I am a beginner to bakcing and i am starting to learn tunes to help my backing. I was told by a number of good backers to learn five or six ''typical'' tunes in each key for reels and jigs to get an indication of ''typical'' chord progressions and to help my playing. Has anyone got any sugestions for good tunes in the different keys, or any good resources. any help would be much appreciated
I have a CD I give to students, a whistler put down some tunes very slowly, some jigs, reels, hornpipes for starters, in D, A, G, C, major, Am Em Dm, Bm D modal etc.... if you can find a melody player to do this for you, maybe not all at once, but a few to start, then more later, it's a great help in practicing. You can slow down session recordings too but the lone instrument played slowly is less distracting, you can really hear when you hit something wrong.
The tune learning is really good, gives you a feel for the structure about the music. It's not all about "what key is this in". it helps you learn to listen to the melody players closely while backing, listening for little nuances, changes of key, oddities in many tunes that seem out of the normal patterns. This won't happen right out, but will develop if you really pay attention to the tunes. You don't need to learn the tunes to performance level especially, unless you want to..... but to get a feel for the twists and turns. Learn a bunch of them, the rest will make more sense.
Good for you, to care enough about the tunes to want to learn them, a good backer, whether piano, guitar or anything else knows the tunes and what's coming. Also very important that few will mention is that a backer needs to be able to adapt to each different melody player's particular way phrasing things, where their stress notes fall, etc. The best of them could be playing melody if they want to, but find a great joy in accompaniment. It's a great challenge too, to have to know the tunes, carry them in your head and yet play something different with your hands.
You might find it easier to learn the tunes on whistle, to get them into your brain encoding... guitar is pretty convoluted for ITM tunes, unless you want them on guitar too. You could always end up playing both! Great accompanists like Felix or Brendan Dolan come to mind, both brilliant piano backers and great flute players. They are great accompanists because they understand the music and know the tunes so well.
There is an excellent book from Homespun Tapes called "121 Favorite Irish Session Tunes". The tunes are played on a tinwhistle at both slow and normal speeds, which is nice. However, the real secret of this book is that it's great for learning backing. The whistle is on one side of the stereo signal and the guitar, played by Nancy Conescu, on the other. So you can turn off the guitar if you want and just play to the tune. Or you can turn down the tune and listen very closely to what Nancy is doing. (She plays in DADGAD, by the way.)
All of the tunes in the book have chords, although that should only be used as a starting point. As you get more familiar with the music you should forget the suggested chords and come up with your own. You'd be surprised at the possibilities.
Craymcla.... good thought.... it is very easy to make up chords if you know the melody... chords are built around melody, so if there is a note you want to stress, just find one or two complimentary notes that fit with it, and there you have it. Do it by ear, hear what sounds best, then you can figure the notes within the chord and write them down if you think you will forget later.
I many times have this "one finger chording" thing going on a lot in dropped D, just sliding up and down the neck. Truly, it is one finger usually on the A string, but I call it chording because it's played with one or two of the open D strings. It's very fluid sounding and actually quite easy, easier than standard chording, and sounds deep and interesting too. You will rarely need a capo in the dropped D tuning for backing either.
DADGAD is a nice sound, though I personally prefer dropped D, you get the best of both worlds, a cross between DADGAD and standard tunings, and can drift in and out of either sound. I reserve DADGAD for full tune playing. Sometimes, it leads into another tune if a fiddle or flute etc, jump in, and I back in DADGAD then if I don't have that tune. I find it more limiting for backing than Dropped D though.
The advice you've been given so far seems very good (and definitely check out Mix's website - I wish I'd seen it when I was starting!).
But, I thought I'd add that actually, 5 or 6 tunes for EACH key for BOTH reels and jigs is quite a lot for a "beginner"!
I'm not sure what percentage of tunes are in each key, but I'd say 95% of tunes in sessions are in : Dmaj, Gmaj, Edor, Ador, Amin, Cmaj, Amaj, Dmix, Dmin and Bmin.
That's not actually that many keys compared with other music, but still learning 5 jigs and 5 reels for each of them, you're talking 100 tunes, without even getting onto hornpipes, polkas, etc (which you should once you've learned a dozen or so tunes)!
Realistically speaking, I don't think you have to be quite so ambitious to start off! Most beginning melody players I know, would be learning for a couple of years before they were at that level!
For me, as a backer, there's two levels of "learning" for tunes. There's "learning" a tune so that you know the turns and the feel of a tune (can hum bits of it maybe), and learning a tune so that you can play the melody (on guitar, or another instrument like Iris suggested). The latter is obviously better, but you can actually come up with reasonable chord progressions, once you have the tune "in your head".
I'd say of the tunes I'd know well enough to back, I'd only be able to play the melody of about 10-15% of them. :(
Anyway, in terms of what tunes are "typical", well that's a tricky one, but I'd find out which ones are being played at your local session (or check in Members/Tunebook to find out the most popular tunes on this site).
Dmaj seems to be the most popular key, followed by Gmaj, so I'd suggest learning the melody of a few popular reels & jigs in those keys, working out how to back them, and then move on to tunes from the other keys.
I find it helpful to play the tune on loop using one of those ABC players, until the tune is stuck in my head, and THEN working out an appropriate backing for it (that's a lot quicker for me than learning how to play the melody)...
tunes for guitar???
tunes for guitar???
I am a beginner to bakcing and i am starting to learn tunes to help my backing. I was told by a number of good backers to learn five or six ''typical'' tunes in each key for reels and jigs to get an indication of ''typical'' chord progressions and to help my playing. Has anyone got any sugestions for good tunes in the different keys, or any good resources. any help would be much appreciated
# Posted on February 18th 2009 by backerwannabe
Re: tunes for guitar???
Oh right! Welcome back "beardyman"!
# Posted on February 18th 2009 by Krick Stahlschwanz
Re: tunes for guitar???
I have a CD I give to students, a whistler put down some tunes very slowly, some jigs, reels, hornpipes for starters, in D, A, G, C, major, Am Em Dm, Bm D modal etc.... if you can find a melody player to do this for you, maybe not all at once, but a few to start, then more later, it's a great help in practicing. You can slow down session recordings too but the lone instrument played slowly is less distracting, you can really hear when you hit something wrong.
The tune learning is really good, gives you a feel for the structure about the music. It's not all about "what key is this in". it helps you learn to listen to the melody players closely while backing, listening for little nuances, changes of key, oddities in many tunes that seem out of the normal patterns. This won't happen right out, but will develop if you really pay attention to the tunes. You don't need to learn the tunes to performance level especially, unless you want to..... but to get a feel for the twists and turns. Learn a bunch of them, the rest will make more sense.
Good for you, to care enough about the tunes to want to learn them, a good backer, whether piano, guitar or anything else knows the tunes and what's coming. Also very important that few will mention is that a backer needs to be able to adapt to each different melody player's particular way phrasing things, where their stress notes fall, etc. The best of them could be playing melody if they want to, but find a great joy in accompaniment. It's a great challenge too, to have to know the tunes, carry them in your head and yet play something different with your hands.
You might find it easier to learn the tunes on whistle, to get them into your brain encoding... guitar is pretty convoluted for ITM tunes, unless you want them on guitar too. You could always end up playing both! Great accompanists like Felix or Brendan Dolan come to mind, both brilliant piano backers and great flute players. They are great accompanists because they understand the music and know the tunes so well.
# Posted on February 18th 2009 by irisnevins
Re: tunes for guitar???
backerwanabee - the advice that you were given is good; one of the attributes of being a good backer is knowing the tunes.
You might care to check out my website, which has 100 + tune examples (reels, jigs, hornpipes etc)
http://www.intermix.freeuk.com/
For each tune, I have a jpeg score (with guitar chords) and a midi file of the melody (computer generated).
So, (for practice purposes at home) you can play along to the midi file using the chords from the jpeg score.
It's only meant as a learning tool though - there is of course no substitute for playing at a real session.
# Posted on February 18th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: tunes for guitar???
There is an excellent book from Homespun Tapes called "121 Favorite Irish Session Tunes". The tunes are played on a tinwhistle at both slow and normal speeds, which is nice. However, the real secret of this book is that it's great for learning backing. The whistle is on one side of the stereo signal and the guitar, played by Nancy Conescu, on the other. So you can turn off the guitar if you want and just play to the tune. Or you can turn down the tune and listen very closely to what Nancy is doing. (She plays in DADGAD, by the way.)
All of the tunes in the book have chords, although that should only be used as a starting point. As you get more familiar with the music you should forget the suggested chords and come up with your own. You'd be surprised at the possibilities.
# Posted on February 18th 2009 by Craymcla
Re: tunes for guitar???
Craymcla.... good thought.... it is very easy to make up chords if you know the melody... chords are built around melody, so if there is a note you want to stress, just find one or two complimentary notes that fit with it, and there you have it. Do it by ear, hear what sounds best, then you can figure the notes within the chord and write them down if you think you will forget later.
I many times have this "one finger chording" thing going on a lot in dropped D, just sliding up and down the neck. Truly, it is one finger usually on the A string, but I call it chording because it's played with one or two of the open D strings. It's very fluid sounding and actually quite easy, easier than standard chording, and sounds deep and interesting too. You will rarely need a capo in the dropped D tuning for backing either.
DADGAD is a nice sound, though I personally prefer dropped D, you get the best of both worlds, a cross between DADGAD and standard tunings, and can drift in and out of either sound. I reserve DADGAD for full tune playing. Sometimes, it leads into another tune if a fiddle or flute etc, jump in, and I back in DADGAD then if I don't have that tune. I find it more limiting for backing than Dropped D though.
# Posted on February 19th 2009 by irisnevins
Re: tunes for guitar???
would you play in Em with a capo iris? it sounds great standard but misses that e drone then i think unless you use a capo
# Posted on February 19th 2009 by CFlood
Re: tunes for guitar???
The advice you've been given so far seems very good (and definitely check out Mix's website - I wish I'd seen it when I was starting!).
But, I thought I'd add that actually, 5 or 6 tunes for EACH key for BOTH reels and jigs is quite a lot for a "beginner"!
I'm not sure what percentage of tunes are in each key, but I'd say 95% of tunes in sessions are in : Dmaj, Gmaj, Edor, Ador, Amin, Cmaj, Amaj, Dmix, Dmin and Bmin.
That's not actually that many keys compared with other music, but still learning 5 jigs and 5 reels for each of them, you're talking 100 tunes, without even getting onto hornpipes, polkas, etc (which you should once you've learned a dozen or so tunes)!
Realistically speaking, I don't think you have to be quite so ambitious to start off! Most beginning melody players I know, would be learning for a couple of years before they were at that level!
For me, as a backer, there's two levels of "learning" for tunes. There's "learning" a tune so that you know the turns and the feel of a tune (can hum bits of it maybe), and learning a tune so that you can play the melody (on guitar, or another instrument like Iris suggested). The latter is obviously better, but you can actually come up with reasonable chord progressions, once you have the tune "in your head".
I'd say of the tunes I'd know well enough to back, I'd only be able to play the melody of about 10-15% of them. :(
Anyway, in terms of what tunes are "typical", well that's a tricky one, but I'd find out which ones are being played at your local session (or check in Members/Tunebook to find out the most popular tunes on this site).
Dmaj seems to be the most popular key, followed by Gmaj, so I'd suggest learning the melody of a few popular reels & jigs in those keys, working out how to back them, and then move on to tunes from the other keys.
I find it helpful to play the tune on loop using one of those ABC players, until the tune is stuck in my head, and THEN working out an appropriate backing for it (that's a lot quicker for me than learning how to play the melody)...
# Posted on February 19th 2009 by -ronan-