Chords for Irish Concertina Lesson 1 - [The Basics] Start Here

Hi there, welcome to the Online Academy of Irish Music.
My name is Idel Fox and I'm here today to
show you some tips and little tricks and skills for playing the concertina.
So I suppose the
first thing really that I'm going to talk about is the instrument itself that I have here. _
This is a concertina that I got not so long ago.
It's a Wally Carrell concertina but it has 30
keys.
So the most standard, I suppose the standard amount of keys that you would get on any
concertina is 30.
Sometimes people play like a 38 key concertina and that just means it has some
extra buttons in the top.
_ _ It's a diatonic instrument so which means that when you pull
and when you press a button, this is that, [Bm] and you pull this, this is the bellows,
_ [C] you get one note.
But when you press that same button and you push the bellows,
_ [N] you get a different note.
So I suppose the funny thing about learning the concertina is
it doesn't, when you're looking for it, say for example the scale of D, which is a very,
very commonly used scale or a very commonly used key in our traditional music, when you're looking
for that scale on the concertina, it doesn't follow a specific pattern as such because the
concertina was originally built with this middle row being the key of C, okay, the same on the
other side, all in the key of C.
The inside row, key of G, okay, same over here, and these outside
rows are rows of accidentals, okay.
So to play the key of D or the scale of D, you have to use a
combination of the three rows.
So I'm going to show you where the very first note in the scale
of D is going to be D obviously, so I'll just show you where that is.
It's with your third finger,
and when I talk about fingers in the concertina, I'm referring to my first finger, second, third,
and fourth, okay.
So it's on the third row, which means I must use my third finger, okay.
First finger for the first row, second finger for the second row, third for the third, use your
little finger for that fourth row, and you don't really use these buttons very regularly, but if
you were to use them, they're very, very low notes on the left hand side and very high notes on the
right hand side, if you were to use them, you'd also use your little finger, okay.
So again, you've
got your first finger for the first row, any of those three buttons, second finger for the second
row, any of those three buttons, third for the third row, and fourth for the fourth row.
So it's
the same then on the other side.
To play D, the first note of the D scale, it's on the third row
down, this button here, and you play it with your third finger, and you pull it, so D is on the [D] pull, _ _
_ [G] _ okay.
So after D, you're going to be playing E, E is with your second finger on the second row,
[E] and you push it in.
_ _ _ _ [N] _ _ Now in the scale of D, you're going to use F sharp, F sharp is on the inside row,
this is what we call the inside row, the row in near your body, you use your little finger or
your pinky finger, [F#] pull it out.
_ _ So [Fm] I'm going to do those three notes again for you.
D is the third finger,
third row, on [D] E.
_ _ [E] E is your second finger, second row, and the push.
_ _ [F#] F is your baby finger on the inside row, and you push.
_ _ _ _ [D]
So pull, _ [E] push, [F#] pull.
_ [N]
Okay, so after F, you're going to have G.
To find G, it's on the first row with your first [F#] finger, and you push it in.
[G] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [D] So D, E, F, G are pull, _ [E] _ push, _ [F#]
pull, with your little finger, [G] push.
_ _ [D#] Now A [E] is actually quite easy to find in that it's the same
button as G, but you [A] pull it out.
_ _ _ [G] So G, okay, [A] _
_ _ _ _ so I'll do those first five [D] notes for you again.
_ [E] _ [F#] _ _ [G] _ [A] _ _ _
[G] Okay, then for B, you're going to move to your right hand side,
it's with your first finger in the middle, top row, and you pull it.
_ _ _ Okay, _ _ [A] _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [A]
[B] now, _ [G] _ _ _ so my C sharp on
[C] _ my concertina is here with my second [C#m] finger.
_ _ _ [D] Some of you will find it up here on the push,
on the first finger, and my concertina happens to [C#m] be on the pull, _ [N] but a lot of you, I guarantee,
will find it there on the push, okay?
Mine [C#] happens to be here.
_ And then to finish off, the high D that
I always teach first and I always use is over here, [N] first finger on the left hand side on the inside row.
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [N] It is actually kind of hard to get to grasps with the D scale because there's no real pattern
_ per se, you know, to where the notes are.
I suppose it's just really a case of learning off and
finding exactly where they are and learning them off by heart.
The D scale, just to recap on it again,
[D] I'll talk over it as well so you know exactly where I am.
Third finger
on the third row, left hand side, pull is D.
_ _ Push.
_ [C] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
[F#] _ Little finger, inside row, pull. _ _
_ [N] G.
_ [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ [D] A is that same button but you [A] pull. _
_ [D] Then you move to the left hand side and you get [B] B. _
Pull, first [N] finger.
C sharp, and remember my one is on the second row, yours might be on the first row.
_ _ [A] _ _ _
And [N] then the final note, this is one of the high Ds on the concertina, it's on the left hand side
and you [G] push it in.
_ _ _ That's the one I would like you to learn first, that high D, okay?
So I'll do it one [D] more time.
_ [E] _
_ [F#m] _ [G] _ _ [A] _ _ [B] _ [D#] _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ [G#] Okay, and when you get confident with it you can [Gm] then play it back in.
_ [C#m] _ [G] _ _ [A] _
[G] _ _ [F#] _ [E] _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ [C] If you were to stay in the key of D and do something really simple, [D] I suppose everybody
knows how Twinkle Twinkle sounds, we will use just some of the notes that I'm actually teaching.
So, Twinkle Twinkle. _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ [Em] _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [F#] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _