All these accordion ornaments...

[donn]

I confess I had the same thought, that video might be playing faster than it was recorded. But not because it seemed super-human - well, from my perspective it does a bit, but same with the right hand. It's just that it looked vaguely like the same kind of sequence of notes I'd use with the beat of the tune, so it's funny to see them fly by like that. You can slow the video down (may depend on getting a HTML5 rendition, as opposed to Flash), it's somewhat instructive. Accordion players as a species I think tend to under-use their left hands.

 

[JerryPH]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I've seen this kind of motion before. I've seen self-taught people do that kind of left hand "speed bounce" and piano players that come to the accordion, in both cases where there was no instructor or even minor instruction to discuss the abnormality. They really pound on the keys because they are for the most part not even aware of it and it becomes habit.

 

[JerryPH]

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

Seriously, give this man the quote of the year award... lol

 

[maugein96]

Yffisch,

First guy in the clip you posted was Brazilian (I think). I can empathise with what he's doing, even if I don't particularly like it. What you have is a very basic tune, and the guy has decided to put something extra into it (to suit him and not necessarily anybody else). Brazilian music has that little bit extra and demands that the players apply some "oomph" to the music, otherwise it will fall flat and get no listeners at all. Their playing style requires them to put some jazz type embellishments into everything they do, and that's just the way their music is.

The guy playing the Israeli Klezmer tune then giving it the Balkan treatment illustrates a fantastic working knowledge of the music of the countries he has chosen to demonstrate. All of the countries involved have been influenced to some degree by Turkish music, and the scales they use reflect that. Problem is to western ears these scales contain notes that can sound distinctly non melodic, with a pronounced "oriental" flavour. I don't know enough about musical theory to adequately describe the Turkish musical scales, except to say that they often feature "quarter" notes that fall in between the notes found in our western chromatic scales.

Obviously these quarter notes cannot be replicated on any type of accordion, but the Balkan players overcome this to a degree by playing slurs, and other embellishments at a pace where they are able to give that "Turkish" flavour to the tunes.

In the same "devil" clip the player's rendition of the Serbian and Romanian styles were particularly evocative, with the Bulgarian and Macedonian versions not lagging far behind.

In Sweden (and most of the rest of the western world) embellishments applied to popular tunes has to be done with restraint, otherwise the audience will either fail to recognise the melody or declare a poor rendition of a tune they know and love which has been bastardised out of their comfort zones. When these tunes are taken to places like South America then the players will almost invariably adapt them consistent with their playing styles, much in the same way that a jazz player would. I personally like tunes with a jazzy theme, but often take exception to long jazz improvised type melodies which have the listener struggling to identify the title concerned.

With Klezmer and Balkan type music we are in slightly different territory, but each area has its own fairly distinctive identity which players transpose to their music. A Bulgarian will demonstrate a certain style of playing to a tune common to other Balkan regions, and the written score will often only be used as a rough guide as to how the basic melody was written.

Whilst I understand that in certain countries people expect tunes to be played in a fairly standardised manner, I would urge players and listeners to look outside what they are "comfortable" with, and if a foreign player gives a rendition of a well known tune that is not immediately recognisable, at least respect the fact that the player has taken the time and trouble to play a title that is probably outside his/her comfort zone, and if they decide to apply some localised techniques to the number, then just accept it for what it is.

If everybody spoke the same language with precisely the same accent or dialect, then that might be the preference of some, but there are others of us who enjoy a bit of variety.

 

[JerryPH]

What you have is a very basic tune, and the guy has decided to put something extra into it (to suit him and not necessarily anybody else). Brazilian music has that little bit extra and demands that the players apply some oomph to the music, otherwise it will fall flat and get no listeners at all. Their playing style requires them to put some jazz type embellishments into everything they do, and thats just the way their music is.

Ill have to politely disagree with that.

Here is an example of a few Brazilian accordionists just jamming away... none of the Jazzed-up super-embellished effects are in sight, and the effects are very pleasant!

<YOUTUBE content=>[youtube]</YOUTUBE>


Another example of a popular Brazilian tune:
<YOUTUBE content=>[youtube]</YOUTUBE>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEZ4MCmoIvM

Here is another example of the same song by another player:
<YOUTUBE content=https://www.youtu.be/LH-7M7J7HDo>[youtube]https://www.youtu.be/LH-7M7J7HDo[/youtube]</YOUTUBE>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH-7M7J7HDo

Same Brazilian song, 2 very different people... VERY similar and you can tell what the song is in both cases, and no overembelleshment in sight.

In Sweden (and most of the rest of the western world) embellishments applied to popular tunes has to be done with restraint, otherwise the audience will either fail to recognise the melody or declare a poor rendition of a tune they know and love which has been bastardised out of their comfort zones.

Im not gong to blame the perceived bastardization (dont really like that word, sorry), of music on the listening people. In this case, I am going to blame specific people in a country.. SOME accordionists that want to impress rather than play as it should be because of how and what they learned, perhaps a strong lack of popular accordion education by qualified teachers and following poor examples of what they perceive is the right way. Embellishment is totally in the hands of the person who has their fingers on the keyboards 100% of the time and no one else.

Im not talking about Klezmer, Gypsy or Balkan or Arabic styles or song that were originally WRIITEN to sound exactly like that, we are talking talented people screwing up perfectly good music by overdoing things that in this thread we are politely calling embellishments or ornamentation.

If everybody spoke the same language with precisely the same accent or dialect, then that might be the preference of some, but there are others of us who enjoy a bit of variety.

Nothing wrong with variety, it is the spice of life, but when someone plays a song that you and others know... and it sounds NOTHING like what anyone knows, are they really playing that song or are they playing something else?

How about if we do decide to all speak English, however, I choose to insert 2 profanities before I start my phrase, and insert a profanity in between every word and then end it with 5 profanities, all in English... how many people will care to listen, no matter how impressive my language skills get?

Let me use one other small example. You are now a world famous composer and you write a song that becomes famous world-wide. EVERYONE is whistling your tune, its on the radio every 5 minutes. An accordionist plays your song, and puts it on YouTube... and it sounds NOTHING even close to your tune, yet he clearly identifies it as being a jazzed up version of YOUR song. How would that make you feel?

I can give one more example. When my father was alive, one of the channels on TV he loved to watch was SLAGR.TV. There is a sax player there, really talented, but every 2nd or 3rd note, of EVERY song, he drops up and down a semitone. It got to the point I had to leave the room when he came on, he drove me NUTS... lol Ok, that is an extreme example, but this guy was GOOD, he just couldnt play a single song without... well, you know... yourwordhere. The day he breaks that stupid habit, he will be amazing, but until that day, I will leave the room the moment he starts to play.

 

[donn]

An accordionist plays your song, and puts it on YouTube... and it sounds NOTHING even close to your tune, yet he clearly identifies it as being a jazzed up version of YOUR song. How would that make you feel?

I would feel like my tune got adopted into the jazz world. Thats what its about -- the tune is a platform for a creative performance, and it really doesnt matter if no one recognizes it.

Maugein is right, of course, style and quantity of ornamentation obviously varies a lot depending on musical idiom, and there are plenty of cases where music suffers greatly if its missing. I dont know if his surmise about Brazilian musical heritage is accurate or not - I mean, Im sure hes Brazilian, but whether the glissandos etc. were talking about come from there or elsewhere, I cant pick out. Im sticking with my previous guess that its from a US jazz-influenced style. But Brazil has a rather large musical tradition, and one or two examples that meet with your approval dont really disprove the theory.

In the end, it has to be left to the performers taste, and inevitably there will be performers whose taste we dont care much for. On the other hand, we can choose how rigid were going to be about certain preconceived notions of taste, and possibly find more enjoyment that way.

 

[JerryPH]

Thats what I love about conversations here, pretty much always intereting and opinions and likes from about all extremes and everything in between.

"In the end, it has to be left to the performer's taste..."

Thats exactly what I was saying, and just to be sure, I wasn't arguing, just having a friendly bater.

 

[george garside]

what you do can and often will depend on whether you are playing for 'yourself' or for 'others'

george

 

[JerryPH]

For many, I am sure this is true, though for me, what I practice is like 99% of what I would play for an audience. However, I could see where others that do have the desire and augmented abilities to experiment with this skill and see how far they can take it musically in their search for some higher form of expression.

I know why I am the way that I am and have the opinions the way that I do. I don't really understand it, likely because my education was "classical" and in my case, very rigid and structured. "Embellishments" for me meant point deductions in competitions and in practice, they often meant a conductor's baton across the tops of the hands or on occasion the thick side of the baton against back of the head... lol

Back when I was much younger, with all the people in my musical world (instructors, conservatory and orchestral students and teachers, etc...) to them anyone that used the term "jazz it up" meant "I can't play it the way it is supposed to be played", which of course today I know is not always true.

 

[maugein96]

Looks like we are all at cross purposes here. The OP was written by a Swedish member, so all of we non-Swedes have to work out what he means by "ornaments". We cannot say for certainty what nationality the player subject of the OP is, so I throw in the possibility that he is a Brazilian. Here in Scotland Brazilians are known for their jazzy type music, whether with embellishments or not. I then make a general observation that you would expect a Brazilian to embellish any tune, which I accept is not necessarily correct. What I did was give a Scotsman's stereotypical description of a Brazilian player trying to jazz everything up. What I forgot is that members in other countries don't necessarily have the same view, so straight away I have unwittingly opened up a window for argument.

We then start a discussion on what constitutes good or bad playing of a Klezmer tune, cleverly "Balkanised" by the player concerned. Let's face it, how many of us are familiar enough with the music of the countries involved to make a definitive criticism of one country's style versus another?

As far as I am aware none of the players of any of the Brazilian tunes in the clips are actually Brazilian nationals. In fact I'm sure I recognised the stout chap with the glasses playing the Roland in the first clip as a Romanian rabbi who likes playing Brazilian music. The guy in the second clip is Italian, the third is American etc. All of the tunes involved are being played in a manner which is conducive to Non Brazilian listeners. When you actually hear Brazilian players playing those tunes, the effect is totally different.

Given my distinct lack of musical education the best conclusion I can offer is that we are motivated by what we like to hear and play ourselves. We all have our preferences and hates, and unfortunately we often cannot agree on certain facts. I sometimes feel that I am being "out-gunned" when I attempt to put explanations on here in layman's terms, although something keeps driving me to put posts on regardless.

In summary, I like some "ornaments", but not all of them. I don't expect other people to like the same ornaments as I do. As an infamous Glasgow tram conductress of formidable stature used to say "Everybody is entitled to my opinion!"

 

[donn]

As far as I am aware none of the players of any of the Brazilian tunes in the clips are actually Brazilian nationals. In fact Im sure I recognised the stout chap with the glasses playing the Roland in the first clip as a Romanian rabbi who likes playing Brazilian music. The guy in the second clip is Italian, the third is American etc. All of the tunes involved are being played in a manner which is conducive to Non Brazilian listeners. When you actually hear Brazilian players playing those tunes, the effect is totally different.

Ah, now that you mention it, the chatter at the beginning of that first clip is sure not Portuguese, sounds more like some Slavic language (so not Romanian either.) For an example of Brasileirinho played by an eminently bona fide Brazilian, may I present Dominguinhos. I dont actually hear a radical difference in ornamentation, but wouldnt have expected to hear it here in this tune anyway. (Its sure much better on rhythm, though.)

I might offer the same prediction for tunes in the 1st clip. In this case, because the tune revolves around a kind of harmonic complexity, in a way that might be injured by extraneous ornamentation. Different styles. But ... in the first tune, in the first clip, trace of that same glissando effect pops up here and there. Much more tasteful and less ostentatious than the glissandos that I believe were the basis of the criminal charges that opened this discussion, but there they are. Not because love/hate ornamentation, but because glissando has an expressive potential there. As it does in the carol, whether its as appealing there or not.

 

[maugein96]

Donn,

Rabbi I mentioned who appears in 1st clip posted by Jerry is Sorin Rosen, from Bucharest, Romania. Dont know the nationalities of the other players, as I couldnt work out what they were speaking. Might have been Hebrew, which Sorin Rosen also speaks?

Here he is with Ludovic Beier giving it big licks with one of those jazz numbers with too many ornaments for my liking:-




P.S. Dominguinhos clip is the style of Brazilian playing I prefer. Nearly all the good Brazilian players Ive heard have that sound which foreign players never seem to be able to acquire.

 

[donn]

Sure, I dont really have a clue what the language is, other than it isnt Portuguese.

Speaking of which ... for another senseless tangent, heres an example of how they do it in Portugal. This goes back to a very distant branch of the Lima family, Eugénia Lima who was a seminal performer generations ago in Portugal and venerated by modern accordion students. She didnt invent the Portuguese taste for ornamentation, thats just a little background for this performance which I suppose may follow Dona Eugénia more or less note for note: Lisboa menina e moça. A simple tune richly embroidered with various trills and similar ornaments, and for me, its a glorious, I wouldnt change a thing.

The connection between Portugal and Brazil was gone long before the invention of the accordion, though. For what its worth, this Daniel Lima appears to be tangled up with the big pentacostal sect that shows up a lot on youtube, Congregação Cristã no Brasil (CCB.) Youll see only men in those videos, because women may play only the organ. It came to my attention initially because their orchestras include giant exotic contrabass saxophones that are manufactured in Brazil. Musically, though, this segment of the Brazilian music scene is very unlikely to set the world on fire.

 

[Yffisch]

I just want to clear out that I really much enjoy all kinds of ornaments and different styles and languages and everything and that is what makes most of the music interesting to listen to.
The point is that I do not want People to play everything as it is written on a sheet music paper. Do whatever you want to.
But before I learnt that finnish tune I linked before in this thread, I was very inside the box always doing what I thought "my really own and special and personal ornamenatiom and what is comfy for the fingers" ornamentation. Because "music is something personal and etc etc". But once my teacher forced me not to do my standard ornamentations on everything, I got out of the box. A real eye opener!
I could actually try to play something clean just to master the skill. To be more aware of the music. To be more aware of the ornaments, even though they are somehow automatic.

It is just an eye opener to play some tunes as they are just as a merit. A skill. To improve yourself as a musicIan.

I don't blame anyone, I just criticize it a bit because I was the same. No one should stop doing their stuff, but it may be a little bit "broader" to not balkanize everything you play. Then you're locked in a big black box I think.

Written on my phone so sorry for mispellings.