I don't like the way the plucked notes accent over the pull offs and hammer ons. They stress the wrong parts of the tunes. (Also, there is a bit wrong in the second part of that first tune. That run at the end goes |gfe dBG|ABG FED:|)
I thought it was rather nice. It's true that the pulse was different from the conventional jig pulse, but remember that llig has fixed, polarized opinions about just about everything, so it's not worth worrying very much about what he says. But you might want to think about that in some way.
BTW, I really liked the little bit I saw of hakanozel's playing the other day.
Is that you Munichg? Very nice. What guitar are you playing?
As a fingerstyle player myself, I know the challenges involved in what you are doing, and the playing is very nice, very good, it is technically harder than playing on a single line melody on guitar, very much harder.
The problem I have with most fingerstyle playing of tunes (as opposed to backing) is a challenge I try to meet myself, and that is in not having a jig or reel sound like a set piece, but rather, get it up to tempo, with the rhythm, snap and drive that you would have from say a fiddle, flute or whistle. It is much, much more of a challenge when you have your thumb as a rule backing you and two-three fingers doing melody. Or at times for variety going down an octave and using thumb for melody while brushing the high strings.
The tunes are nice as set pieces, for listening, but what if others want to join in, whether in performance or session, that's the challenge. I am not knocking your playing, don't get me wrong, I think it is lovely. I am just throwing out the suggestion to carry it a step further and get up to at least acceptably slow dancing jig speed and see if you like it better that way. Just let loose and try it home alone. Make your mistakes, but try to feel the joy in getting up to speed. You have to develop a real looseness of playing to get up to speed which takes much practice time, but when it clicks once, what a feeling. Don't worry about ornaments so much for now, when practicing, just give it a try. The loosenes comes to the left hand in particular in time, to the point of being able to let it fly up and down the neck, and at that point go back to work filling in the ornaments. This all at home alone of course!!
In musical company, if asked to start off a tune, I will play up to speed (unless doing a slow O'Carolan set piece for example), because people will join in and bring it up to speed themselves and just carry it away otherwise. Let me guess that this has happened to you that the speed gets hijacked and you are left suddenly stranded. I know from experience myself. I played last Sunday out at a session, and when my turn came up, I started out with a jig I wrote (one person next to me knew it and played some on concertina) and then went into the Rolling Wave, which all joined in on, and was told to slow down a notch so others could jump in., It's just a matter of shifting the focus to tempo. When you know the tune real well, it becomes easy to play it too fast.
Sometimes on solo fingerstyle tunes, being that the neck and strings and notes are not set up to conveniently play all the proper ornaments in the same place a flute or fiddle would, and that can slow you down if you try to, I choose to leave some of the ornaments go if there has to be a choice between an ornament and the tempo, and keep with the swing of the tune. Otherwise to my ear the tune on guitar, which must be, by the nature of the places the notes are, gets slowed down, gets too fussy and ends up sounding baroque or classical, and all too often looses the spirit of the dance in the music, which to my ear is what it's all about.
This is not to be critical, I don't mean it that way, and many players prefer to play the tunes slower, solo, and as listening pieces, which is fine. I am suggesting another option, which can give the playing and the tune more of the wildness and abandon and danceability that is typical of ITM. Think of a tune well played to speed on a harp, fingerstyle gives a very similar effect. I think of it as a form of the harp anyway, but more compact, with frets making different notes rather than all those strings.
A really important thing to keep in mind for getting up to proper tempo if you wish to try, is to have the guitar set up for fingerstyle playing. Have the action adjusted as low as possible without buzzing. If a strummer fro example were to play one of my guitars they'd be buzzing all over the place. I carry a truss rod adjuster in the case at all times, because with the strings so low, a slightly more humid day can swell all the wood a little and render the strings too low and make them buzz a bit. So up they go, just a quarter turn of the hex wrench. Playability is really important in lossening up to get up to speed.
good luck with it all, I really enjoyed your video!
Jfiddler.... I play fingerstyle, and can definitely be heard. A thumbpick used properly and a good set of fingernails on the right hand.... sometimes you may be asked to tone it down! But I know what you mean. Most finger players are very quiet. Still there is a point, many people want to hear a listening piece for a break. Same goes for the harp players, a silence comes over the room! Harp is louder than most guitar pieces though, true.... still I love to hear them!
I thought it sounded classical too. Still nice, but more classical than Irish. Maybe irisnevins is right and the speed is why. Would love to hear it again after you work on some of her suggestions!
I take your point and i'm certainly not a person who is for sessions constantly pumping out tunes at full volume all the time.
With your expertise you could perhaps clarify it but i was thinking with his style of putting alot of the notes by use of the left hand only i.e. not plucking it out, just relying on the strings vibration from the previous note.
That's why i was thinking alot of it would be lost at a session, more so than Arty McGlynn's style of playing tunes etc. Didn't mean to offend but i was thinking that it was more an exhibition style than other guitar pluckers??
Iris, I just knew that you would be in on this one. Good constructive comments. I'm pleased you got the term "snap" in there! As for buzzing, my own guitar is very low set and I quite like the occasional buzz, especially in bluesy stuff.
luvely, truly beautiful, I couldn't dance to it but I'd listen to it over and over again. As everyone's said before it's more classical than Irish but I do love classical fingerstyle guitar.
After reading thousands of posts on this site I thought we were not supposed to hear the instruments.
Or does that only apply to bodhrans?
The piece portrayed here is Irish, no doubt, it is just being played slower. Very nice actually, but at a session those joining in, well melody players, would not listen to the pace and plough away at "normal" speed, thereby leaving this talented guitar player behind the pace.
I loved it as a set or "listening" piece. Even if you follow Iris' good advice above, I'd keep playing tunes in your current style as well (outside a session context) because it definitely has its place.
I also say ignore the naysayers and keep on developing your own style. I hear a renaissance flavor which is enjoyable. If you're the one starting a tune, polite sessioners would try to hold it at your tempo.
Several posts have mentioned that the piece was too slow- yet I clocked it at 144=dotted quarter note on my metronome, which is as fast a jig tempo as I hear at my session.
If I ever come to a session where the jigs are faster than that, I'll listen from the bar with my flute in its case!
Yep, it has nothing to do with the speed, it's just not jigish. It doesn't have too be jigish, you can play/interpret anyway you want. But you are missing something.
I think it sounds great--a welcome change of timbre from the usual jar of bees.
As far as the rhythm goes, I think the basic jigginess is there, but two factors are keeping it from sounding "authentic" in an "Irish traditional dance music" sense.
First, the lack of slurring or sliding onto the strong beats produces a slightly stilted feel. Most jigs want more loose, slidey nyaah. As a guitar finger picker myself, I wouldn't worry too much about this, as it's partly just the nature of finger picking on guitar. But if you want more nyaah, you could try to slide or hammer-on onto some of the strong beats.
Second, I'm hearing an occasional lag in the rhythm, and my hunch is that your left hand is leading the timing in those passages (perhaps because they're more difficult), so you're losing the pulse created by the right hand.
In other words, play at a tempo that you can comfortably finger the notes, or woodshed a bit more on the left hand so it doesn't hold back the right's rhythm.
I want to underscore, though, that these would be minor refinements--I enjoyed your playing very much.
J fiddlerh.... I knew what you meant. It is very possible to do a lot with the left hand. My latest is playing real close with a melody player, and when they slide a note, I want to slide it at the same time with left hand. It is not plucked. And when they hammer a note down, if a fiddler in particular, I want to be doing it with them. No right hand involved.
Another thing I note...pardon pun.... is many fingerstyle players (and guitarists in general) are coming into this from a "folky music" background. The techniques that work for folksinging, or the gentle picking to back a song, and the picking patterns, they just don't work in ITM. They need to forget them and do a roundabout turn. These tunes are too intense and wild for folk techniques. The only real way is to learn the tunes, forget what they knew before. it's a whole new life with a whole new set of rules. So I suspect when you say they can't be heard, these are the people you are hearing? at least some. Still, better than those coming from a rock background, do ya' think?
Interesting Greg, clocking it! I like it at that pace for a listening piece. I think polite sessioners will either listen or play at your pace, but that doesn't always happen. I rate our local sessions by "octane". Some are very high, real speedy, they intimidate a lot of players. The one I run is a nice middle of the road speed, and you would be welcomed if you wanted to play listening pieces. I rarely play them at my own session oddly, being the MC, i just skip myself unless someone else asks me to play. Just maybe a weird psychological thing but I find it tacky to ask myself to play for some reason.
You are playing on multiple strings at once in fingerstyle guitar, and that is not easy, and I have often had melody players try to figure out how to do that and say they probably couldn't. I do know they could with practice though. But, right...you develop your own style, and do what sounds good to you. My way may be different. I like to pick up more speed so I can play with others and love the touch of wildness some speed brings. I love doing a solo or duet on the slower pieces too, some O'Carolans for example.
Think too, Martin Hayes, he often plays tunes very slowly and not meant to be danced to. It's hauntingly beautiful when he does that. He can play top speed if he want to also. I just think it would be nice to be able to do both when the situation calls for one or the other or when the mood hits.... or start slow as a listening piece, and then rip top flight into another tune.
The hammering, the pulling strings, the sliding all with the left hand, even noting the triplets subtly with the left, these are all little nuances that make the playing more fluid sounding and more interesting.
For intensity galore in fingerstyle, though he's mainly playing English tunes, listen to Martin Carthy. For a more genteel style, but still full of life and emotion, listen to John Renbourne, who plays all sorts of guitar, from ITM to ragtime, and he is one who can keep a tempo and fit many of the proper ornaments in.
Randal Bays too, a fiddler to most, but to me he is also a brilliant fingerstyle player. He has a few pieces here and there on some of his CDs
just have a great time with it. To be playing that piece as well as you did...of even if you had played it only half as well as you did, it tells me you love to practice and love what you are doing and love exploring the instrument, so go with whatever it is you like best. My comments on picking up the tempo were something you may like to explore at some point is all. It is not required, but can make it more fun if playing with others.
Iris, perhaps you can explain this one: when I listen to that piece I hear quite a lot of John Renbourne influence in there - any idea why? It doesn't sound like his playing, but it reminds me of hearing him play some trad tunes a while ago - I can't explain it for the life of me!
I quite like hearing stuff like this, it's nice in a kind of celtic-y kind of way. It's not really my bag though, I've to this day never been entirely convinced I could dance to someone playing fingerstyle tunes on guitar, the variation in attack of the "down/up" motion of the plectrum gives more potential to hear tunes played more akin to a dance style. It also encourages less use of hammer-ons and pull-offs, which I tend to think forces the player to work their phrases based more upon what string they're on.
Yes a little... maybe from studying a Renbourne instructional DVD or Tab, munichG?
I don't know, maybe you are right about the flatpick theory, but I can get to dance tempo with fingers, though it is much harder on some tunes than others. Also flatpickers tend to use backers to round out the sound, or overtrack themselves on recordings. Not knocking it, I just don't do it, it sounds too thin to me if picked out on my own.
the whole point about playing jigs,is emphasising beat one and to a lesser extent beat 4,
jigsare also not speeded up waltzes[emphasis entirely on first beat].some idiots inBallydehob, thought they were very clever slowing the poor old Blarney Pilgrim into a waltz,and in the process wrecking the tune.toaccompany jigs in finger style is easy and yet seems beyond many[particuuarly rock and rollers]
thumb hits bass string for two beats, finger plucks treble string for one beat giving a long short pulse,keep it simple and you get it right,listen to ann conroy burke[joe burkes wife].
Fig for a kiss is a 9/8 slip jig,emphasis on 1,4, 7,beats,this guys playing is good,apart from incorrect dance emphasis,he needs to work it ,so that the notes he should be emphasising more, are hit down wards.
Organ Beil wrote:
"some idiots inBallydehob, thought they were very clever slowing the poor old Blarney Pilgrim into a waltz,and in the process wrecking the tune."
Oh, Dick, yes, wasn't it shocking! But what can you expect from that Hansel? He's Swiss, after all. You and me, at least we're English and our ancestors lived only just across the Irish Sea from Ireland. But him! Yodelling alp horns, cheese with holes in it, cuckoo clocks and numbered bank accounts for high-ranking Na*is (it's a "z") - that is no pedigree at all! I expect he got the waltz idea from an auntie across the border in Vienna. She probably thought of it whilst eating cake in some coffee shop with her little finger croocked up into the air. Foreigners!
To cap it all and yes, to add insult to injury, playing the Blarney Pilgrim as a waltz made people smile! What are we trudging around in rubber boots playing instruments out of the junk shop for if it's going to end up making people smile, that's what I want to know? Worst of all, after playing it through as a waltz, those idiots would break with all convention and *change the rhythm in the middle of the set*, taking it away as a jig! The uncultured, tasteless, ignorant fools would smile again, proving once and for all how wrong this was.
It must be particularly painful for you, and I do sympathise, as you and Cathy had so much to do with starting that session all those years ago, even if you weren't regular in more recent years. If I were you, I'd get down there tonight and sort them out! Last time I was there the story that was going round about the ancient origins of that session did not assign a significant role to Cathy, so there's one thing you'd better put them right about, as well as making sure that they play the right tunes with the right rhythms. And if Derek is there (I hope he is well, give him my regards) you can also finally sort out that argument about which of you has been to more sessions than the other has had hot dinners. That'll give 'em something else to smile about!
i agree, there is a real John Renbourn feel to it, which i put down to the rather stately pace and renaissancey feel..i like it. It is true however that solo pieces like this simply aren't loud enough to play in a session. They go down great in the Italian Restaurant round the corner tho!
Iris what's wrong with guitarists with a rock background!!?? as a (first and foremost) rock guitarist, to my ears the closest thing in ITM to a wailing rock guitar player is someone like Paddy Keenan on the pipes..he's playing ITM but frequently with a real energy that is in some ways the key to being a good rock player. He has a rocker head on him
Also a distorted electric guitar has a similar tone to pipes in some ways. Try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJF5zB7YcXc&mode=related&search=
or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQUntzKpLj4
for possibly the best electric guitarist on the planet-Allan Holdsworth.the style (a kind of rock/jazz fusion) is a million miles from ITM, but there is to me a certain tonal similarity to the pipes and a similar kind of energy..imo if Paddy Keenan played jazz/rock guitar this is what he would sound like!!
btw Boojum glad u liked my playing (tho not sure what u heard or where) - i enjoyed your Kesh slide show! Not so much the polkas, but not cuz of your playing - i just dont like polkas!
BOOJUM,that is a personal attack,Cathy moved to ballydehob in 1986,the only other person who was there at the time who currently goes to the session is Andrew Street,[a bodhran player]a bit difficult to start a session with only a bodhran,as he subsequently found on at least two occasions, when he took over the session and know one else turned up[but youwerent there then were you]
when were you there for and how long,[three /4 years.]
Dave /Dawn Evans hadnt learned to play,and in fact were encouraged to play by Cathy,Liam Kenneally was still in the army and hadnt moved there,the people to ask are Rose Sullivans relatives,they will soon put you right.
Boojum,you werent even there when Rose Sullivan was alive, neither were you there for her funeral,you dont know what you are talking about.
Boojum, at the Ballydehob Trad festival at Easter the afore mentioned Derek,was asked not to play by Jackie Daly,so he clearly shares my opinion of Dereks playing.
Jackie Daly is someone that really can play polkas well,you would be advised to listen to him,and try and improve.
No Boojum it is not for me to sort anyone out ,self criticism is important,something that Derek and yourself have to do yourselves.,You are the only one that can improve your playing,you need to listen to good players like Daly.Johnny Oleary,JuliaClifford Denis Murphy,there is a lot of room for improvement in your playing.
As I said before this guys guitar playing is good, and by comparison my criticisms are very small and on the whole subjective[matter of taste which is different for everybody]
iris, interesting stuff on fingerpicking vs flatpicking tunes..as regards flatpicking, a piper in Kerry called Con Durham said something really relevant to me once. He said when he heard guitarists trying to flatpick tunes the thing that struck him most was the lack of sustain, and that to his ears any guitarist wanting to play tunes would do well to study the way banjo players ornament tunes, as unlike pipes, fiddle etc it's another instrument that has a lack of sustain to overcome. Lot's of triplets etc.
Dick Miles commented:
"You are the only one that can improve your playing,you need to listen to good players like Daly.Johnny Oleary,JuliaClifford Denis Murphy,there is a lot of room for improvement in your playing."
Absolutely! That's why I'm taking lessons, not selling tutor books.
Which reminds me - have you yet managed to put a clip anywhere on the net where we can hear a snatch of the jigs and reels you teach in your concertina tutor? We've been curious for months!
But I'm glad to hear Derek is still going strong.
Did Jackie Daly have any compliments to pay your playing, to go along with the ones you got from Edel Fox?
But on one thing, I think you are wrong - I think you should get down to the session there at Ballydehob tonight and give them the benefit of your wisdom. Naughty, naughty people playing a jig two or three times through in a walz rhythm! And then forgetting who it is they owe that session to! They *need* you to go and put them right with all your experience.
Throw an accordion in and you have an instant session favorite! I loved it! I don't understand the people who say it doesn't sound like a jig...maybe they have CERTAIN jigs they're comparing it to, but had a definite jig tempo and feel to it. I played it twice and the second time I played my work bodhran (a file folder and a pen) and the tempo was fine. It is a mellow sort of jig, due solely to the instrement, and not the play.
Cathy started the session not me,you have attacked her when she has had nothing to do with this discussion.
I have had thirty years plus experience of playing and singing,made 5 lps [one with Carthy playing guitar]3 cds,one withJohn Kirkpatrick.
however the Ballydehob session does not need me ,although I regularly go,and am not unwelcome.,now get off my back.
I wonder if personal grudges - on both parts - could perhaps be taken to private e-mails, so that the rest of us can appreciate Munichg's lovely guitar playing?
It really was beautiful. However, I have two thoughts:
I'm really curious, as was Greg, about the comments suggesting that it was SLOWER than normal jig speed - it sounded quite a bit faster than I like to play jigs, whether in a session or not.
The rhythm wasn't an Irish jig rhythm. I think the thrythm would be considerably helped by slowing down and really concentrating on getting that real *jig* feel.
Having said which, I still loved it. It was all so gentle ... beautiful really. Just washed over me ...
If a fingerstyle player has a good strong, confident "attack" (and I don't mean it in the brutalizing sense) they can generally be heard within a session, whether backing or in a tune.
Hakanozel.... I meant when guitarists in a session back rock style, real loud, treating the dance music like rock music. if they apply what they know to the dance tunes and back them right, there's nothing wrong with it. Not my taste, but nothing wrong with it. The folk fingerstyle players, you generally don't hear them if they are getting it wrong, so not as big a deal.
Haka... about sustain... yes, you nailed it. In the flatpicking there usually is not much (I build my own guitars, and build them to have major sustain, BTW). Some real hot stuff flatpickers though, they hit dual strings or partial chords enough of the time to give some sustain. Arty McGlynn and Donal Clancy can do it. Still they tend to overtrack themselves backing on recordings, where a fingerstyle player rarely does. That thumb hitting the low notes really gives constant sustain. It can be reversed too, with the thumb noting here and there, while the high strings form a backdrop.
I learn a lot listening to harpists, and even good pianists, especially for backing, and do not generally pick up much from other guitar backers or tune players, not that I am knocking them, but I like to be more melody based in the backing than most. I do enjoy hearing other backers though, and to talk about it with them too. For fingerstyle tunes, I don't read music or tab, nor do I like to copy someone else's style...especially someone way more competent than I am, like a Renbourn, who is a genius. I'll pick out the melody line first and gradually add to it, without listening to others do it. it just confuses me, and I get more from hearing a fiddle or flute do it and picking up the melody from there... not saying there is anything wrong in it, and it is beneficial for me to listen after the fact to other guitar players do it. I just don't want to sound like a not-quite-Renbourn for example, and it's fun to have your own touch on it.
One need not be only gentle when fingerpicking either if you know your pieces well. It can have lots of highs, lows, soft and louds. the emotion needs to get in there, same like any other instrument, the punch, the feeling, the unexpected stress notes that change from one time to the next as you feel it while playing.
I’m trying to catch up, but still haven’t yet listened to the recording. Can’t do it from here, right now. But for a lesson in how fingerstyle guitar playing can carry a dance tune, I heartily agree with Iris on listening to Martin Carthy. I think he’s influenced my fingerstyle playing more than anybody else in the past thirty years. I don’t play like Martin and I’ve never copied one of his renditions, but his way of attacking the guitar to produce lift and lilt and rhythm has certainly infected my approach to playing. At least in my dreams.
I have to say, this is not great playing. Before people get defensive, as sometims happens, in relation to the first poster, he has worked really hard, it sounds nice, but its not irish.
Now before anyone gets on their high horse, if a fiddle player or piper played like that you could not play along with them. And no one would try.
I respect very much the original poster, he has woreked hard and plays a form of music nicely. But it would not work in a session.
Fine baroque style playing. It would fit right in if this were a crowd of Dowland fans and lute players.
Doesn't quite capture the Irish trad jig feel. That may be your aim, it may not be. There's nothing wrong with turning a tune inside out.
Try this:
1. Slow it down by about a third.
2. Imagine the rolliking, syncopated knockedabout rhythm you get when you leave two shoes in the dryer.
3. TAAAH keh dah TAAAH keh da TAAAH keh dah diddle. Rinse. Repeat.
Ben:
"I wonder if personal grudges - on both parts - could perhaps be taken to private e-mails, so that the rest of us can appreciate Munichg's lovely guitar playing?"
You are right. I have mailed him privately to ask him to explain how he thinks I attacked Cathy. I will not return to the subject here. Apologies.
There's no reason why a guiar can't play dance rhythms, it's perfectly possible (not even terribly difficult). Of course, I can only say it's easy with a plectrum, I've no idea how hard or otherwise it is to do with the fingers, but it is possible (I've seen it done).
Re: the issue of sustain when flatpicking - well yes, one of the troubles that befalls the guitarist is a lack of sustain. However, in any setting aside from a requiring solo pieces it's really not an issue. I would have thought a higher action results in more volume and sustain though?
Andy... i would create more sustain with scalloped braces and a very wide grain top, it can be sitka, Adirondack, Engleman. My guitar with the most sustain is wide grain spruce. The guitar that is nearly done, Italian Alpine spruce, very wide grain. Judging from the tap tones on the body, I may be in trouble and want to keep that one too. A looser wider grain makes the top resonate more, as will thinner braces. it's all in the top. A slightly lighter, thinner top too is a help. Things to keep in mind if you ever go the custom built route.
One luthier I know will go inside with a mirror and shave down braces on so so guitars and make them sound twice as good. They may not support the guitar for as many years as they would have without shaving them, but we won't be around by them most likely or playing anyway. Don't try it home alone! let a pro do it.
The lower action is my personal choice, to make it easier to play, and therefore run around the neck at top speed when needed to keep up with the others.
Bob... I do that Carthy thumb thing, not that i sound like him either, but similar attack, and the fingernails kept on the right hand at the proper shape and length to get volume out of the other strings (have you ever seen some of the fingerstyle guys "do their nails"... pretty funny, with the fake glue-ons!). It is not hard to be heard at all with fingers.
I'm still curious about the speed issue. Some have said - or implied - that the piece is *slower* than normal jig speed, whilst others - myself, Greg and now jwvansteenwyk - have thought it's *quicker* than we, at any rate, would like to play jigs.
Has anyone tried playing along with it? I can't fit my jig rhythm into it, and I'm still convinced this is partly to do with it being too quick.
I've got to say, though, that, while Pól may be right in terms of the piece as a jig, it's *still* a really lovely piece of guitar playing.
Oh, and one more thought - I don't think it *has* to be able to work in a session context, as some have implied. It can be nice in its own right, can't it?
I've seen him do his nails... he takes very much care with them. Tony Mcmanus has fakes on the right hand too. Up close they look very strange! i am blessed with strong nails, but do fuss over them, the left of course as short as possible and the rights, there is a certain special height I like, and shape. They rarely break. If they do I have managed to play with whatever is left of them. It would be wise to carry some press-on nails in the case though. Clipper and nailfile go everywhere.
They say eating enough protein and maybe gelatin (I don't eat much of that) really helps the nails. What's really funny is when the women at the mall kiosks are selling nail gunk, they literally come and nearly grab your hands to check out your nails. They take a look at mine and often start laughing, don't know what to make of them. Between working as a paper marbler with paints and inks, and a jeweler, which leaves blackened fingers, and building guitars, just forget it.
For the female pickers, nailpolish is too slick to play with, holds you back. You'd think (as I did) it would toughen your nails, but once you remove it you may find it has left the nails thinner and brittler, and it takes a good while to grow out back to normal.
Ben..... I must play very fast! I am at times told to slow it down so maybe, but that would be at a slower session. If there is time, shall try to play with it later. yes it is a nice piece of playing and no, it doesn't have to be in a session. If he ever makes it to our session he'll be asked to play and for everyone to be quiet, the same as when our resident harpist plays one.
Guitar in ITM?
Guitar in ITM?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyvYy4rAMJg
Reactions?
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by Munichg
Re: Guitar in ITM?
nice playing dude!
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I don't like the way the plucked notes accent over the pull offs and hammer ons. They stress the wrong parts of the tunes. (Also, there is a bit wrong in the second part of that first tune. That run at the end goes |gfe dBG|ABG FED:|)
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I thought it was rather nice. It's true that the pulse was different from the conventional jig pulse, but remember that llig has fixed, polarized opinions about just about everything, so it's not worth worrying very much about what he says. But you might want to think about that in some way.
BTW, I really liked the little bit I saw of hakanozel's playing the other day.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by Linsey Doyle
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I enjoyed it, sounded lovely!
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Sounds more like the rhythm of classical music than ITM, maybe Bach or Handel. Definately NOT jig timing anyway.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by Bernie
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Nice enough but with his style of playing you wouldn't hear him behind a wet paper bag at a session? So what's the point?
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by jfiddlerh
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Is that you Munichg? Very nice. What guitar are you playing?
As a fingerstyle player myself, I know the challenges involved in what you are doing, and the playing is very nice, very good, it is technically harder than playing on a single line melody on guitar, very much harder.
The problem I have with most fingerstyle playing of tunes (as opposed to backing) is a challenge I try to meet myself, and that is in not having a jig or reel sound like a set piece, but rather, get it up to tempo, with the rhythm, snap and drive that you would have from say a fiddle, flute or whistle. It is much, much more of a challenge when you have your thumb as a rule backing you and two-three fingers doing melody. Or at times for variety going down an octave and using thumb for melody while brushing the high strings.
The tunes are nice as set pieces, for listening, but what if others want to join in, whether in performance or session, that's the challenge. I am not knocking your playing, don't get me wrong, I think it is lovely. I am just throwing out the suggestion to carry it a step further and get up to at least acceptably slow dancing jig speed and see if you like it better that way. Just let loose and try it home alone. Make your mistakes, but try to feel the joy in getting up to speed. You have to develop a real looseness of playing to get up to speed which takes much practice time, but when it clicks once, what a feeling. Don't worry about ornaments so much for now, when practicing, just give it a try. The loosenes comes to the left hand in particular in time, to the point of being able to let it fly up and down the neck, and at that point go back to work filling in the ornaments. This all at home alone of course!!
In musical company, if asked to start off a tune, I will play up to speed (unless doing a slow O'Carolan set piece for example), because people will join in and bring it up to speed themselves and just carry it away otherwise. Let me guess that this has happened to you that the speed gets hijacked and you are left suddenly stranded. I know from experience myself. I played last Sunday out at a session, and when my turn came up, I started out with a jig I wrote (one person next to me knew it and played some on concertina) and then went into the Rolling Wave, which all joined in on, and was told to slow down a notch so others could jump in., It's just a matter of shifting the focus to tempo. When you know the tune real well, it becomes easy to play it too fast.
Sometimes on solo fingerstyle tunes, being that the neck and strings and notes are not set up to conveniently play all the proper ornaments in the same place a flute or fiddle would, and that can slow you down if you try to, I choose to leave some of the ornaments go if there has to be a choice between an ornament and the tempo, and keep with the swing of the tune. Otherwise to my ear the tune on guitar, which must be, by the nature of the places the notes are, gets slowed down, gets too fussy and ends up sounding baroque or classical, and all too often looses the spirit of the dance in the music, which to my ear is what it's all about.
This is not to be critical, I don't mean it that way, and many players prefer to play the tunes slower, solo, and as listening pieces, which is fine. I am suggesting another option, which can give the playing and the tune more of the wildness and abandon and danceability that is typical of ITM. Think of a tune well played to speed on a harp, fingerstyle gives a very similar effect. I think of it as a form of the harp anyway, but more compact, with frets making different notes rather than all those strings.
A really important thing to keep in mind for getting up to proper tempo if you wish to try, is to have the guitar set up for fingerstyle playing. Have the action adjusted as low as possible without buzzing. If a strummer fro example were to play one of my guitars they'd be buzzing all over the place. I carry a truss rod adjuster in the case at all times, because with the strings so low, a slightly more humid day can swell all the wood a little and render the strings too low and make them buzz a bit. So up they go, just a quarter turn of the hex wrench. Playability is really important in lossening up to get up to speed.
good luck with it all, I really enjoyed your video!
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Jfiddler.... I play fingerstyle, and can definitely be heard. A thumbpick used properly and a good set of fingernails on the right hand.... sometimes you may be asked to tone it down! But I know what you mean. Most finger players are very quiet. Still there is a point, many people want to hear a listening piece for a break. Same goes for the harp players, a silence comes over the room! Harp is louder than most guitar pieces though, true.... still I love to hear them!
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I thought it sounded classical too. Still nice, but more classical than Irish. Maybe irisnevins is right and the speed is why. Would love to hear it again after you work on some of her suggestions!
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by kennedy
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Irisnevins
I take your point and i'm certainly not a person who is for sessions constantly pumping out tunes at full volume all the time.
With your expertise you could perhaps clarify it but i was thinking with his style of putting alot of the notes by use of the left hand only i.e. not plucking it out, just relying on the strings vibration from the previous note.
That's why i was thinking alot of it would be lost at a session, more so than Arty McGlynn's style of playing tunes etc. Didn't mean to offend but i was thinking that it was more an exhibition style than other guitar pluckers??
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by jfiddlerh
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Iris, I just knew that you would be in on this one. Good constructive comments. I'm pleased you got the term "snap" in there! As for buzzing, my own guitar is very low set and I quite like the occasional buzz, especially in bluesy stuff.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by strayaway
Re: Guitar in ITM?
luvely, truly beautiful, I couldn't dance to it but I'd listen to it over and over again. As everyone's said before it's more classical than Irish but I do love classical fingerstyle guitar.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by Aodh Rúadh
Re: Guitar in ITM?
After reading thousands of posts on this site I thought we were not supposed to hear the instruments.
Or does that only apply to bodhrans?
The piece portrayed here is Irish, no doubt, it is just being played slower. Very nice actually, but at a session those joining in, well melody players, would not listen to the pace and plough away at "normal" speed, thereby leaving this talented guitar player behind the pace.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I loved it as a set or "listening" piece. Even if you follow Iris' good advice above, I'd keep playing tunes in your current style as well (outside a session context) because it definitely has its place.
Nice playing!
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by grego
Re: Guitar in ITM?
It's not just the pace. The rhythm i'snt right either.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by Bernie
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I also say ignore the naysayers and keep on developing your own style. I hear a renaissance flavor which is enjoyable. If you're the one starting a tune, polite sessioners would try to hold it at your tempo.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by morning star
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Several posts have mentioned that the piece was too slow- yet I clocked it at 144=dotted quarter note on my metronome, which is as fast a jig tempo as I hear at my session.
If I ever come to a session where the jigs are faster than that, I'll listen from the bar with my flute in its case!
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Yep, it has nothing to do with the speed, it's just not jigish. It doesn't have too be jigish, you can play/interpret anyway you want. But you are missing something.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Stately, dignified. Armagnac, rather than just another gummy pint.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I think it sounds great--a welcome change of timbre from the usual jar of bees.
As far as the rhythm goes, I think the basic jigginess is there, but two factors are keeping it from sounding "authentic" in an "Irish traditional dance music" sense.
First, the lack of slurring or sliding onto the strong beats produces a slightly stilted feel. Most jigs want more loose, slidey nyaah. As a guitar finger picker myself, I wouldn't worry too much about this, as it's partly just the nature of finger picking on guitar. But if you want more nyaah, you could try to slide or hammer-on onto some of the strong beats.
Second, I'm hearing an occasional lag in the rhythm, and my hunch is that your left hand is leading the timing in those passages (perhaps because they're more difficult), so you're losing the pulse created by the right hand.
In other words, play at a tempo that you can comfortably finger the notes, or woodshed a bit more on the left hand so it doesn't hold back the right's rhythm.
I want to underscore, though, that these would be minor refinements--I enjoyed your playing very much.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by Will Harmon
Re: Guitar in ITM?
J fiddlerh.... I knew what you meant. It is very possible to do a lot with the left hand. My latest is playing real close with a melody player, and when they slide a note, I want to slide it at the same time with left hand. It is not plucked. And when they hammer a note down, if a fiddler in particular, I want to be doing it with them. No right hand involved.
Another thing I note...pardon pun.... is many fingerstyle players (and guitarists in general) are coming into this from a "folky music" background. The techniques that work for folksinging, or the gentle picking to back a song, and the picking patterns, they just don't work in ITM. They need to forget them and do a roundabout turn. These tunes are too intense and wild for folk techniques. The only real way is to learn the tunes, forget what they knew before. it's a whole new life with a whole new set of rules. So I suspect when you say they can't be heard, these are the people you are hearing? at least some. Still, better than those coming from a rock background, do ya' think?
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Interesting Greg, clocking it! I like it at that pace for a listening piece. I think polite sessioners will either listen or play at your pace, but that doesn't always happen. I rate our local sessions by "octane". Some are very high, real speedy, they intimidate a lot of players. The one I run is a nice middle of the road speed, and you would be welcomed if you wanted to play listening pieces. I rarely play them at my own session oddly, being the MC, i just skip myself unless someone else asks me to play. Just maybe a weird psychological thing but I find it tacky to ask myself to play for some reason.
You are playing on multiple strings at once in fingerstyle guitar, and that is not easy, and I have often had melody players try to figure out how to do that and say they probably couldn't. I do know they could with practice though. But, right...you develop your own style, and do what sounds good to you. My way may be different. I like to pick up more speed so I can play with others and love the touch of wildness some speed brings. I love doing a solo or duet on the slower pieces too, some O'Carolans for example.
Think too, Martin Hayes, he often plays tunes very slowly and not meant to be danced to. It's hauntingly beautiful when he does that. He can play top speed if he want to also. I just think it would be nice to be able to do both when the situation calls for one or the other or when the mood hits.... or start slow as a listening piece, and then rip top flight into another tune.
The hammering, the pulling strings, the sliding all with the left hand, even noting the triplets subtly with the left, these are all little nuances that make the playing more fluid sounding and more interesting.
For intensity galore in fingerstyle, though he's mainly playing English tunes, listen to Martin Carthy. For a more genteel style, but still full of life and emotion, listen to John Renbourne, who plays all sorts of guitar, from ITM to ragtime, and he is one who can keep a tempo and fit many of the proper ornaments in.
Randal Bays too, a fiddler to most, but to me he is also a brilliant fingerstyle player. He has a few pieces here and there on some of his CDs
just have a great time with it. To be playing that piece as well as you did...of even if you had played it only half as well as you did, it tells me you love to practice and love what you are doing and love exploring the instrument, so go with whatever it is you like best. My comments on picking up the tempo were something you may like to explore at some point is all. It is not required, but can make it more fun if playing with others.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Iris, perhaps you can explain this one: when I listen to that piece I hear quite a lot of John Renbourne influence in there - any idea why? It doesn't sound like his playing, but it reminds me of hearing him play some trad tunes a while ago - I can't explain it for the life of me!
I quite like hearing stuff like this, it's nice in a kind of celtic-y kind of way. It's not really my bag though, I've to this day never been entirely convinced I could dance to someone playing fingerstyle tunes on guitar, the variation in attack of the "down/up" motion of the plectrum gives more potential to hear tunes played more akin to a dance style. It also encourages less use of hammer-ons and pull-offs, which I tend to think forces the player to work their phrases based more upon what string they're on.
# Posted on August 9th 2007 by Andy V
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Yes a little... maybe from studying a Renbourne instructional DVD or Tab, munichG?
I don't know, maybe you are right about the flatpick theory, but I can get to dance tempo with fingers, though it is much harder on some tunes than others. Also flatpickers tend to use backers to round out the sound, or overtrack themselves on recordings. Not knocking it, I just don't do it, it sounds too thin to me if picked out on my own.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitar in ITM?
the whole point about playing jigs,is emphasising beat one and to a lesser extent beat 4,
jigsare also not speeded up waltzes[emphasis entirely on first beat].some idiots inBallydehob, thought they were very clever slowing the poor old Blarney Pilgrim into a waltz,and in the process wrecking the tune.toaccompany jigs in finger style is easy and yet seems beyond many[particuuarly rock and rollers]
thumb hits bass string for two beats, finger plucks treble string for one beat giving a long short pulse,keep it simple and you get it right,listen to ann conroy burke[joe burkes wife].
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Fig for a kiss is a 9/8 slip jig,emphasis on 1,4, 7,beats,this guys playing is good,apart from incorrect dance emphasis,he needs to work it ,so that the notes he should be emphasising more, are hit down wards.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: Guitar in ITM?
by the way the great Nic Jones,used to play without any finger nails just using the tips of his fingers.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Organ Beil wrote:
"some idiots inBallydehob, thought they were very clever slowing the poor old Blarney Pilgrim into a waltz,and in the process wrecking the tune."
Oh, Dick, yes, wasn't it shocking! But what can you expect from that Hansel? He's Swiss, after all. You and me, at least we're English and our ancestors lived only just across the Irish Sea from Ireland. But him! Yodelling alp horns, cheese with holes in it, cuckoo clocks and numbered bank accounts for high-ranking Na*is (it's a "z") - that is no pedigree at all! I expect he got the waltz idea from an auntie across the border in Vienna. She probably thought of it whilst eating cake in some coffee shop with her little finger croocked up into the air. Foreigners!
To cap it all and yes, to add insult to injury, playing the Blarney Pilgrim as a waltz made people smile! What are we trudging around in rubber boots playing instruments out of the junk shop for if it's going to end up making people smile, that's what I want to know? Worst of all, after playing it through as a waltz, those idiots would break with all convention and *change the rhythm in the middle of the set*, taking it away as a jig! The uncultured, tasteless, ignorant fools would smile again, proving once and for all how wrong this was.
It must be particularly painful for you, and I do sympathise, as you and Cathy had so much to do with starting that session all those years ago, even if you weren't regular in more recent years. If I were you, I'd get down there tonight and sort them out! Last time I was there the story that was going round about the ancient origins of that session did not assign a significant role to Cathy, so there's one thing you'd better put them right about, as well as making sure that they play the right tunes with the right rhythms. And if Derek is there (I hope he is well, give him my regards) you can also finally sort out that argument about which of you has been to more sessions than the other has had hot dinners. That'll give 'em something else to smile about!
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Linsey Doyle
Re: Guitar in ITM?
i agree, there is a real John Renbourn feel to it, which i put down to the rather stately pace and renaissancey feel..i like it. It is true however that solo pieces like this simply aren't loud enough to play in a session. They go down great in the Italian Restaurant round the corner tho!
Iris what's wrong with guitarists with a rock background!!?? as a (first and foremost) rock guitarist, to my ears the closest thing in ITM to a wailing rock guitar player is someone like Paddy Keenan on the pipes..he's playing ITM but frequently with a real energy that is in some ways the key to being a good rock player. He has a rocker head on him
Also a distorted electric guitar has a similar tone to pipes in some ways. Try
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJF5zB7YcXc&mode=related&search=
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQUntzKpLj4
for possibly the best electric guitarist on the planet-Allan Holdsworth.the style (a kind of rock/jazz fusion) is a million miles from ITM, but there is to me a certain tonal similarity to the pipes and a similar kind of energy..imo if Paddy Keenan played jazz/rock guitar this is what he would sound like!!
btw Boojum glad u liked my playing (tho not sure what u heard or where) - i enjoyed your Kesh slide show! Not so much the polkas, but not cuz of your playing - i just dont like polkas!
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Guitar in ITM?
BOOJUM,that is a personal attack,Cathy moved to ballydehob in 1986,the only other person who was there at the time who currently goes to the session is Andrew Street,[a bodhran player]a bit difficult to start a session with only a bodhran,as he subsequently found on at least two occasions, when he took over the session and know one else turned up[but youwerent there then were you]
when were you there for and how long,[three /4 years.]
Dave /Dawn Evans hadnt learned to play,and in fact were encouraged to play by Cathy,Liam Kenneally was still in the army and hadnt moved there,the people to ask are Rose Sullivans relatives,they will soon put you right.
Boojum,you werent even there when Rose Sullivan was alive, neither were you there for her funeral,you dont know what you are talking about.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Your right Dick! That's just what I'm saying! You get down there and sort 'em all out!
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Linsey Doyle
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Well, thanks for all the constructive comments. I listen to and enjoy John Renbourne a lot but have never studied his style directly.
Hopefully if I put up another video I'll get just as much great feedback. Thanks again!
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Munichg
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Boojum, at the Ballydehob Trad festival at Easter the afore mentioned Derek,was asked not to play by Jackie Daly,so he clearly shares my opinion of Dereks playing.
Jackie Daly is someone that really can play polkas well,you would be advised to listen to him,and try and improve.
No Boojum it is not for me to sort anyone out ,self criticism is important,something that Derek and yourself have to do yourselves.,You are the only one that can improve your playing,you need to listen to good players like Daly.Johnny Oleary,JuliaClifford Denis Murphy,there is a lot of room for improvement in your playing.
As I said before this guys guitar playing is good, and by comparison my criticisms are very small and on the whole subjective[matter of taste which is different for everybody]
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: Guitar in ITM?
iris, interesting stuff on fingerpicking vs flatpicking tunes..as regards flatpicking, a piper in Kerry called Con Durham said something really relevant to me once. He said when he heard guitarists trying to flatpick tunes the thing that struck him most was the lack of sustain, and that to his ears any guitarist wanting to play tunes would do well to study the way banjo players ornament tunes, as unlike pipes, fiddle etc it's another instrument that has a lack of sustain to overcome. Lot's of triplets etc.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Guitar in ITM?
It does sound a lot like John Renbourn,with a dash of Duck Baker.Here's John doing what he does best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMSyQFy0czE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfUR1V10qZQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tzVpFqRSXM
Couldn't resist adding this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85ZsQbznJYk
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by dafydd
Re: Guitar in ITM?
What about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHXJGTcqfTY
And how to remove the cojones from the music in one easy lesson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD5Ev7dSPLI
Is this just a bad dream?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD5Ev7dSPLI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbRdfENgkOs&mode=related&search=
Hmmmm........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_FzqW3gb8w
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by dafydd
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Dick Miles commented:
"You are the only one that can improve your playing,you need to listen to good players like Daly.Johnny Oleary,JuliaClifford Denis Murphy,there is a lot of room for improvement in your playing."
Absolutely! That's why I'm taking lessons, not selling tutor books.
Which reminds me - have you yet managed to put a clip anywhere on the net where we can hear a snatch of the jigs and reels you teach in your concertina tutor? We've been curious for months!
But I'm glad to hear Derek is still going strong.
Did Jackie Daly have any compliments to pay your playing, to go along with the ones you got from Edel Fox?
But on one thing, I think you are wrong - I think you should get down to the session there at Ballydehob tonight and give them the benefit of your wisdom. Naughty, naughty people playing a jig two or three times through in a walz rhythm! And then forgetting who it is they owe that session to! They *need* you to go and put them right with all your experience.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Linsey Doyle
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Throw an accordion in and you have an instant session favorite! I loved it! I don't understand the people who say it doesn't sound like a jig...maybe they have CERTAIN jigs they're comparing it to, but had a definite jig tempo and feel to it. I played it twice and the second time I played my work bodhran (a file folder and a pen) and the tempo was fine. It is a mellow sort of jig, due solely to the instrement, and not the play.
It was beautiful. I'll buy your cd!
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by DanCaspian
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Cathy started the session not me,you have attacked her when she has had nothing to do with this discussion.
I have had thirty years plus experience of playing and singing,made 5 lps [one with Carthy playing guitar]3 cds,one withJohn Kirkpatrick.
however the Ballydehob session does not need me ,although I regularly go,and am not unwelcome.,now get off my back.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I wonder if personal grudges - on both parts - could perhaps be taken to private e-mails, so that the rest of us can appreciate Munichg's lovely guitar playing?
It really was beautiful. However, I have two thoughts:
I'm really curious, as was Greg, about the comments suggesting that it was SLOWER than normal jig speed - it sounded quite a bit faster than I like to play jigs, whether in a session or not.
The rhythm wasn't an Irish jig rhythm. I think the thrythm would be considerably helped by slowing down and really concentrating on getting that real *jig* feel.
Having said which, I still loved it. It was all so gentle ... beautiful really. Just washed over me ...
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by ethical blend
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Benhall,yes its good guitar playing.I shall listen again.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Organ... yes Nic Jones was great!!
If a fingerstyle player has a good strong, confident "attack" (and I don't mean it in the brutalizing sense) they can generally be heard within a session, whether backing or in a tune.
Hakanozel.... I meant when guitarists in a session back rock style, real loud, treating the dance music like rock music. if they apply what they know to the dance tunes and back them right, there's nothing wrong with it. Not my taste, but nothing wrong with it. The folk fingerstyle players, you generally don't hear them if they are getting it wrong, so not as big a deal.
Haka... about sustain... yes, you nailed it. In the flatpicking there usually is not much (I build my own guitars, and build them to have major sustain, BTW). Some real hot stuff flatpickers though, they hit dual strings or partial chords enough of the time to give some sustain. Arty McGlynn and Donal Clancy can do it. Still they tend to overtrack themselves backing on recordings, where a fingerstyle player rarely does. That thumb hitting the low notes really gives constant sustain. It can be reversed too, with the thumb noting here and there, while the high strings form a backdrop.
I learn a lot listening to harpists, and even good pianists, especially for backing, and do not generally pick up much from other guitar backers or tune players, not that I am knocking them, but I like to be more melody based in the backing than most. I do enjoy hearing other backers though, and to talk about it with them too. For fingerstyle tunes, I don't read music or tab, nor do I like to copy someone else's style...especially someone way more competent than I am, like a Renbourn, who is a genius. I'll pick out the melody line first and gradually add to it, without listening to others do it. it just confuses me, and I get more from hearing a fiddle or flute do it and picking up the melody from there... not saying there is anything wrong in it, and it is beneficial for me to listen after the fact to other guitar players do it. I just don't want to sound like a not-quite-Renbourn for example, and it's fun to have your own touch on it.
One need not be only gentle when fingerpicking either if you know your pieces well. It can have lots of highs, lows, soft and louds. the emotion needs to get in there, same like any other instrument, the punch, the feeling, the unexpected stress notes that change from one time to the next as you feel it while playing.
Keep on playing munichG!
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I’m trying to catch up, but still haven’t yet listened to the recording. Can’t do it from here, right now. But for a lesson in how fingerstyle guitar playing can carry a dance tune, I heartily agree with Iris on listening to Martin Carthy. I think he’s influenced my fingerstyle playing more than anybody else in the past thirty years. I don’t play like Martin and I’ve never copied one of his renditions, but his way of attacking the guitar to produce lift and lilt and rhythm has certainly infected my approach to playing. At least in my dreams.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Bob himself
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I have to say, this is not great playing. Before people get defensive, as sometims happens, in relation to the first poster, he has worked really hard, it sounds nice, but its not irish.
Now before anyone gets on their high horse, if a fiddle player or piper played like that you could not play along with them. And no one would try.
I respect very much the original poster, he has woreked hard and plays a form of music nicely. But it would not work in a session.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Pól
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Guitar backwards = Ratiug. Coincidence? I think not.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by drone
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Back to the OP...
Fine baroque style playing. It would fit right in if this were a crowd of Dowland fans and lute players.
Doesn't quite capture the Irish trad jig feel. That may be your aim, it may not be. There's nothing wrong with turning a tune inside out.
Try this:
1. Slow it down by about a third.
2. Imagine the rolliking, syncopated knockedabout rhythm you get when you leave two shoes in the dryer.
3. TAAAH keh dah TAAAH keh da TAAAH keh dah diddle. Rinse. Repeat.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by jwvansteenwyk
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Ooops. Forgot the 9/8.
Chuck, did you dig the banana boat?
Repeat to taste.
Skip a word occasionally. Just to screw with their heads.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by jwvansteenwyk
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Som cool playing. Maybe you should go busking to get cash to update that computer in the background
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by copo24
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Ben:
"I wonder if personal grudges - on both parts - could perhaps be taken to private e-mails, so that the rest of us can appreciate Munichg's lovely guitar playing?"
You are right. I have mailed him privately to ask him to explain how he thinks I attacked Cathy. I will not return to the subject here. Apologies.
# Posted on August 10th 2007 by Linsey Doyle
Re: Guitar in ITM?
There's no reason why a guiar can't play dance rhythms, it's perfectly possible (not even terribly difficult). Of course, I can only say it's easy with a plectrum, I've no idea how hard or otherwise it is to do with the fingers, but it is possible (I've seen it done).
Re: the issue of sustain when flatpicking - well yes, one of the troubles that befalls the guitarist is a lack of sustain. However, in any setting aside from a requiring solo pieces it's really not an issue. I would have thought a higher action results in more volume and sustain though?
# Posted on August 11th 2007 by Andy V
Re: Guitar in ITM?
Andy... i would create more sustain with scalloped braces and a very wide grain top, it can be sitka, Adirondack, Engleman. My guitar with the most sustain is wide grain spruce. The guitar that is nearly done, Italian Alpine spruce, very wide grain. Judging from the tap tones on the body, I may be in trouble and want to keep that one too. A looser wider grain makes the top resonate more, as will thinner braces. it's all in the top. A slightly lighter, thinner top too is a help. Things to keep in mind if you ever go the custom built route.
One luthier I know will go inside with a mirror and shave down braces on so so guitars and make them sound twice as good. They may not support the guitar for as many years as they would have without shaving them, but we won't be around by them most likely or playing anyway. Don't try it home alone! let a pro do it.
The lower action is my personal choice, to make it easier to play, and therefore run around the neck at top speed when needed to keep up with the others.
Bob... I do that Carthy thumb thing, not that i sound like him either, but similar attack, and the fingernails kept on the right hand at the proper shape and length to get volume out of the other strings (have you ever seen some of the fingerstyle guys "do their nails"... pretty funny, with the fake glue-ons!). It is not hard to be heard at all with fingers.
# Posted on August 11th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I'm still curious about the speed issue. Some have said - or implied - that the piece is *slower* than normal jig speed, whilst others - myself, Greg and now jwvansteenwyk - have thought it's *quicker* than we, at any rate, would like to play jigs.
Has anyone tried playing along with it? I can't fit my jig rhythm into it, and I'm still convinced this is partly to do with it being too quick.
I've got to say, though, that, while Pól may be right in terms of the piece as a jig, it's *still* a really lovely piece of guitar playing.
Oh, and one more thought - I don't think it *has* to be able to work in a session context, as some have implied. It can be nice in its own right, can't it?
# Posted on August 11th 2007 by ethical blend
Re: Guitar in ITM?
John Renbourn glues bits of ping-pong balls to his nails and then shapes them! He explains it on one of his videos!
# Posted on August 11th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Guitar in ITM?
I've seen him do his nails... he takes very much care with them. Tony Mcmanus has fakes on the right hand too. Up close they look very strange! i am blessed with strong nails, but do fuss over them, the left of course as short as possible and the rights, there is a certain special height I like, and shape. They rarely break. If they do I have managed to play with whatever is left of them. It would be wise to carry some press-on nails in the case though. Clipper and nailfile go everywhere.
They say eating enough protein and maybe gelatin (I don't eat much of that) really helps the nails. What's really funny is when the women at the mall kiosks are selling nail gunk, they literally come and nearly grab your hands to check out your nails. They take a look at mine and often start laughing, don't know what to make of them. Between working as a paper marbler with paints and inks, and a jeweler, which leaves blackened fingers, and building guitars, just forget it.
For the female pickers, nailpolish is too slick to play with, holds you back. You'd think (as I did) it would toughen your nails, but once you remove it you may find it has left the nails thinner and brittler, and it takes a good while to grow out back to normal.
Ben..... I must play very fast! I am at times told to slow it down so maybe, but that would be at a slower session. If there is time, shall try to play with it later. yes it is a nice piece of playing and no, it doesn't have to be in a session. If he ever makes it to our session he'll be asked to play and for everyone to be quiet, the same as when our resident harpist plays one.
# Posted on August 11th 2007 by irisnevins