Since certain questions tend to repeat, and many of us grow weary of providing the same answers time after time, I have put some information in my member profile on the topic of accompanying sessions. That way, beginners can be pointed to a single document that gives them a starting point.
I was inspired to do this by Dow's massive paen to NorthUmbrian music that appears in his profile.
I know this also will open me up to criticism, as there are lots of opinions on this topic, and some may even think that I should not be encouraging new accompanists at all!
So, look over what I have posted, and let me know what you think. I am especially interested in having factual errors pointed out, so they can be corrected before someone does damage to a tune, and I am to blame!
Just a minor quibble: reels and strathspeys are not in 2/4 time. It's a bit controversial whether the time signature of these tune forms is 4/4 or 2/2, but 2/4 is right out.
I think you've done a good job there and it would certainly serve as a good starting point for any newbies that come to the site. By the time they are accomplished enough to quibble about anything there they should have enough of a grounding to ask the right questions.
That's great Al Brown! I'm not an accompanist but I found it all quite informative. As a melody player, it'll help me to better understand what the accompanists are doing/trying to do. I think it's really nice of you to take the time to write all of that out for others to learn from.
Thanks for doing that Al! I'm more of a melody guy, and I don't get a chance to play in a session very often, but I really liked the info on the types of tunes. I got reels, polkas, and jigs but the rest was gibberish :( . A little more on mazurkas would be cool, but kudos! ....I think that's the first time I've ever used 'kudos' in a sentence...neato
Hi Al - On a quick read through, a few initial observations:
Reels can be in 2/4 or 4/4, but Irish reels are normally scored in 4/4 time.
Polkas can also be either in 2/4 or 4/4 time, though Kerry polkas are always written in 2/4. The essential point about polkas (that you have omitted) is the accentuation that occurs in various places using dotted notes. Otherwise polkas would just be reels.
Specifically, a "planxty" is tune that was written by a harper on commission, the name of the tune being the person who paid the commission.
The primary purpose of a guitar at a session (or celidh/ceili) is to provide a rhythm accompaniment. I would never advocate the use of finger-picking. It tramples on the melody, and will thus irritate the melody players
The Aolian mode is the natural minor, not the "classical" minor. The (harmonic) minor scale that is classically taught, (and is used in orchestral music) contains accidentals, whereas as the natural minor scale does not.
Only two chords (the main ones that you mention) are needed to accompany a straight Dorian mode tune (although many will try to tell you otherwise). Additional chords may well be musically correct, but they kill the tune from an aesthetic point of view.
You might care to take a look at the "modes and scales" section of my website:
Incidentally, you mentioned the Irish, Scottish and American traditions but said nothing of the English (or Welsh!) ones. If you ever visit England, you will find that there are also "English" pub sessions. The English tunes are mostly in major keys, although a small proportion are modal. You will also find plenty of barn dances going on in England - with bands usually using a mixture of English, Irish, Scottish and American tunes.
By contrast, the majority of English traditional songs are modal (mostly Dorian or Mixolydian) and are usually sung with no accompaniment.
Plenty of "performance" dancing as well - mostly Morris dancing, but also longsword and shortsword (or rapper sword), clog dancing, and other traditional dances as well.
Thanks Al, for taking the time to both think critically on this and to write it all down as a readable document. I only hope is that nascent or putative strummers will take heed. A few minor points - you referenced American music a few times. I know this is because you are American, but your target audience is not necessarily interested in American music. Also, minor improvisation by melody players *within* a tune IS appropriate. And melody players don't - and shouldn't, by definition - necessarily welcome ALL other melody players who are up to playing along. I'm not saying this is good or bad, just true.
But all in all you've done a very good job, have got it near enough right IMHO and this can only have a postive effect overall. Thanks again.
Learning tunes is a benefit, of course. However, if you've learned a tune "note for note" why restrict yourself to accompaniment?
Surely, if you have enough familiarity with a tune, ie be able to sing it etc and know where it's going you ought to be able to work out a reasonable accompaniment? Especially if you're an experienced backer.
Of course, a good backer will be much more thorough and imaginative but I doubt if he/she would wish to play a chord for every single note.
Basically though, I agree. I can never understand why a guitarist wants to back every single tune whether they are familiar with them or not.
He/she will often shout out "Which key?" before you even start. How can they possibly know if they have even heard of these tunes before you start? Let alone know them!
Why would you want to accompany a tune you 'd never even heard before?
I usually end up telling them the wrong key anyway or that it's either in "A" or "D".
Thanks for all the information!
But a mazurka is in 3/4 time.
And when you play in A dorian, you should not use a Dm or an E but better a D and an Em. And it's the same with tunes in B dorian, there you can better use E and F#m instead of Em and F#. And about the major scales: For C major you've written C a second time at the end where it should be B flat. (I can't find the symbol for flat on my keyboard.) But it's a good start that will help lots of (new) backers.
Not maliciously, of course. Trouble is, a lot of us melody players don't always think about keys as such unless we were specifically aware of them while learning the the tunes.
That's not just me and I've seen many of the "big boys" shout out the wrong key in a session.
Sometimes, I'll strum or pluck a couple of chords before I start and there might be a couple of "A" chords" in there but, of course, it could also be in "D".
If I know there's a C sharps, Gsharps or whatever or none in the tune, I can again work out the key. However, I don't tend to recall every note in a tune before I actually start!
Fair enough - I'm guilty of asking the key sometimes before someone starts a set, but only in company I know ; )
I utterly agree with llig about knowing the tune, and I'm not such a big fan of some of the overchordification (!) that goes on sometimes, and prefer the simpler approach.
Mind you it's all subjective and I'm a bouzouki player and think Alec Finn is god, so there you go.
Of course, I obviously know which keys the well known are in... eg The Kesh, Atholl Highlanders and many more but I have to think about those I play less regularly. Especially those I've just "picked up" as opposed to consciously learning.
However, a good backer ought to be able to "suss things out" for his/herself.
Many of the tunes aren't as straight forward as being in "A", "D", "G" or whatever or even in minor keys. As has been already mentioned, much of the music is modal.
Incidentally, on the occasions when I accompany tunes I can usually work out the key without any trouble (Obviously, not all of the chords....first time around). Maybe, we use a different part of the brain for accompaniment.
I'm not sure whether you are agreeing with us or not, CG.
However, while many tunes are very simple and you can almost "second guess" which way they are going to go there are frequently many surprises. So, accompanying a tune you've never heard before is a tricky business.
That's even without trying the more difficult ones.
OK, only one beef, and nobody really cares except us fanatics, but please, PLEASE don't jiggety jig the slides. Please? Oh, the poor slides. I do love them so, but it does make me cringe when someone goes jiggety jiggety all over them.
Excellent summary, Al - welldone!
re knowing the tunes - I think you do reach a point after many hundreds of hours of backing tunes where you develop a pretty reasonable sense of where the tune is going - or at least an ability to work out a tidy backing structure while sitting back the first time through. Some tunes of course have hidden "bombs" and you get tripped up but not that many. The main thing I listen for now is not the chord changes but the accents or skeleton of the tune. Despite what others think I reckon some of my best backing experiences have been with tunes I didn't know at sessions and often players I didn't know. Right and wrong is a pointless concept here I think - taste is another matter
A friend of mine, who is a briliant guitarist, can play the melody of lots of tunes on the guitar. He says it is easier to back the tunes if he knows it. That said, he can back tunes he doesn't know note for note so long as it follows predictable patterns -- once that, as Geoff there just said above, don't have "hidden bombs." But he knows enough tunes and has listened to enough of this music to be more than competent at this. He has also said that he is saddened by the fact that many accompanists never learn the tunes. So I agree with Michael, learn the tunes.
I try to be helpful and call out the keys. Trouble is I'm usually wrong
And thanks for posting that link SWFL fiddler:
'blah dithery dump a doodle scattery idle fortunoodle.'
That is so spot on. Plenty of people around here just play slides as jigs. I don't have a major issue with this as mnay exdamples will work as both and Glasgow isn't really a slieve lurca hotspot, (and I wouldn't be too confident about my own playing of slides and polkas anyway). But it puzzles me when I hear people very definately say "slides" as if making a point that "the following are not jigs" only to play a set of tunes in a definate jig style.
Indeed the hornpipe is not exactly a dotted rythym, that is, not a three to one timing as the usual dotted notaion implies but is closer to the two to one ratio. It's just easier to write or read as dotted than as triplets with the first two slurred. This is a place where tunes played from the dots will NOT sound right. To get the sound from the dots just right, you would almost have to write down the hornpipe in 12/16 time, and then the classically trained would think it a very strange jig, instead.
A dotted rhythm is different that a triplet feel rhythm. One of the problems with notating hornpipes is that people tend to write them out straight or with dots, and the rhythm is neither. While there is a wide, wide variety of rhythms that hornpipes are played in, and you're right, they tend to get straighter in feel when they're faster, none of those ways I've come across has ever approached the first note being precisely three times the length of the second.
And none of those rhythms are syncopated, which was my main point
Al inspiration from Dow,all right!
It seems you could easily divide the subject into backing for Irish jigs, reels, hornpipes, & polkas (1st approach) vs backing of Scottish reels, jigs, & strathspeys, (someone help me here).
It would be important not to go into too much detail for beginners. If you do it may never end ~ various rhythmic styles within each tradition (Irish & Scottish), crossovers between each . . .
Thing I'm getting at is it depends on the session you're backing. So taking just the 2 approaches might prove useful. More than that & you're writing a book.
One example where you might want to break it down would be a tune which begins life as a Scottish reel but then becomes considered a hornpipe elsewhere.
Best, most straightforward advice I've seen for those of us heroically willing to play ITM accompaniment.
I'd only add this oh, so earnest advice to newbies:
Since any ITM created after Carolan is miles less authentic than his harp ploinking, don't worry that guitar is seen by the odd graying pedantic type as non-trad. (You'll hear those same coots and crones saying things like, "My angel-sculpted ears are still stung—stung!—by Glenn Gould's Bach recordings on a—gasp!—piano of all things, well my dear!")
Also, until you're as fluid and imaginative a player as (oh, let's draw a name out of the hat) John Doyle, content yourself with being a tasteful minimalist. You know full well that outside da sesh you can really get yer ya-yas out playing the scads of other innarestin musical stylings available on the planet.
@Bob Himself - "not meaning to pick on Mix" eh!" Well, unlike some here, at least you were polite about it. ...
And, (also unlike some) I'm quite prepared to justify anything that I say on this board ...
Yes, there are other possible interpretations of the word "planxty", but the one that I provided is the one that is the most commonly accepted in the context of ITM.
Why? Because the only "planxtys" that I have ever heard played at sessions are O'Carolan tunes, and I don't recall anyone singing along lyrics to any of them.
Why do I say that playing guitar fingerstyle tramples on the melody? Because as you as you start doing that, you are effectively introducing an unwanted secondary melody. Of course, if by "fingerstyle" you mean actually *playing* the melody, that would be a different matter.
ITM sessions don't *need* guitars. You can have a perfectly good session without one. Sure, a session CAN be improved by the addition of a guitar - but only if the guitarist knows exactly what he (or she) is doing. Unfortunately, many don't, and thus can ruin what would otherwise be a good session.
Most melody players put in a lot of effort and practice time to learn the tunes BEFORE playing them at sessions. If a tune is played at session that you don't know, you can sit it out. Or, if the tune is fairly straightforward and you are an experienced player, you can listen to it once or twice through, and then join in - quietly and tentively.
On the other hand, many guitarists will come steaming in straight away with their so-called "backing" of a tune that they've never heard before and have therefore never bothered to learn or practice.
If you are a melody player, the next time a guitarist screws up the backing of a tune at a session, try asking them these questions after the set has finished:
1) What was the name of that tune?
2) Was type of a tune (i.e. reel, jig, polka, hornpipe etc.) was it?
I notice no one has picked on this so maybe it's just me that hasn't understood life correctly:
I don't see ITM as traditionally a unison melody genre more than traditonnally a solo melody genre. As such, many instruments playing together is just as untraditionnal as harmony (and maybe slightly less that a guitar playing harmony).
The way you repeatedly say that the guitar is a recent innovation makes it seem like the only people who will complain about a guitar player are those "pure drop" coots who spend their time in nostalgic outrage at innovation against a sacrosanct tradition.
Maybe you could touch on the much more valid reasons people might have to complain about guitar:
- equal temperament
- removal of harmonic ambiguity
- muddying of the sound
- reluctance of many to stick to a "less is more" partial chord not-on-every-note accompaniment
- number of good guitar players who know nothing about traditional music who think they can turn up and play (after all, it's very simple). In a way, it's almost more irritating than bodhrans.
Oh and you might mention sean nos dancing. And my experience of ITM (never been to ireland though) is that there are many great players who have no clue about dancing. I still don't see the relevance of the people who bang on about it being "dance music".
Who are these great players Tirno? how do you know they are great anyhow? What is your definition of 'great'.
I go on about Dance because its an important aspect of the tradition . Thinking that a player can be 'great' without being able to play for dancers, IMO, betrays a lack of understanding. Its like saying a cook is great even though no one likes to eat their food! or a gun is great because it looks good, but cant shoot straight! Or that a musician is great because they can play fast! but no one actually likes the music...
I would like to quote you here;
'My goal is to be "good enough" to play for dancers'
Well, this has been received better than I expected. I had expected to be roundly condemned for contributing to the delinquency of a musician, or some such charge!
Over the next few days I will be going through the comments everyone has posted, both subjective and specific, and making changes to my little essay. And I will make it even more explicit that this is a melody based tradition, where the tunes rule, and knowing the tunes is a huge part of succeeding (although I will probably not go so far as to give it llig's alternate title in its big capital letters!).
As a bit of background, this started as a personal collection of info to help my playing, that I turned into a proposed magazine article. The magazine told me that I needed to submit it with some digital pictures for illustration. At that time, I did not have a digital camera, and so I put the project aside and forgot about it for years. I ran across it again recently, and contacted the magazine to see if they were still interested, but got no response, so I figured I would post it here, where it might be useful to folks.
Thanks everyone for contributing your thoughts!
Many of the "big boys" who have learned their scales properly, can tootle along in any key, not always knowing what key they are in.
If the accompanist needs telling what is coming next, that defeats the object of sessions, and is what the whole thread is about.
Do your homework!!
Listen to as much ITM as possible, preferably internet radio, where you don't know what is coming, rather than cds.
If you can't play along to the radio, you haven't a chance of playing along under the threatening gaze of "big boys" in sessions..
AlBrown, I thought it was a good guide and I enjoyed reading it.
If you are an accompanist/backup musician as I am, no you don't have to try to play along or accompany every tune. Sometimes it is better to sit there quietly and listen--especially if you don't know the tune and have never heard it before in your life.
On the other hand, though, there are times when I cannot resist the challenge of trying to acccompany a tune I have never heard before just to see if I can do it.
As for learning the tunes so you will know them although you won't be playing them in public at a session, I think that is excellent advice. I do know it has helped improve my accompanying and has helped make me a better accompanist.
i like fauxcelt's post. On reflection the single most valuable thing in improving my accomaniment was getting a "tune" instrument in addition to guitar - )mando, banjo are the obvious choices) and started building a repertoire. It isn't just that you learn a number of tunes - you start to think about the way the things are built - this is the idea behind Chris Smith's approaches. No doubt - for me and a few others I know - it works a treat.
The word, “planxty”: I suppose the only sustained usage of the word we can point to is in Carolan’s tune titles, though I’ve come across a small handful of modern “Planxty Whomever” tunes that were dedications rather than commissions. My favorite is Planxty Jack Daniels (that's a whiskey, in case somebody didn't know).
Fingerstyle: Yes, I assumed you were referring to playing the tune. I generally find strummed accompaniment more satisfying than fingerpicked, not because of stepping on the melody (lots of strummers do that) but because it’s a bit harder to keep a crisp, rhythmic flow going when accompanying fingerstyle. I *have* heard it done quite well, though.
Considering sessions, dances and concert-style performances, anybody got a good estimate of how much of The Music is played for dancing and how much is played just for the music? My guess is that the latter purpose is more popular. It seems to me that a tune is dance music when it’s played for dancing and it’s something else when played for its own sake. Both are worthy on their own merits.
>>If you are a melody player, the next time a guitarist screws >>up the backing of a tune at a session, try asking them these >>questions after the set has finished:
>>1) What was the name of that tune?
>>>2) Was type of a tune (i.e. reel, jig, polka, hornpipe etc.) was it?
>>3) What key was it in?
>>... and see how many correct answers you get ...
>># Posted on March 21st 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
You might try that approach to many Melody players as well and you would be supprised at the answers (Just as "ignorant" as backers in my experience).
There is the old saying "If you know the names of all the tunes - then you don't know enough tunes" - I know DOZENS of very competent melody players who do NOT know the name of the tune - "you know the one that goes "dum de dum de dum" etc.
They would probably know the answer to 2 but often they don't know the answer to 3 either.
I am both a melody player and an accompanist and I can assure you I can competently back a tune WITHOUT KNOWING IT'S NAME.
I very often wouldn't be able to tell you the key I am playing in as well - either melody or accompanying - doesn't mean I can't do either well.
ITM being a mostly aural tradition I think you will find that most of the earlier rural players knew F*@k All about music theory but could play the arse off most.
I have updated my little guide to incorporate inputs posted above, or sent to me via e-mail--thanks to all for help in making my guide an even better one!
A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Since certain questions tend to repeat, and many of us grow weary of providing the same answers time after time, I have put some information in my member profile on the topic of accompanying sessions. That way, beginners can be pointed to a single document that gives them a starting point.
I was inspired to do this by Dow's massive paen to NorthUmbrian music that appears in his profile.
I know this also will open me up to criticism, as there are lots of opinions on this topic, and some may even think that I should not be encouraging new accompanists at all!
So, look over what I have posted, and let me know what you think. I am especially interested in having factual errors pointed out, so they can be corrected before someone does damage to a tune, and I am to blame!
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I applaud your intentions.
Just a minor quibble: reels and strathspeys are not in 2/4 time. It's a bit controversial whether the time signature of these tune forms is 4/4 or 2/2, but 2/4 is right out.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by timmy!
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Al,
Very nicely done. John Doyle also has a very nice DVD.
And if you want a nice target to throw darts at, I have a set of reels with guitar accompaniment posted at http://www.myspace.com/tomandrose
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by ceciltguitar
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I think you've done a good job there and it would certainly serve as a good starting point for any newbies that come to the site. By the time they are accomplished enough to quibble about anything there they should have enough of a grounding to ask the right questions.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Donough
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Good for you, Al!
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
That's great Al Brown! I'm not an accompanist but I found it all quite informative. As a melody player, it'll help me to better understand what the accompanists are doing/trying to do. I think it's really nice of you to take the time to write all of that out for others to learn from.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Glass of Beer
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Thanks for doing that Al! I'm more of a melody guy, and I don't get a chance to play in a session very often, but I really liked the info on the types of tunes. I got reels, polkas, and jigs but the rest was gibberish :( . A little more on mazurkas would be cool, but kudos! ....I think that's the first time I've ever used 'kudos' in a sentence...neato
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by steve...r
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Hi Al - On a quick read through, a few initial observations:
Reels can be in 2/4 or 4/4, but Irish reels are normally scored in 4/4 time.
Polkas can also be either in 2/4 or 4/4 time, though Kerry polkas are always written in 2/4. The essential point about polkas (that you have omitted) is the accentuation that occurs in various places using dotted notes. Otherwise polkas would just be reels.
Specifically, a "planxty" is tune that was written by a harper on commission, the name of the tune being the person who paid the commission.
The primary purpose of a guitar at a session (or celidh/ceili) is to provide a rhythm accompaniment. I would never advocate the use of finger-picking. It tramples on the melody, and will thus irritate the melody players
The Aolian mode is the natural minor, not the "classical" minor. The (harmonic) minor scale that is classically taught, (and is used in orchestral music) contains accidentals, whereas as the natural minor scale does not.
Only two chords (the main ones that you mention) are needed to accompany a straight Dorian mode tune (although many will try to tell you otherwise). Additional chords may well be musically correct, but they kill the tune from an aesthetic point of view.
You might care to take a look at the "modes and scales" section of my website:
http://www.intermix.freeuk.com
Incidentally, you mentioned the Irish, Scottish and American traditions but said nothing of the English (or Welsh!) ones. If you ever visit England, you will find that there are also "English" pub sessions. The English tunes are mostly in major keys, although a small proportion are modal. You will also find plenty of barn dances going on in England - with bands usually using a mixture of English, Irish, Scottish and American tunes.
By contrast, the majority of English traditional songs are modal (mostly Dorian or Mixolydian) and are usually sung with no accompaniment.
Plenty of "performance" dancing as well - mostly Morris dancing, but also longsword and shortsword (or rapper sword), clog dancing, and other traditional dances as well.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I thought that we'd all agreed there was only one bit of advice anyone needs:
"LEARN THE BLOODY TUNES"
Al, feel free to copy/paste that to the top of your tretise.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by ...
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I thought we'd all agreed that we all had different opinions!
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by RockyRoader
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
A very useful guide and interesting read (from an apprentice point of view).
Good work Al
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Ciarán.
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Yes, different opinions and tastes are all valid. But anyone who advises that learning the tunes is of no benefit is simply wrong.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by ...
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Can't remember that any one here ever suggested that learning the tunes is of no benefit.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Henk Bos
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Thanks Al, for taking the time to both think critically on this and to write it all down as a readable document. I only hope is that nascent or putative strummers will take heed. A few minor points - you referenced American music a few times. I know this is because you are American, but your target audience is not necessarily interested in American music. Also, minor improvisation by melody players *within* a tune IS appropriate. And melody players don't - and shouldn't, by definition - necessarily welcome ALL other melody players who are up to playing along. I'm not saying this is good or bad, just true.
But all in all you've done a very good job, have got it near enough right IMHO and this can only have a postive effect overall. Thanks again.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Rudall the time
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
MY only hope...
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Rudall the time
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Learning tunes is a benefit, of course. However, if you've learned a tune "note for note" why restrict yourself to accompaniment?
Surely, if you have enough familiarity with a tune, ie be able to sing it etc and know where it's going you ought to be able to work out a reasonable accompaniment? Especially if you're an experienced backer.
Of course, a good backer will be much more thorough and imaginative but I doubt if he/she would wish to play a chord for every single note.
Basically though, I agree. I can never understand why a guitarist wants to back every single tune whether they are familiar with them or not.
He/she will often shout out "Which key?" before you even start. How can they possibly know if they have even heard of these tunes before you start? Let alone know them!
Why would you want to accompany a tune you 'd never even heard before?
I usually end up telling them the wrong key anyway or that it's either in "A" or "D".
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Johnny Jay
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Correction: I failed to see the context of this discussion (being only from an accompanists point of view) so my previous post is redundant.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Henk Bos
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
That's OK
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by ...
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I usually end up telling them the wrong key anyway or that it's either in "A" or "D".
Nice.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Thanks for all the information!
But a mazurka is in 3/4 time.
And when you play in A dorian, you should not use a Dm or an E but better a D and an Em. And it's the same with tunes in B dorian, there you can better use E and F#m instead of Em and F#. And about the major scales: For C major you've written C a second time at the end where it should be B flat. (I can't find the symbol for flat on my keyboard.) But it's a good start that will help lots of (new) backers.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Falderalala
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
SFJ,
Not maliciously, of course. Trouble is, a lot of us melody players don't always think about keys as such unless we were specifically aware of them while learning the the tunes.
That's not just me and I've seen many of the "big boys" shout out the wrong key in a session.
Sometimes, I'll strum or pluck a couple of chords before I start and there might be a couple of "A" chords" in there but, of course, it could also be in "D".
If I know there's a C sharps, Gsharps or whatever or none in the tune, I can again work out the key. However, I don't tend to recall every note in a tune before I actually start!
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Johnny Jay
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Fair enough - I'm guilty of asking the key sometimes before someone starts a set, but only in company I know ; )
I utterly agree with llig about knowing the tune, and I'm not such a big fan of some of the overchordification (!) that goes on sometimes, and prefer the simpler approach.
Mind you it's all subjective and I'm a bouzouki player and think Alec Finn is god, so there you go.
Good guide Al!
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Of course, I obviously know which keys the well known are in... eg The Kesh, Atholl Highlanders and many more but I have to think about those I play less regularly. Especially those I've just "picked up" as opposed to consciously learning.
However, a good backer ought to be able to "suss things out" for his/herself.
Many of the tunes aren't as straight forward as being in "A", "D", "G" or whatever or even in minor keys. As has been already mentioned, much of the music is modal.
That's where knowing the tune helps.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Johnny Jay
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Sorry, cross posted.
Incidentally, on the occasions when I accompany tunes I can usually work out the key without any trouble (Obviously, not all of the chords....first time around). Maybe, we use a different part of the brain for accompaniment.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Johnny Jay
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Terrific advice, these:
"LEARN THE BLOODY TUNES"
"I can never understand why a guitarist wants to back every single tune whether they are familiar with them or not."
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by ceciltguitar
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I'm not sure whether you are agreeing with us or not, CG.
However, while many tunes are very simple and you can almost "second guess" which way they are going to go there are frequently many surprises. So, accompanying a tune you've never heard before is a tricky business.
That's even without trying the more difficult ones.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Johnny Jay
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Well done Al, it's about time someone did this for us here on the mustard board and I think you've done a fine job.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I'll have to check out this North Umbrian music!
(Umbria is a part of Italy...)
I know it's a typo but I couldn't resist it!
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by nicholas
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
hornpipes don't have dotted rhythms. They have a swing or triplet feel. And that's not called syncopation.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by reenactor
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
OK, only one beef, and nobody really cares except us fanatics, but please, PLEASE don't jiggety jig the slides. Please? Oh, the poor slides. I do love them so, but it does make me cringe when someone goes jiggety jiggety all over them.
Here's what Ciaran Carson has for them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciar%C3%A1n_Carson#Critical_Perspective
'blah dithery dump a doodle scattery idle fortunoodle'
Ah...that's the stuff...
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Excellent summary, Al - welldone!
re knowing the tunes - I think you do reach a point after many hundreds of hours of backing tunes where you develop a pretty reasonable sense of where the tune is going - or at least an ability to work out a tidy backing structure while sitting back the first time through. Some tunes of course have hidden "bombs" and you get tripped up but not that many. The main thing I listen for now is not the chord changes but the accents or skeleton of the tune. Despite what others think I reckon some of my best backing experiences have been with tunes I didn't know at sessions and often players I didn't know. Right and wrong is a pointless concept here I think - taste is another matter
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by geoffmc
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
A friend of mine, who is a briliant guitarist, can play the melody of lots of tunes on the guitar. He says it is easier to back the tunes if he knows it. That said, he can back tunes he doesn't know note for note so long as it follows predictable patterns -- once that, as Geoff there just said above, don't have "hidden bombs." But he knows enough tunes and has listened to enough of this music to be more than competent at this. He has also said that he is saddened by the fact that many accompanists never learn the tunes. So I agree with Michael, learn the tunes.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I try to be helpful and call out the keys. Trouble is I'm usually wrong
And thanks for posting that link SWFL fiddler:
'blah dithery dump a doodle scattery idle fortunoodle.'
That is so spot on. Plenty of people around here just play slides as jigs. I don't have a major issue with this as mnay exdamples will work as both and Glasgow isn't really a slieve lurca hotspot, (and I wouldn't be too confident about my own playing of slides and polkas anyway). But it puzzles me when I hear people very definately say "slides" as if making a point that "the following are not jigs" only to play a set of tunes in a definate jig style.
- chris
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
(Not meaning to pick on Mix…)
.
“Specifically, a ‘planxty’ is tune that was written by a harper on commission, the name of the tune being the person who paid the commission.”
Is there really such a narrow definition of the word?
“The primary purpose of a guitar at a session (or celidh/ceili) is to provide a rhythm accompaniment.”
Oh, dear. If only I’d known…
“I would never advocate the use of finger-picking. It tramples on the melody, and will thus irritate the melody players”
Tramples on the melody? How so?
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Indeed the hornpipe is not exactly a dotted rythym, that is, not a three to one timing as the usual dotted notaion implies but is closer to the two to one ratio. It's just easier to write or read as dotted than as triplets with the first two slurred. This is a place where tunes played from the dots will NOT sound right. To get the sound from the dots just right, you would almost have to write down the hornpipe in 12/16 time, and then the classically trained would think it a very strange jig, instead.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by justjim
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Patrick Toms...
A dotted rhythm is different that a triplet feel rhythm. One of the problems with notating hornpipes is that people tend to write them out straight or with dots, and the rhythm is neither. While there is a wide, wide variety of rhythms that hornpipes are played in, and you're right, they tend to get straighter in feel when they're faster, none of those ways I've come across has ever approached the first note being precisely three times the length of the second.
And none of those rhythms are syncopated, which was my main point
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by reenactor
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
My pleasure ramblingpitchfork. Brought to you by the slide preservation society.
I hear ya, drives me batty. "Here's some lovely slides, slides mind you, not jigs..." [jiggety jiggety...]
Interesting too, that's a Belfast poet with that lovely slide mnemonic!
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Great stuff, Al. Thanks!
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by tomw
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Al inspiration from Dow,all right!
It seems you could easily divide the subject into backing for Irish jigs, reels, hornpipes, & polkas (1st approach) vs backing of Scottish reels, jigs, & strathspeys, (someone help me here).
It would be important not to go into too much detail for beginners. If you do it may never end ~ various rhythmic styles within each tradition (Irish & Scottish), crossovers between each . . .
Thing I'm getting at is it depends on the session you're backing. So taking just the 2 approaches might prove useful. More than that & you're writing a book.
One example where you might want to break it down would be a tune which begins life as a Scottish reel but then becomes considered a hornpipe elsewhere.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Al—
Best, most straightforward advice I've seen for those of us heroically willing to play ITM accompaniment.
I'd only add this oh, so earnest advice to newbies:
Since any ITM created after Carolan is miles less authentic than his harp ploinking, don't worry that guitar is seen by the odd graying pedantic type as non-trad. (You'll hear those same coots and crones saying things like, "My angel-sculpted ears are still stung—stung!—by Glenn Gould's Bach recordings on a—gasp!—piano of all things, well my dear!")
Also, until you're as fluid and imaginative a player as (oh, let's draw a name out of the hat) John Doyle, content yourself with being a tasteful minimalist. You know full well that outside da sesh you can really get yer ya-yas out playing the scads of other innarestin musical stylings available on the planet.
# Posted on March 20th 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Thanks Al! VERY generous work!
And llig, I am learning the bloody tunes!
# Posted on March 21st 2009 by GDub
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
@Bob Himself - "not meaning to pick on Mix" eh!" Well, unlike some here, at least you were polite about it. ...
And, (also unlike some) I'm quite prepared to justify anything that I say on this board ...
Yes, there are other possible interpretations of the word "planxty", but the one that I provided is the one that is the most commonly accepted in the context of ITM.
Why? Because the only "planxtys" that I have ever heard played at sessions are O'Carolan tunes, and I don't recall anyone singing along lyrics to any of them.
Why do I say that playing guitar fingerstyle tramples on the melody? Because as you as you start doing that, you are effectively introducing an unwanted secondary melody. Of course, if by "fingerstyle" you mean actually *playing* the melody, that would be a different matter.
ITM sessions don't *need* guitars. You can have a perfectly good session without one. Sure, a session CAN be improved by the addition of a guitar - but only if the guitarist knows exactly what he (or she) is doing. Unfortunately, many don't, and thus can ruin what would otherwise be a good session.
Most melody players put in a lot of effort and practice time to learn the tunes BEFORE playing them at sessions. If a tune is played at session that you don't know, you can sit it out. Or, if the tune is fairly straightforward and you are an experienced player, you can listen to it once or twice through, and then join in - quietly and tentively.
On the other hand, many guitarists will come steaming in straight away with their so-called "backing" of a tune that they've never heard before and have therefore never bothered to learn or practice.
If you are a melody player, the next time a guitarist screws up the backing of a tune at a session, try asking them these questions after the set has finished:
1) What was the name of that tune?
2) Was type of a tune (i.e. reel, jig, polka, hornpipe etc.) was it?
3) What key was it in?
... and see how many correct answers you get ...
# Posted on March 21st 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I notice no one has picked on this so maybe it's just me that hasn't understood life correctly:
I don't see ITM as traditionally a unison melody genre more than traditonnally a solo melody genre. As such, many instruments playing together is just as untraditionnal as harmony (and maybe slightly less that a guitar playing harmony).
The way you repeatedly say that the guitar is a recent innovation makes it seem like the only people who will complain about a guitar player are those "pure drop" coots who spend their time in nostalgic outrage at innovation against a sacrosanct tradition.
Maybe you could touch on the much more valid reasons people might have to complain about guitar:
- equal temperament
- removal of harmonic ambiguity
- muddying of the sound
- reluctance of many to stick to a "less is more" partial chord not-on-every-note accompaniment
- number of good guitar players who know nothing about traditional music who think they can turn up and play (after all, it's very simple). In a way, it's almost more irritating than bodhrans.
Oh and you might mention sean nos dancing. And my experience of ITM (never been to ireland though) is that there are many great players who have no clue about dancing. I still don't see the relevance of the people who bang on about it being "dance music".
# Posted on March 21st 2009 by Tirno
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Who are these great players Tirno? how do you know they are great anyhow? What is your definition of 'great'.
I go on about Dance because its an important aspect of the tradition . Thinking that a player can be 'great' without being able to play for dancers, IMO, betrays a lack of understanding. Its like saying a cook is great even though no one likes to eat their food! or a gun is great because it looks good, but cant shoot straight! Or that a musician is great because they can play fast! but no one actually likes the music...
I would like to quote you here;
'My goal is to be "good enough" to play for dancers'
IMO that is an admirable goal.
# Posted on March 21st 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Well, this has been received better than I expected. I had expected to be roundly condemned for contributing to the delinquency of a musician, or some such charge!
Over the next few days I will be going through the comments everyone has posted, both subjective and specific, and making changes to my little essay. And I will make it even more explicit that this is a melody based tradition, where the tunes rule, and knowing the tunes is a huge part of succeeding (although I will probably not go so far as to give it llig's alternate title in its big capital letters!).
As a bit of background, this started as a personal collection of info to help my playing, that I turned into a proposed magazine article. The magazine told me that I needed to submit it with some digital pictures for illustration. At that time, I did not have a digital camera, and so I put the project aside and forgot about it for years. I ran across it again recently, and contacted the magazine to see if they were still interested, but got no response, so I figured I would post it here, where it might be useful to folks.
Thanks everyone for contributing your thoughts!
# Posted on March 21st 2009 by AlBrown
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Many of the "big boys" who have learned their scales properly, can tootle along in any key, not always knowing what key they are in.
If the accompanist needs telling what is coming next, that defeats the object of sessions, and is what the whole thread is about.
Do your homework!!
Listen to as much ITM as possible, preferably internet radio, where you don't know what is coming, rather than cds.
If you can't play along to the radio, you haven't a chance of playing along under the threatening gaze of "big boys" in sessions..
# Posted on March 21st 2009 by geoffwright
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
AlBrown, I thought it was a good guide and I enjoyed reading it.
If you are an accompanist/backup musician as I am, no you don't have to try to play along or accompany every tune. Sometimes it is better to sit there quietly and listen--especially if you don't know the tune and have never heard it before in your life.
On the other hand, though, there are times when I cannot resist the challenge of trying to acccompany a tune I have never heard before just to see if I can do it.
As for learning the tunes so you will know them although you won't be playing them in public at a session, I think that is excellent advice. I do know it has helped improve my accompanying and has helped make me a better accompanist.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
i like fauxcelt's post. On reflection the single most valuable thing in improving my accomaniment was getting a "tune" instrument in addition to guitar - )mando, banjo are the obvious choices) and started building a repertoire. It isn't just that you learn a number of tunes - you start to think about the way the things are built - this is the idea behind Chris Smith's approaches. No doubt - for me and a few others I know - it works a treat.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by geoffmc
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
Mix-
The word, “planxty”: I suppose the only sustained usage of the word we can point to is in Carolan’s tune titles, though I’ve come across a small handful of modern “Planxty Whomever” tunes that were dedications rather than commissions. My favorite is Planxty Jack Daniels (that's a whiskey, in case somebody didn't know).
Fingerstyle: Yes, I assumed you were referring to playing the tune. I generally find strummed accompaniment more satisfying than fingerpicked, not because of stepping on the melody (lots of strummers do that) but because it’s a bit harder to keep a crisp, rhythmic flow going when accompanying fingerstyle. I *have* heard it done quite well, though.
Considering sessions, dances and concert-style performances, anybody got a good estimate of how much of The Music is played for dancing and how much is played just for the music? My guess is that the latter purpose is more popular. It seems to me that a tune is dance music when it’s played for dancing and it’s something else when played for its own sake. Both are worthy on their own merits.
# Posted on March 23rd 2009 by Bob himself
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
>>If you are a melody player, the next time a guitarist screws >>up the backing of a tune at a session, try asking them these >>questions after the set has finished:
>>1) What was the name of that tune?
>>>2) Was type of a tune (i.e. reel, jig, polka, hornpipe etc.) was it?
>>3) What key was it in?
>>... and see how many correct answers you get ...
>># Posted on March 21st 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
You might try that approach to many Melody players as well and you would be supprised at the answers (Just as "ignorant" as backers in my experience).
There is the old saying "If you know the names of all the tunes - then you don't know enough tunes" - I know DOZENS of very competent melody players who do NOT know the name of the tune - "you know the one that goes "dum de dum de dum" etc.
They would probably know the answer to 2 but often they don't know the answer to 3 either.
I am both a melody player and an accompanist and I can assure you I can competently back a tune WITHOUT KNOWING IT'S NAME.
I very often wouldn't be able to tell you the key I am playing in as well - either melody or accompanying - doesn't mean I can't do either well.
ITM being a mostly aural tradition I think you will find that most of the earlier rural players knew F*@k All about music theory but could play the arse off most.
So your point is........
# Posted on March 23rd 2009 by UKCITTERN
Re: A Beginner's Guide to Accompanying Sessions
I have updated my little guide to incorporate inputs posted above, or sent to me via e-mail--thanks to all for help in making my guide an even better one!
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by AlBrown