Occasional Folk Songs

To accompany or not?

It's a matter of personal taste. Some songs work well unaccompanied and others seem to need accompaniment. It depends on the song and how you as an individual feel. I use concertina, ukulele and shruti box to accompany songs. The simplest accompaniment is with the shruti box which simply provides a drone. The tunes of many traditional songs are modal and a drone will often work very well with such melodies.

The shruti box is a simplified version of the Indian harmonium. You may have seen an Indian harmonium. It is a keyboard instrument with a hand worked bellows at the rear to blow air over the reeds. The shruti box dispenses with the keyboard and has a system of stops or flaps to open the reeds as needed. Mine is tuned to the western equal temperament scale and has a one octave range from G to G'. It is fully chromatic and has flaps to uncover the reeds and can be set in any key. I put a short video on You Tube demonstrating the shruti box.

Shruti box demonstration video.