So easy...

[Ffingers]

I hate it when people make hard things look so easy:




Have a look at some of his really complicated stuff on the rest of his channel.

 

[Tom]

Cool channel, interesting, thanks Fingers! I don’t see it as looking easy though!

Check this baroque Autumn Leaves:

 

[PhiliGol]

I hate it when people make hard things look so easy:




Have a look at some of his really complicated stuff on the rest of his channel.

Thank you for directing to this channel Ffingers.
Great performances - good recording technology.

 

[vivdunstan]

Yup there are some great performances on that channel. I’m also very partial to their version of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Which reminds me I need to crack on with my own practice of that on the accordion!

 

[JKJ]

Yup there are some great performances on that channel. I’m also very partial to their version of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Which reminds me I need to crack on with my own practice of that on the accordion!

Wonderful! This is the first thing I‘ve listened to with the new Beats Studio Pro headphones that came today. Replaying now...

Thanks.

 

[debra]

That is just incredible. Playing this on the bandoneon really makes it look like the notes are just placed randomly. I'm sure there is a system to it (and it's not chromatic) but it must be very hard to learn. No wonder that people who want to try the bandoneon often opt to start with a chromatic one...

 

[JKJ]

I’ve been binge-listening on his channel - classical, russian pieces, french, nutcracker, repairing his instrument before a concert…

… then this, starting with an adaptation on one of my Chopin favorites on the piano:



This amazing guy must have four brains in his skull.

JKJ

 

[JerryPH]

That is just incredible. Playing this on the bandoneon really makes it look like the notes are just placed randomly.

I’ve only tried one out once, and after struggling for 10 minutes found a couple chords and stopped. My conclusion was that they are truly evil things that make an Incredibly pleasant sound and made to torture accordionists. I really like them, but have no desire to learn to play them.

 

[tcabot]

There's always chromatic bandos that make an incredibly pleasant sound, yet, have logic to their layout

 

[temryd]

What an amazing and talented musical performance on a bandoneon...I wouldn't have thought it possible on such an instrument.

 

[Tom]

I’ve only tried one out once, and after struggling for 10 minutes found a couple chords and stopped. My conclusion was that they are truly evil things that make an Incredibly pleasant sound and made to torture accordionists. I really like them, but have no desire to learn to play them.

My experience with the Chemnitzer. It’s no wonder the Germans drink so much beer! Just kidding!

 

[OuijaBoard]

One reason the OP clip looks so easy is, the arrangement is Palmer-Hughes Book 3/4/5 level, and I don't mean that disparagingly--Watching this beautiful playing I'm musing again that for my taste single-note melody playing sounds loveliest of all on free-reed instruments. Over 10 years ago there used to be a bandoneon enthusiast named Hugo Aranguiz on the now-defunct yahoo discussion group for bandonion, who posted a slew of clips on YT showing various maestros playing different pieces---I remember being shocked that my favorites were labeled "study" versions or "student" versions. They were arrangements like the OP clip here, and I thought they were the prettiest ones. (Due to some kerfluffle or other he pulled that material from YT--Many of those clips are now on FB: https://www.facebook.com/hugo.aranguiz.3/videos_by)

OTOH Mr. Constantini's multi-voice Bach clips don't look easy to me at all--they're as smooth as silk, but they look frighteningly difficult to execute!

The editing and cutting is unusual for bando clips, both audio and visual. Almost seems as if the audio we're hearing was not from the visual we're seeing. Perhaps they are intentionally not synced.

 

[OuijaBoard]

Re my note above about the sound and visual editing style of Mr. Constantini's clips---Here is another single melody-line arrangement of a Parisian waltz on bandoneon--an instrumental rendition of Aznavour's "La Boheme," here titled "La Bohemia."

This is how a "raw" recording looks and sounds without the dissolves and aural air-brushing. Even if you are playing bi-directionally as opposed to the "only on the pull" Argentine style here, normally there are audible and visual markers of the instrument's bisonoric essence. The "raw" version here is very soulful . . . . though Signor C.'s more glossy, edited presentation is also lovely.

 

[dak]

That is just incredible. Playing this on the bandoneon really makes it look like the notes are just placed randomly. I'm sure there is a system to it

That's where you are wrong. There is a tiny "normal" diatonic block in the right hand (I think just part of one row). There is a tiny block of matching diatonic basses in the left hand (matching in that they would be what you'd have for basses in a tiny diatonic accordion, which is totally different to what you have for the "melody" side). Then you have about 7 growth spurts of additional buttons around those central areas that are less well structured than the single growth spurt the 2-row Wiener had in order to become a 2½-row club accordion. The growth spurts have different purposes, like adding basic melodic capacity to the left hand, adding some chromaticity, making for a more complete set of chromaticity at least in the middle of the range and so on. Historic bandionions come in a variety of sizes depending on what growth spurt was last.

There is not "a" system to it. There is very little that is systematic, and a whole lot that is a tale of mystery and imagination, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

You have more or less a chromatic instrument on the draw. On push, there are more tones lacking (depending on just how many buttons you have). The Argentinian tango players with a folk tradition (Piazzolla also, by the way) are rarely seen playing the instrument other than on the draw. People with a German or with an academic education can be seen reversing the bellows in a natural flow of notes even though the almost-chromatic instrument on push has completely different buttons and partly different notes and tessitura.

That's for the common instruments (Rheinische Lage as played in Argentina, or Deutsches Einheitsbandonion that you can still find around: I am not sure just when they diverged, but at least the 142-note and 144-note instruments fall into those categories and the larger 156(?)-note instrument is just Rheinische).

Not everything I write may be quite correct, but the differences to the truth will not substantially change the nightmare this thing is.

 

[OuijaBoard]

Yes, it's "not random" only in the sense that certain notes often used together came over time to be kind of "clustered" in reach of one another. But not in a systematic repeating pattern, or with any "Rosetta Stone" as with CBA. There's a lot of historical info out there as to how and when it evolved. Some of the evolution was in response to demands or requests of Argentine tangueros, hence the "Rheinische" system as distinct from the "Einheits." There's even a couple of unisonoric notes, in the bass.

One simply has to grit one's teeth, memorize, and do scales, arpeggios, etc., to imprint it all on the neural pathways.

 

[OuijaBoard]

I see that Signor Constantini has a number of sheet music arrangements available for sale on his site, including the "Baroque Autumn Leaves" posted above. A few appear readily usable for Stradella PA or CBA; others might be more attemptable on freebass.

SHOP | Official Website

www.claudioconstantini.com