Trad guitar recommendations

Frankiestylee

I've been playing guitar for years but for some reason I've no idea what a guitar is meant to be do for traditional Irish music. Well, I know how to play all the aul ballads etc, but can someone recommend me some good examples of the guitar being used as accompaniment for something you can do Irish dancing to?

I know there are fantastic guitarists that can pretty much play lead and nearly take the place of a fiddle, but I'm just looking for a good example of mostly chords, it's more the rhythm/changes I'm interested in. I tried playing with an accordian before and my rock ideas just lead me nowhere.

K!LL!@N

The reason you don't hear a lot of lead guitar playing in sessions is because unless it's miked up or plugged into an amp it's going to get drowned out by the other instruments.
That's not to say it can't be done, but typically unless it's pretty quiet it's not going to be heard.

A lot of trad guitarists would use open tunings for backing.
DADGAD is very popular and lends it's self very well to the sound.
You get a nice drone sound something akin to the sound of pipes.

If you've been listening to sessions where the guitarist is playing in DADGAD you're going to find it hard to replicate that kind of sound in standard tuning.

Obviously standard tuning can work perfectly well but you'll find that a lot of times the chords are voiced in different positions other than the standard chord voicings.

Hopefully that might point you in the right direction.

Killian

sirduffalotus

I'm in the same boat, this bookwas recommended to me by a few people. It gives and introduction into backing along with all the chords in dadgad but it mainly shows you how to pick out the tunes, so both options are left open.

This is another book i got, just pure backing, very good,

hope this helps

singloud

They had a program on Irish traditional guitar on TG4 a couple of days ago, check it out if they repaeat it.

Oink

I took a few lessons back in the day, but my teacher didn't like that first book very much actually. then again he wasnt very much into DADGAD, so you can take the advice as is.
The second book by Gavin Ralston is...somewhere in the house. I'll have another look at it this evening (never got very far in the book), and I'll give you my $0.02 tomorrow. I have the tape as well, but not the VCR to go with it.

---
Also I find that guitar accompaniment in ITM is not very intuitive (well, not often). The rhythm, the chord changes, the shape of the chords (like K!LL!@n said)... The whole thing can be mind-boggling if you don't know where to start.

Oink

Correction: since I didn't spend too much time on that book I'll leave you with sirduffalotus' advice since he has actually worked on it.

Frankiestylee

[QUOTE=OinkAlso I find that guitar accompaniment in ITM is not very intuitive (well, not often). The rhythm, the chord changes, the shape of the chords (like K!LL!@n said)... The whole thing can be mind-boggling if you don't know where to start.[/QUOTE]

I think that's my problem... I can play lead in tunes like the Irish Washerwoman, but not at the proper tempo for dancing/a good trad session, but I've tried backing with chords and it's totally mind boggling! Even when I had someone calling out the chords to me I still felt rather lost.

I'll have a look into those books and see what I can learn. I tend to play a lot of country/folk rhythm guitar so Irish trad should suit me perfectly, but no, not yet anyway.

Oink

He he... I remember trying to play some tunes by Martin Hayes / Denis Cahill with a fiddling mate of mine, but I'd never heard the CD. I went straight into a wall. I had to sit down, and figure out what the hell they were doing.

I suggest you start with the structure of the tune. You will find that "standard" trad tunes often have a set structure, which is very repetitive, and confusing if you don' t figure it out first.

For example, it might look something like this (roughly). Each letter here represents a segment of the tune, not a chord. (A2 is the same phrase as A1, with a little variation, often a different ending)

A1+A2 B1+B2 x2
C1+C2 C1+C3 x2
A1+A2 B1+B2 x2
then play the whole thing twice, and go straight into the next tune.

Also, if you have 4 measure for example, chords may change on the 3rd beat, then last for 3 beats instead of 4. Or something like that. So it does throw you off if you don't get used to it. The chords placement is not random, just unusual.

I'm not sure if you know what I'm trying to say, but if you listen to a few tunes, write down the chords, you will start to see how marvellously twisted and sadistic it all is.

Frankiestylee

This has cropped up again in my life and after reading your last post there Oink... I'm rather scared :P

Reckon I'm gonna have to grab a book or two

Oink

Frankiestylee wrote:

This has cropped up again in my life and after reading your last post there Oink... I'm rather scared :P

Reckon I'm gonna have to grab a book or two

No need to take out the books just yet. Start with a few "standard" tunes, listen to them, and write down the chord structure. Then try to make sense of it, see where they're going with it. Then you'll have this Aha! moment when it all fits together. You'll find that the tunes can be cut into several parts, that some parts are similar, but not identical. Assign each part a number or a letter,write these on a paper, and then you will have The Knowledge, Little Grasshopper.

It's actually less complicated than reading this post for example.

EDIT: post or PM the names of a few tunes you're trying to figure out, I'll show you what I mean. Well, there's a limit to what you can explain in writing, but we can give it a shot.

Eineidv

The best help for guitar chords I've used is John Doyle's CD Rom, u can get it on Madfortrad.com
he uses a dropped d tuning, which is easier to get used to than Dadgad,