Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 05:32 AM

Patrick Forester

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 04:34 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96w5ot1I_8U

Subject: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 04:32 PM

Peerie Willie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHRfff93zok

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Oct 23 - 02:17 PM

Most of this thread has been about rhythm. I often do rhythmic accompaniments on an adapted washboard or other percussion, but in several different ways.

There are about three different levels of perceptibility I might aim at. In a large and potentially shambolic group, I may play so the other instrumentalists might hear me but the audience won't: effectively being a conductor. You don't have to be loud and dominant to pull everybody together.

Next level up is playing a sort of contrapuntal line, equal with the melody. If it's a listening situation, this is where you get the greatest opportunity to be creative. You don't want to drown the melody out, ever, but you can add a lot of rhythmic decoration. Good pipe bands and Middle Eastern groups do this.

Above that, you may find when playing for dancing that the dancers are really listening for the pulses the percussionist is giving. Their feet are not moving in time to the tricky cuts and strikes in the tune, or that bit where the guitarist slips in a maj7 chord, they just want to know where the pulses are. So you don't want to care very much if you drown the melody out at times, and you don't want to distract from those pulses with elaborate cross-accents and fills.

As to what beats to play - I find the Middle Eastern or Indian idea of a rhythmic cycle really useful. A lot of the time I will play the same pattern (one or two bars long) throughout one part of a tune, switching to a different pattern for each section, with some sort of signalling hook to indicate when a part is ending (this gives listeners a subtle hint of the tune structure). Pipe band books give written-out descriptions of how to do that. I can usually intuit one that works quite quickly but I don't flatter myself I can think one up straight off first time round on a tune I've never heard before - being somewhat familiar with the tune is essential. Usually I don't do a percussion accompaniment unless I can play the tune on something already.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: gillymor
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 07:39 AM

The late Dennis Cahill, often seen with Martin Hayes, used standard tuning. Here he is with one of my favorites, John Williams.
Click

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: gillymor
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 05:11 AM

Here McGlynn plays the tune while Paul Brady backs him up, looks like Brady is in Drop-D.
Humours of Ballyloughlin

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 02:10 PM

I agree, it does work well with traditional tunes.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 11:03 AM

"Swing", that is.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 11:02 AM

"Peerie" Willie sounded like a Western Sing player. Could anyone play triplets like Gerry O'Connor.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 07:46 AM

The guys I most admired and tried to learn from were Arty McGlynn, Paul Brady and John Doyle, all of whom used Drop-D for accompanying tunes, I believe.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 02:54 PM

Kevin Burke and Michael O'Domhnaill The Daisy Field/ The Abbey Reel

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 02:49 PM

The other part of what I wrote and lost was about using broken chords and arpeggios on my Celtic harp in Brian Boru's March (time sig 6/8 with the two emphasis points, but with beat no 1 emphasised more than beat no 4) and other marches in 2/4 e.g. After the Battle of Aughrim, and Lord Mayo.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 02:44 PM

Darn it! I just wrote a longish reply and it went off into the ether and disappeared.

Thanks         GUEST,James Phillips for your suggestions of trad rhythm guitarists. I haven't heard of them so I will try to find the YouTube video, and thanks GUEST,RJM Date: 29 Oct 23 - 09:17 AM - you said it more clearly than me.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 06:22 AM

Yes, I guess he did.

But there is a definite emphasis on the first and the fourth beats of the bar, which aligns with a march rhythm. And the accompaniment on The Chieftain's version is not just six beats per bar of exactly the same length and strength. It is complex, and interesting.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 28 Oct 23 - 07:00 PM

I realised that I may not have made it clear that the guitarist in our session group who strums according to the time signature, i.e. three strums per bar for 3/4, four strums per bar for 4/4 is strumming with no sense of dotted notes etc. So it is like an axe on a woodblock - 3/4 time sig is strum-strum-strum, strum-strum-strum, with each strum at exactly the same length and strength with no emphasis on the first note of each bar.

Imagine two loud, evenly sounded strums per bar integrated with this amazing version of Brian Boru's March by The Chieftains. Yes there is a 2/4 beat but when I listen to the complexity of the accompaniment I can't just hear two woodenly strummed chords per bar.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 03:09 PM

A couple of years ago my Hubby and I went to a performance of an Aussie band called The Backsliders which used to play blues with a distinctive driving rhythm. We had both seen them perform about 30 years ago and we have one of their albums and really like it. We were looking forward to seeing them perform live, but when they started playing the drummer kept up a very loud, rock 'n' roll beat which overpowered the other two musicians, who then had to keep up with that loud beat. All of the nuances of the guitarist's and the harmonica player's rhythm and blues style was thrown totally out of the window.

At half time we walked out. We were extremely disappointed.

Now, I'm not trying to steer this discussion towards drummers but it was a clear example of one of the musicians taking over the entire sound of the band and making it into something completely different. They were "just another rock band" in my estimation and had lost all of the elements which made them different and interesting.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 01:52 PM

And also, IMO it should also always be played with the right lilt and rhythm. If the guitar player is loudly playing a regimental rhythm to a tune with a lilt or a jig or reel etc, it is at cross purposes.

I should come clean, 'fess up, and say that I play Celtic harp at our session group. I'm self taught, I don't play the melody at the sessions, just the chords or arpeggios of chords, but I try to fit the rhythm of what I am playing to what I call the lilt of the tune. If a guitarist is playing a loud, fixed rhythm e.g. just one strum for each beat in the time signature, or one of the mandolin players in our session group tries to force the pace and make it into more of a rock music interpretation, it's very difficult to play the rhythm or accompaniment which belongs to the tune.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 04:29 AM

One of my favourite albums is Lead the Knave by Arty McGlynn on guitar & Nollaig Casey on fiddle.

They are both exceptionally talented musicians and they work their musical magic together seamlessly, brilliantly. The whole album is a work of art, in my opinion and hearing the guitar work with - and not against - the tunes is a tutorial in itself for aspiring guitarists.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: Helen
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 04:15 AM

GUEST,RJM, I agree completely with that. (Note: I'm not a guitarist, and I am just a self-taught player, so ignore me if you want. LOL)

In our session group there are two guitarists and both of them don't seem to "get" the rhythm of most of the tunes. One of them tries to play accompaniments which are not bog-standard strumming which is ok, but what he plays and what the rest of us are playing quite often does not work together. Sometimes it seems like he is playing a completely different tune. The other guitarist is less confident so s/he strums according to the time signature. Three strums per bar for 3/4, four strums per bar for 4/4 etc. That definitely does not work for a lot of our Irish tunes. When it was suggested - by myself and others - to listen to the rhythm of the tune, we were told, "No, I don't listen to the tune".

This is just me but as an example, some of the tunes on our tune list, including this one make me feel that there is one main beat for each bar, with ornamentation around that one beat:

Archibald MacDonald of Keppoch - John Cunningham

Some of the "one beat to the bar" tunes in my head remind me of hurdy-gurdy tunes with that big first beat (turn of the handle) at the beginning of each bar, especially French tunes.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Oct 23 - 12:37 PM

The point of an accompamnist is to enhance the rhythm of the music & to give a 'lift' to dance music & no more. Whether he/she is technically brilliant is irrelevant.

Such a player should have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate their skill elsewhere. but not as an accompanist.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 11:31 AM

Thankyou James, but this thread
RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,James Phillips
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 09:40 AM

For me, the two best trad rhythm guitarists were always Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and Dáithí Sproule. Both DADGAD masters who seemed to know just the right chords to use and just the right places to change them to enhance the tune. There's a great old video of a concert of Mícheál playing with Kevin Burke on YouTube that's a masterclass in rhythm playing. The album "Traditional Music of Ireland" featuring Dáithí Sproule, James Kelly and Paddy O'Brien has some fantastic examples of Dáithí's playing.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 09:29 AM

All good and fine, emphasis in jigs etc. But how relevant is it here? The crux of the matter is, obviously, did Brian March to a jig or a 6/8 march I would suggest the latter.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 09:17 AM

There are two emphasis points in double jigs, but beat no 1 is emphasised more than beat no 4, they should not be played like fast waltzes where the emphasis is on the first beat of the bar

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 08:03 AM

double jigs consist of six quavers per bar, emphasis on first and lesser emphasis on 4th beat.
double jigs have six quavers to the bar..
single jig are written in twelve 8.
slip jigs are in nine 8 there is an emphasis on first fourth and seventh quavers, according to Alistair Anderson
Slip jigs
Slip jigs are in 9 Eight
8 time. Because of the longer measures, they are longer than the reel and the light jig, with the same number of bars to the music.[15] The dance is performed high on the toes, and is often considered the "ballet of Irish dance" because of its graceful movements that seem to slip the performers across the floor. Slip jigs are performed at a speed of 113 bpm at feiseanna.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 06:40 AM

We are in danger of getting confused in the terminology here. 6/8 has two beats to the bar, falling on the first and fourth note of the six notes to the bar.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 23 - 05:49 AM

Old Brian marched in 6/8, didn't he?

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 04:02 PM

My approach as a melody player is to try and play in a style that i hope would encourage dancers to get up and dance,this has happened, there used to be a dancer in Ballydehob who would get up and step in our session when we were playing, Jim Bainbridge would probably remember him., in fact there were two
In our part of ireland people still get up and dance to irish trad music.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 12:33 PM

IMO it should always be played so that people can dance to it.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,Keith Price
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 11:44 AM

Virtuoso's and egotists should keep to melody instruments, would that be right Jim.
The majority of Irish music isn't played for dancing these days, it's no longer the primary function.
In sessions we accept good,bad and indifferent musicians on all instruments.
I'm a fiddle player/guitarist. I wouldn't like to say which category I fall into.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 26 Oct 23 - 03:59 AM

The only guitarist that i played with[ IN IRELAND]who was an asset to my playing was Patrick Forester.
I agree, Jim

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 25 Oct 23 - 08:56 AM

I think the essence of accompaniment of dance tunes is that it is just that.
So many guitar accompanists do not grasp that they are only there to add rhythm to the melody, not to distract from it.

Exotic chords and syncopation may have an occasional novelty value (although probably not in an actual dance setting!) but a sympathetic guitarist, pianist or whatever knows this principle and applies it.

Virtuosos and egotists should keep well away unless they accept this- otherwise they are a damn nuisance as accompanists.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 03:26 AM

imo, guitarists need to listen, to how the tune is being played, it is a good idea to sing the tunes while accompanying them on the guitar too,
    It is a mistake that teachers make is to give the impression to guitarists and bodhran players that set patterns and rhythms for tunes.is enough
that is ok up to a point, but every rhythmic tune is different, for example.. lark in the morning jig has a different feel to joe cooleys jig

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 12:42 PM

Patrick is ceratainly influenced by Peerie Willie and also Merle Travis & is certainly the most rhythmic and tasteful guitarist I have ever played with- most guitar accompanists are dreadful.

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 12:31 PM

Patrick forester is a guitarist based in west cork he used to play with jim Bainbridge, He is one of the best guitarists i have played with.


Peerie Willie.was influenced by jazz guitarists like Eddie Lang, but his sty;e and that of Easy Club guitrist Rod Patterson, imo works well for trad tunes

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 07:38 AM

indeed he is very good..Jim

Subject: RE: Accompanying Trad Tunes Standard Guitar
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 05:35 AM

Wot?