky as to be able to find the good stuff happening.

But that's popular music for you. I think the way folk traditions are supposed to work, is that after many generations in the fetid pool, the creatures become much more tolerable and occasionally even worth seeking out. Maybe there's some ecological initiative that the United Nations could consider, to help keep these forms from turning back into popular music and starting the loathsome cycle over.

 

[Matt Butcher]

Dearie me, those Victoria accordions really are heartbreakingly lovely.

I took the overall performance to be "showbiz" style, in the best possible way, but I see what you mean about those ornaments being Balkan. I'm intrigued, is everyone round your way doing Balkan ornamentation? It sounds from what you say that it's popular. If so are they from Balkan backgrounds or has it just been decided that it's cool? Round here there are two sets of people who play Balkan music, actual Balkan people and others. The first use Balkan ornamentation, the second not so much. The two groups don't tend to mix much.

I'm sure it's true that good ideas get done to death and overused, repeated the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, as Karl Marx said at the folk session. But a lot of musical groups define themselves as much by what they won't accept as by what they do play, and dominant styles drive out a whole lot of ideas that were doing fine alongside the old cliches. With any luck we come across some of these lost ideas later on (return of the repressed, cultura soppressa, I don't know ) So if a player with the skill of Yffisch was to play Silent Night completely unadorned, plain and clear, it would be beautiful. And once everyone in their right minds agreed that that was the right way to play it, that might be the time to drop a few ornaments in.

 

[donn]

I wish I knew the accordion music scene well enough to identify that style, but it didnt seem a bit Balkan to me.

This is Balkan ornamentation, to me: Tomislav Latinkić - Bugarsko Oro

This doesnt show it very clearly, but since its also a Victoria - Stella by Starlight Imagine someone hearing all the runs in there, and picking them up in the crudest way.

Really the inspiration could come from anywhere, theyre obvious enough gimmicks to use, to dress up a tune, if you like your tunes all dressed up.

 

[EMan]

I fully agree with Jerry. A nice touch of "ornaments" or embellishing is nice and for the most part shows that you know the tune ( and your instrument ) well enough to dress up the tune to be a little snazzier ( for lack of a better word ). Too much and it sounds over done. Recently, here on the forum, someone put a link in for a guy playing "Over the Rainbow". I clicked on the link and listened. Didn't catch the player's name, but he did have good technique and was essentially a good player. Unfortunately, he embellished the tune so much, it was un recognizable. In my opinion, that's where you step over the line. Even people like Frank Marocco and Art Van Damme, when they did a take and did their thing on a song, you could still almost feel the tune in the background.

Personally, I like to stick to the score ( pretty much ) first time around and then do some messing with the tune. But you always know what tune I'm playing and hopefully, the listener feels its being done in good taste.

Anyway, my $ .02

 

[losthobos]

Melody is Queen of the show....harmony is King.......ornaments are pesky grandchildren....a couple are sweet...any more are an infestation...

 

[george garside]

there is a great deal to be said for keeping Chistmas carols and indeed most 'traditional tunes' simple (i.e without smothering with arty farty bits) whilst giving great attention to rhythm, dynamics and perhaps most importantly 'playing the gaps'

To me the nicest accordion rendition of silent night was the recording Sir Jimmy Shand made of it on a little melodeon - just the melody played in a beautifuly 'haunting' way

george

 

[bocsa]

Mood music?

Tomislav Latinkić - Bugarsko Oro

Manic mood?
(Great ... for the closing scenes of a Benny Hill prog

Stella by Starlight
Melancholic mood?

Over-egged puds can induce nausea ...or euphoria ...according to taste

Thanks for the links Donn

 

[EMan]

A Bit off topic here but, I have watched this video (Tomislav Latinkić - Bugarsko Oro) a couple of times now related to this thread and although I see no issue with how quick his right hand is( there are plenty of people with that type of technique), watching his bass fingers makes me think that this video was sped up for effect. I can't imagine anyone's bass fingers moving that quickly. Anyone else think that ?

 

[Matt Butcher]

As concert pianists can go quicker than that, and with a lot more force, I don't think it needs to have been sped up. (Of course, I could be wrong.). It's absolutely great to see people dancing to this type of music.