you know, when the you want to see if a backup player can hang with the session. usually something with a key change and an odd number of parts, but not too obscure that no one else knows it, like . . . Kid on the Mountain
Why allow backers to a session anyway? Be assertive, say no! If you have to, steal their capo and play The Blackbird set dance in C sharp. That should teach them not to interfere with the music.
Or why cant you just listen to whatever tune they happen to be backing - its quite easy to see if someone is good or not even if they are playing the crappest tune ever or the easiest or the hardest - it isnt rocket science to know if someone is good is it.
Beg - do you mean "puke"?
If I get your drift, maybe you don't like the idea of *testing* a player? Yes, sounds a bit of a "performance" to me.............
Auditioning for a session ?
Shouldn’t everyone get this bullsh*t treatment ?
Are ye playing WITH each other or AGAINST each other ?
Anyway why can’t you judge (if you have to judge) a player on a normal tune ( not the Kid on the Mountain isn’t) …..but the whole concept is up it’s ar*e.
Try one of the Northumbrian 9/8 tunes e.g. Peacock Followed the Hen, Shews the Way, Wedding at Blyth etc.
They tend to change chords in the most unexpected places.
BegF, your correct re this concept. But to be honest with you, I don't really let these things bother me much now - I just treat them as, well, not worth bothering much about - although I may join in the banter for the craic.
is an absolute beggar to accompany, and indeed is a tune that fiddlers play when they want to "show off, and 'lose' the backing guitarists"!
I was surprised, as he is a good guitarist and accomplished backer. It is a straightforward jig, but maybe it's the 10 bars (rather then the usual 8) in the B part that throws backers' rhythm. What do you think?
I am amazed at this attitude towards guitar players. Surely the best way interact with a guitar player in a session is to let him start the 'tune', listen to his chord [progression], work out which tune his backing is for, and play the relevant tune. Good players should have no problem with this.
The same applies to changing tunes in a set. Any fiddler, flute player, piper etc worth his salt will intuitively know when the guitar player is changing from backing one tune and backing the next one in the set. Depending on the quality of the melody players, the change should be seemless.
I was in San Diego once where the leader played both fiddle and guitar. I asked him if I could keep his guitar warm while he wasn't using it, and with some trepedation, he handed it to me. Fortunately for me, the next tune they launched in to was, coincidentaly, the Kid on the Mountain. I never thought they were testing me, but once I had navigated through that multipart major/minor tune, the leader smiled a satisfied smile, and I kept the guitar on my knee for the next couple of hours.
I think it's this kind of auditioning and trying to catch people out that makes it very hard to join in with a session, why cant people just play what they know and like and if the guitarist can or cant back him then it doesn't matter, your having a good time anyway and that's what it's about, but playing a tune to catch someone out is just a bad thing to do. Imagine a guitarist saying follow this and playing backing for a really complex tune he learned and when you can't follow it him saying ah your a sh*te tune player, i caught you out there!!! It's not in the spirit of things. Musicians should be supportive and encouraging toward one another, and if the guitarist doesn't know the tune you should help him learn it. Everyone has to progress.
Playing nice backing to the tunes is really just the same as playing the melody, ie. If you know the tune well it should be no problem, if you don't, it may be better to sit the tune out.
If a flute player lets say, sits out the second tune in a set, feeling he she is not comfortable enough with it, there really isn't the same level of wonder or surprise as when a backer suddenly stops, feeling it may be better for the music if he/she did not continue.
I supose this comes from the keep banging along attitude that perhaps gets backers a bad name in some circles. I love tunes if if I feel that I can't add anything to a tune/set with my backing, I would prefair put the guitar down, sit back and enjoy listening to the melody.
By doing this I may also be more familiar with the tune for the next time I meet it.
Sorry, forgot to get to the point with that posting!
When I go out for a tune it is to have an enjoyable evening. If I don't know the tune I don't feel I still have to perform in some fashion, I enjoy listening as much as playing. But I would hope that I am not in the company of those who would be out to trick backing players, play tunes that the rest of the group can't play along to, play in bast@£d keys etc. etc. for their own sad amusement.
All I can add is if you meet a new melody player, as a backer, they will often try to test you. It seems to be part of the game, they will more test you on weird/unusual keys than tunes I find though.
If you want to throw a backer, Stoner... Kid On The Mountain? Oh Yawn.... try something way more complicated than that. Once through, and a semi-intelligent backer will get it even if they never heard it before in most cases. At least do something that has key changes, but into more unusual keys. E minor to G in Kid? Child's play for even a beginner.
Try keys of F, G minor or B minor... hearing key changes is much harder than figuring out a tune with a repetitive pattern to it. A tune like The Chicago Reel, that has those progressions down in the last part from the G to either F or F sharp for some settings, back to A Minor, with some C's tossed in is better for "backer throwing". Or McDonough's Reel with part A starting on E Minor and then part B in D, and the D to B something all in the second part, either it's B minor but maybe not quite a minor (sorry I am sorely musically illiterate, just know where the notes live by ear). These are tunes full of surpises, not only key changes but unexpected chords/notes, that need to be stressed in backing them to bring out the unusual parts right.
So... all you guitar/zouk players out there brush up on split second key changes esp. into the above keys. On a new tune to you, you may get the intitial order of chords or notes a little off the first run through, but second time through, so many follow a predictable pattern, that's the easier part.
cenn faeled.... little do you know we really do this, we are often there a split second ahead of the melody player.... we develop sharp instincts, good memory for sets and changes, and a good amount of gut reaction and even a touch of telepathy. Sometimes we really do know where you are headed, even without ever having heard the tune. I am not kidding about this. I have terrified many a melody player by just somehow knowing where they were headed, and have heard the same from some other backers. You develop a sort of sixth sense if you do this enough, though sometimes what appears to be telepathy is really good memory ... but we like to keep the melody players wondering....after all it's our revenge for their testing of us, LOL!
A lot of people think guitar (and drum) players are people who couldn't cut it as melody players and took backing as the easy way out. This may be true of some, who never evolve beyond 2-3 chords in any given key and keep alternating them and are happy to hit the right chord about 50% of the time... but there are others, many others, who take backing quite seriously as an improtant part of the music, work hard at getting better all the time, and simply prefer it to playing melody for many reasons.
As a melody player too, I think good solid backing in many ways is harder than playing melody. Try doing what Donal Clancy does, Martin Carthy, Tony Mcmanus (when backing), Randall Bays on guitar, Daithi Sproule, I could go on and on.... this is not easy, it's mainly instinctual rather than depending on the framework of note after note, there is some structure but it is looser and more imaginative than playing melody, you have to fit it in and out and around the melody, on the fly in most cases.
Why melody players on occassion get obnoxious and try to throw us would be an interesting study.... maybe it's in some cases arrogance, maybe there's a little sadistic streak in some, I have known a very few who were looking for a backer but didn't come out and say so, but wanted to see if you could keep up with them, if you were the right one for them, which is fair enough. I have never encountered a backer who tested to see if a fiddler or melody player was good enough to play with them. If we would ever dare to try to throw them, we'd just be accused of being a lousy backer!
Anyway, sorry, as usual, too long a post, hope I haven't put anyone to sleep, this just hit a nerve!!
Go IRIS
You tell em girl!
I would agree that the Chicago reel is one of those curly ones.
What about Muireann's Jig. I took ages to get any kind of handle on accompanying that but when I took up the fiddle I got my head around the melody (not saying I can play it well BTW) in one-tenth of the time.
The problem with some of the comments here about backers is that the melody player may not know enough about backing to really make a detailed comment other than 'I just don't like it'.
Question is, if the backer can recognise its a tune they don't know and thus not play does it make them good or bad? What you'll end up doing is accepting the guitarists who learn the chord sequences to complex tunes and ignore the important bits like having a good sense of rhythm, harmony etc. I wouldn't expect to test the melody players by playing the mathematician or the eclipse or something along those kinda lines and assume that anyone who didn't join in what cr*p.
Like Iris Nevins said, some people just prefer backing and make a serious study of it. I've been a fiddle player long before I started with zouk and guitar, but I prefer to be a backer in the gigs I do. It's way more relaxing. The advantage of being a melody player too though is that I can test melody players! Heheh....actually in all seriousness, the advantage there is that I can teach a tune to the melody players I play with and we can play it together for a bit, then when i start backing, we're all on the same page with the tune. I've found being a melody player has been a boon to backing.
I just go into a little Mozart... something in Eb and then follow that with the extended guitar solo from FreeBird... then ending with Wipe Out also gives the bodhran player his right to a lenghty solo... then to wind things down an accapella rendition of Danny Boy. (repeat as desired)
Curly. I like that, Donough. Another useful word for describing the indescribable. There are plenty of those tunes that can't make up their minds (before guitarists and pianists came along with their chords, they didn't have to). The Old Bush, Rakish Paddy and another two- D Mixolydian? C Lydian? A Dorian? G? I even once heard someone claim that the Virginia Reel was in B minor!
I think the first bar or two of the Virginia is E Dorian. It sounds very sleek and sexy if it's backed that way. But, If you really want to f**k with the rhythm players, try Fintan McManus's.
Andy.... a wise backer, if a bit confused, should hold off, just like a fiddler who doesn't know a tune or can't pick it up on the fly should hold back. Doesn't make either one bad.
having a good sense of rhythm and harmony is of course expected in any player whether melody or backer. The flow has to be there. I have come across many a melody player that sounds like a MIDI-FILE, just notes, no feeling, no syncopation, no moods, no darks and lights. Just mechanical . And I'd never dream of knocking them or testing them, especially in a setting such as an open session, where allegedly all players are welcome.
it's down to one thing... if you want to be a control freak, be obnoxious, test people etc. have a gig, don't have a session, or choose the people you want to play with and invite them to your house.
Sometimes, as a session runner, you have to have a very polite and tactful little word with a person who is just totally wrecking things. This is best tempered with an offer to help somehow, saying you know they don't realize their effect, and you feel terrible to have to point this out, but that you like them, and want the others to like them etc. etc. etc. Why the arrogance and cruelty, especially to new players, whether melody or backer, needs to be present, I don't know. Something perverse in the person, and should be laughed off as such, and not taken in.
if this every happened to anyone at our session, I would tell them the above, and say to look on it as a challenge to get better, come back and kick butt down the line and show them.
Kenny--Earl's Chair is a good one, given that it always comes up in discussions regarding tunes that don't fit one key or another. I always watch other accompanists (if any are present) very carefully during that tune, since there are a lot of ways to approach it (and in addition to the right ways, there are even more wrong ways).
Tunes like the Earl's Chair usually cause problems because they start on a different chord than what the key is, especially if it's the IV chord as is the case with that tune. Sometimes tunes that seem simple enough can throw backers for a loop. I'm thinking of the B-part to Farewell To Connaught, or Molloy's Favorite as two examples. I've seen backers fishing for the right chord on these tunes many times.
Earl's Chair, The Blackbird, and Rakish Paddy are good choices.
I can see where people think testing a backer is mean spirited. And probably doing so is not something to be proud of, but you know, it happens.
It's just there are some tunes that are pretty easy to back, and other tunes that are fairly idiosyncratic and demand more experience and familiarity. And sometimes you want to see if another player knows them.
"It's just there are some tunes that are pretty easy to back, and other tunes that are fairly idiosyncratic and demand more experience and familiarity"
Just like playin the melody then?
A good backer could easily "test" the melody player by (eg) subtly changing the rythm, but why would you bother?
Backer, the "challenge" is already being served, it is to play a musically pleasing accompaniment and remain engaged and locked onto the rhythm, even when you find a tune boring or overly simple. Sounds like a fine challenge to me.
Here's a concept for you. Why don't all the smug,superior melody only players get themselves a guitar or zook and spend six months or so trying to learn backing. Now, you will have an advantage in that you will know some tunes, but I bet you will find that to back this stuff well is actually bloody hard. There are just so many variables, not only in chord choices, but also style. And then we bring in taste and influences, not only of the backer, but also of the melody player being accompanied. What will add lift to one fiddler may stick another to the ground. What sounds right to one player will jar for another, often dependent on the cd they learnt a particular tune from.
One mark of a good backer is not how many tunes they already know, but how quickly they can hear a tune and then back it well. Read Matt Malloys comments re Artie McGlyn on the notes for Music at Matt Malloys.
It's also true that most great backers play melodies themselves, unlike the vast majority of melody players.
It is also completly normal to "test" another player, of any instrument you are playing with, not to trip them up, but to find common repituor. You start with the common tunes and gauge their ability, and they will do the same to you, not so you can feel all smug that you are better, but so you can find a common repituor. It's called playing with other people, not against them.
As a last comment, I usually find that the people who are the loudest in their critisisms of backers are the ones who wouldn't have a snowballs chance in hell of doing any better
And Tracie, picking a tune that "really" does sound better without backup, is so subjective as to be just silly.
Oh, and back on thread, "Guns of the Magnificent Seven" gets my vote every time.
Don, you may find that a fair few melody just simply don't want to learn to back. It's not about thinking to be superior. They like playing melody and that's why they do. There's a hi-jack of a debate similar to this going on over on the plonkerometer thread. Have a look.
KML, I have no problem at all with people just wanting to play melody. I far prefer playing fiddle myself, and rarely now days play guitar. I just find the attitude of some people very tedious in the disrespect they show fellow musicians. It's as if that they, being melody players, are in some way supierior beings than mere backers. Playing any music well, on any instrument, takes a great deal of hard work, and to criticize another persons musicianship purely on the basis of the instrument they play is ignorant and stupid.
However, critisizing them for being lazy sods who don't put in any work, and never learn the music properly, well, that's a different kettle of fish altogether.
I was not critisizing this thread, it's a bit of fun, just some of the comments expressed in it.
I play melody, harmony and backing on the fiddle, there are several factors to that - Do I know the tune? Can I keep up with the speed demons? Is it a song being sung? How many fiddles there are playing the same thing? Am I confident enough to play this and discover part way through the tune I learnt is not what everyone else is playing.
I have a slightly whacky philosophy. We are making music, not playing music. If we all just play music how boring could that be?
the Don... I MAKE and play mine, three guitars down, the fourth about to commence. Have I taken this obsession with guitars to the extreme or what????
I know one thing that will throw most accompanists almost every time, make them flounder really badly unless they are really experienced. If you melody players behave, I may even tell.... maybe tomorrow. You guitar players are probabaly guessing it.... but should I tell? Give them bad ideas? Or do you prefer to contact me off group for the answer, LOL.
Don... if you ever get to USA, I had a great teacher in Pennsylvania. He has week long boot camps. Not cheap, but less than you'd pay for a handmade guitar of the quality you go home with. I am addicted.
maybe there is someone in Australia (you are there right?) who teaches. Lacking that, my teacher, Frank Finocchio (good name for a woodworker or what???) has a good detailed set of five DVDs on the how to's. Many also start with a kit form StewMac or LMI, they have detailed instruction too.
I am female...of a "certain age" as they say... and girls never took woodshop or used power tools in my day. If I can do it, most guys can. I was terrified of the tools at first, nearly had a breakdown using a router!! I am still a little nervous, but carrying on.
Bodran Bliss... do you mean the answer to how to best throw a backer? Come on melody players... I can't believe you don't know this. Ask them to accompany you on --------- and watch them back off or mess up most of the time. Fill in the blank.
Smeceno Horo perhaps, in some unusual key, gone into before the guitarist has time to fix a capo. Or nearer home, under the same conditions, the beautiful slow Eb strathspey The Dean Brig - with no mercy to the backer if he / she doesn't second-guess the rhythm exactly.
No....nicholas, not that. It's something one doesn't usually accompany, but I am saying if a melody player decided to get real testy, they might ask someone to back ------------! Knowing this is really rough on backers.
Sorry, getting a little payback here for us, LOL! All in fun though.
Fun? FUN? HOW DARE YOU! You'll be banned from this site if you are found to be having fun. This is serious. I'm afraid we'll have to introduce a three strikes and you're out policy if this trend towards frivolity continues.
Sorry the Don, I will thrash myself. I stand corrected. Never again.
But still, can't any one of you melody players take a guess at what is so hard for backers to back properly? Remember it is not any particular tune. It is usually played solo, but sometimes we are asked to back ---------- ????
PS...I wrote a jig to throw the melody players! Really. It has a few extra beats in part B. It was a birthday gift to a friend... "Linda Hickman's Birthday Jig".
Well, didn't write it per se, being an ear player... made it up is more like it.
When I play it those trying to follow and pick it up get lost at the end, LOL. See we can do it!! Then again, it is melody, not backing. Though a fingerstylist plays their own backing at the same time as the melody.... hmm.... was my index finger trying to throw my thumb in a fit of arrogance I wonder? Oh Dear... inner turmoil!!
best tune for testing a backup player
best tune for testing a backup player
you know, when the you want to see if a backup player can hang with the session. usually something with a key change and an odd number of parts, but not too obscure that no one else knows it, like . . . Kid on the Mountain
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by stoner420
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
dont they call that an audition?
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Joze
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Try fooling the bodhran player with that one!
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by mcknowall
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
The Knockagow Jig or John Doherty's Reel (the one with 9 bars in the first part).
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by PaddyCmusic
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Why allow backers to a session anyway? Be assertive, say no! If you have to, steal their capo and play The Blackbird set dance in C sharp. That should teach them not to interfere with the music.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by EastPole
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
What about a set? eg The Curlew, then Love at the Endings followed by O'Dowd's.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Or why cant you just listen to whatever tune they happen to be backing - its quite easy to see if someone is good or not even if they are playing the crappest tune ever or the easiest or the hardest - it isnt rocket science to know if someone is good is it.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by bb
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
What a crock of sh*t.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by BegF
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Beg - do you mean "puke"?
If I get your drift, maybe you don't like the idea of *testing* a player? Yes, sounds a bit of a "performance" to me.............
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Auditioning for a session ?
Shouldn’t everyone get this bullsh*t treatment ?
Are ye playing WITH each other or AGAINST each other ?
Anyway why can’t you judge (if you have to judge) a player on a normal tune ( not the Kid on the Mountain isn’t) …..but the whole concept is up it’s ar*e.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by BegF
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Try one of the Northumbrian 9/8 tunes e.g. Peacock Followed the Hen, Shews the Way, Wedding at Blyth etc.
They tend to change chords in the most unexpected places.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by geoffwright
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
BegF, your correct re this concept. But to be honest with you, I don't really let these things bother me much now - I just treat them as, well, not worth bothering much about - although I may join in the banter for the craic.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Ron P
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
One of my chums from our weekly musical get-together confided (in a weaker moment) that Cataroni
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/5087
is an absolute beggar to accompany, and indeed is a tune that fiddlers play when they want to "show off, and 'lose' the backing guitarists"!
I was surprised, as he is a good guitarist and accomplished backer. It is a straightforward jig, but maybe it's the 10 bars (rather then the usual 8) in the B part that throws backers' rhythm. What do you think?
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by domnull
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I am amazed at this attitude towards guitar players. Surely the best way interact with a guitar player in a session is to let him start the 'tune', listen to his chord [progression], work out which tune his backing is for, and play the relevant tune. Good players should have no problem with this.
The same applies to changing tunes in a set. Any fiddler, flute player, piper etc worth his salt will intuitively know when the guitar player is changing from backing one tune and backing the next one in the set. Depending on the quality of the melody players, the change should be seemless.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Sinocal
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I was in San Diego once where the leader played both fiddle and guitar. I asked him if I could keep his guitar warm while he wasn't using it, and with some trepedation, he handed it to me. Fortunately for me, the next tune they launched in to was, coincidentaly, the Kid on the Mountain. I never thought they were testing me, but once I had navigated through that multipart major/minor tune, the leader smiled a satisfied smile, and I kept the guitar on my knee for the next couple of hours.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I think it's this kind of auditioning and trying to catch people out that makes it very hard to join in with a session, why cant people just play what they know and like and if the guitarist can or cant back him then it doesn't matter, your having a good time anyway and that's what it's about, but playing a tune to catch someone out is just a bad thing to do. Imagine a guitarist saying follow this and playing backing for a really complex tune he learned and when you can't follow it him saying ah your a sh*te tune player, i caught you out there!!! It's not in the spirit of things. Musicians should be supportive and encouraging toward one another, and if the guitarist doesn't know the tune you should help him learn it. Everyone has to progress.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by fap
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I like it Cenn!
Playing nice backing to the tunes is really just the same as playing the melody, ie. If you know the tune well it should be no problem, if you don't, it may be better to sit the tune out.
If a flute player lets say, sits out the second tune in a set, feeling he she is not comfortable enough with it, there really isn't the same level of wonder or surprise as when a backer suddenly stops, feeling it may be better for the music if he/she did not continue.
I supose this comes from the keep banging along attitude that perhaps gets backers a bad name in some circles. I love tunes if if I feel that I can't add anything to a tune/set with my backing, I would prefair put the guitar down, sit back and enjoy listening to the melody.
By doing this I may also be more familiar with the tune for the next time I meet it.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by proinsiasrua
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Sorry, forgot to get to the point with that posting!
When I go out for a tune it is to have an enjoyable evening. If I don't know the tune I don't feel I still have to perform in some fashion, I enjoy listening as much as playing. But I would hope that I am not in the company of those who would be out to trick backing players, play tunes that the rest of the group can't play along to, play in bast@£d keys etc. etc. for their own sad amusement.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by proinsiasrua
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
All I can add is if you meet a new melody player, as a backer, they will often try to test you. It seems to be part of the game, they will more test you on weird/unusual keys than tunes I find though.
If you want to throw a backer, Stoner... Kid On The Mountain? Oh Yawn.... try something way more complicated than that. Once through, and a semi-intelligent backer will get it even if they never heard it before in most cases. At least do something that has key changes, but into more unusual keys. E minor to G in Kid? Child's play for even a beginner.
Try keys of F, G minor or B minor... hearing key changes is much harder than figuring out a tune with a repetitive pattern to it. A tune like The Chicago Reel, that has those progressions down in the last part from the G to either F or F sharp for some settings, back to A Minor, with some C's tossed in is better for "backer throwing". Or McDonough's Reel with part A starting on E Minor and then part B in D, and the D to B something all in the second part, either it's B minor but maybe not quite a minor (sorry I am sorely musically illiterate, just know where the notes live by ear). These are tunes full of surpises, not only key changes but unexpected chords/notes, that need to be stressed in backing them to bring out the unusual parts right.
So... all you guitar/zouk players out there brush up on split second key changes esp. into the above keys. On a new tune to you, you may get the intitial order of chords or notes a little off the first run through, but second time through, so many follow a predictable pattern, that's the easier part.
cenn faeled.... little do you know we really do this, we are often there a split second ahead of the melody player.... we develop sharp instincts, good memory for sets and changes, and a good amount of gut reaction and even a touch of telepathy. Sometimes we really do know where you are headed, even without ever having heard the tune. I am not kidding about this. I have terrified many a melody player by just somehow knowing where they were headed, and have heard the same from some other backers. You develop a sort of sixth sense if you do this enough, though sometimes what appears to be telepathy is really good memory ... but we like to keep the melody players wondering....after all it's our revenge for their testing of us, LOL!
A lot of people think guitar (and drum) players are people who couldn't cut it as melody players and took backing as the easy way out. This may be true of some, who never evolve beyond 2-3 chords in any given key and keep alternating them and are happy to hit the right chord about 50% of the time... but there are others, many others, who take backing quite seriously as an improtant part of the music, work hard at getting better all the time, and simply prefer it to playing melody for many reasons.
As a melody player too, I think good solid backing in many ways is harder than playing melody. Try doing what Donal Clancy does, Martin Carthy, Tony Mcmanus (when backing), Randall Bays on guitar, Daithi Sproule, I could go on and on.... this is not easy, it's mainly instinctual rather than depending on the framework of note after note, there is some structure but it is looser and more imaginative than playing melody, you have to fit it in and out and around the melody, on the fly in most cases.
Why melody players on occassion get obnoxious and try to throw us would be an interesting study.... maybe it's in some cases arrogance, maybe there's a little sadistic streak in some, I have known a very few who were looking for a backer but didn't come out and say so, but wanted to see if you could keep up with them, if you were the right one for them, which is fair enough. I have never encountered a backer who tested to see if a fiddler or melody player was good enough to play with them. If we would ever dare to try to throw them, we'd just be accused of being a lousy backer!
Anyway, sorry, as usual, too long a post, hope I haven't put anyone to sleep, this just hit a nerve!!
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Prionsairua... love your wording.... I may be more familiar with the tune the next time I meet it!!
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Try The White Petticoat - damn good jig too, and great chords.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by usedbullfrog
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Go IRIS
You tell em girl!
I would agree that the Chicago reel is one of those curly ones.
What about Muireann's Jig. I took ages to get any kind of handle on accompanying that but when I took up the fiddle I got my head around the melody (not saying I can play it well BTW) in one-tenth of the time.
The problem with some of the comments here about backers is that the melody player may not know enough about backing to really make a detailed comment other than 'I just don't like it'.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Donough
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Question is, if the backer can recognise its a tune they don't know and thus not play does it make them good or bad? What you'll end up doing is accepting the guitarists who learn the chord sequences to complex tunes and ignore the important bits like having a good sense of rhythm, harmony etc. I wouldn't expect to test the melody players by playing the mathematician or the eclipse or something along those kinda lines and assume that anyone who didn't join in what cr*p.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Andy V
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Like Iris Nevins said, some people just prefer backing and make a serious study of it. I've been a fiddle player long before I started with zouk and guitar, but I prefer to be a backer in the gigs I do. It's way more relaxing. The advantage of being a melody player too though is that I can test melody players! Heheh....actually in all seriousness, the advantage there is that I can teach a tune to the melody players I play with and we can play it together for a bit, then when i start backing, we're all on the same page with the tune. I've found being a melody player has been a boon to backing.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by meemtp
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I've always found that it's hard to beat a good melody when it comes to bringing out the best in chordal accompaniment.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Sinocal
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
It gives a great melodic context to the chords........
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Sinocal
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
LOL, cenn!
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by joesmith
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I just go into a little Mozart... something in Eb and then follow that with the extended guitar solo from FreeBird... then ending with Wipe Out also gives the bodhran player his right to a lenghty solo... then to wind things down an accapella rendition of Danny Boy. (repeat as desired)
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by The Merry Highlander
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
"the Chicago reel is one of those curly ones."
Curly. I like that, Donough. Another useful word for describing the indescribable. There are plenty of those tunes that can't make up their minds (before guitarists and pianists came along with their chords, they didn't have to). The Old Bush, Rakish Paddy and another two- D Mixolydian? C Lydian? A Dorian? G? I even once heard someone claim that the Virginia Reel was in B minor!
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by ragaman
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I think the first bar or two of the Virginia is E Dorian. It sounds very sleek and sexy if it's backed that way. But, If you really want to f**k with the rhythm players, try Fintan McManus's.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Robert Ryan
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Andy.... a wise backer, if a bit confused, should hold off, just like a fiddler who doesn't know a tune or can't pick it up on the fly should hold back. Doesn't make either one bad.
having a good sense of rhythm and harmony is of course expected in any player whether melody or backer. The flow has to be there. I have come across many a melody player that sounds like a MIDI-FILE, just notes, no feeling, no syncopation, no moods, no darks and lights. Just mechanical . And I'd never dream of knocking them or testing them, especially in a setting such as an open session, where allegedly all players are welcome.
it's down to one thing... if you want to be a control freak, be obnoxious, test people etc. have a gig, don't have a session, or choose the people you want to play with and invite them to your house.
Sometimes, as a session runner, you have to have a very polite and tactful little word with a person who is just totally wrecking things. This is best tempered with an offer to help somehow, saying you know they don't realize their effect, and you feel terrible to have to point this out, but that you like them, and want the others to like them etc. etc. etc. Why the arrogance and cruelty, especially to new players, whether melody or backer, needs to be present, I don't know. Something perverse in the person, and should be laughed off as such, and not taken in.
if this every happened to anyone at our session, I would tell them the above, and say to look on it as a challenge to get better, come back and kick butt down the line and show them.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I don't go along with the basic premise of this thread, but - "The Earl's Chair" usually causes havoc.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Kenny
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Kenny--Earl's Chair is a good one, given that it always comes up in discussions regarding tunes that don't fit one key or another. I always watch other accompanists (if any are present) very carefully during that tune, since there are a lot of ways to approach it (and in addition to the right ways, there are even more wrong ways).
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Some of us feeling a little insecure tonight eh?
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Backer
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Tunes like the Earl's Chair usually cause problems because they start on a different chord than what the key is, especially if it's the IV chord as is the case with that tune. Sometimes tunes that seem simple enough can throw backers for a loop. I'm thinking of the B-part to Farewell To Connaught, or Molloy's Favorite as two examples. I've seen backers fishing for the right chord on these tunes many times.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Earl's Chair, The Blackbird, and Rakish Paddy are good choices.
I can see where people think testing a backer is mean spirited. And probably doing so is not something to be proud of, but you know, it happens.
It's just there are some tunes that are pretty easy to back, and other tunes that are fairly idiosyncratic and demand more experience and familiarity. And sometimes you want to see if another player knows them.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by stoner420
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
"It's just there are some tunes that are pretty easy to back, and other tunes that are fairly idiosyncratic and demand more experience and familiarity"
Just like playin the melody then?
A good backer could easily "test" the melody player by (eg) subtly changing the rythm, but why would you bother?
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Backer
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
IMHO the most common problem for backers is BOREDOM. A good chalenge is rarely served up. Bring it on!
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Backer
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Pick a tune that *really* does better without backup. If they try and then admit that it would sound better without backup, they've passed the test.
# Posted on January 12th 2007 by Tracie
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Backer, the "challenge" is already being served, it is to play a musically pleasing accompaniment and remain engaged and locked onto the rhythm, even when you find a tune boring or overly simple. Sounds like a fine challenge to me.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by crazy_fingerz
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Here's a concept for you. Why don't all the smug,superior melody only players get themselves a guitar or zook and spend six months or so trying to learn backing. Now, you will have an advantage in that you will know some tunes, but I bet you will find that to back this stuff well is actually bloody hard. There are just so many variables, not only in chord choices, but also style. And then we bring in taste and influences, not only of the backer, but also of the melody player being accompanied. What will add lift to one fiddler may stick another to the ground. What sounds right to one player will jar for another, often dependent on the cd they learnt a particular tune from.
One mark of a good backer is not how many tunes they already know, but how quickly they can hear a tune and then back it well. Read Matt Malloys comments re Artie McGlyn on the notes for Music at Matt Malloys.
It's also true that most great backers play melodies themselves, unlike the vast majority of melody players.
It is also completly normal to "test" another player, of any instrument you are playing with, not to trip them up, but to find common repituor. You start with the common tunes and gauge their ability, and they will do the same to you, not so you can feel all smug that you are better, but so you can find a common repituor. It's called playing with other people, not against them.
As a last comment, I usually find that the people who are the loudest in their critisisms of backers are the ones who wouldn't have a snowballs chance in hell of doing any better
And Tracie, picking a tune that "really" does sound better without backup, is so subjective as to be just silly.
Oh, and back on thread, "Guns of the Magnificent Seven" gets my vote every time.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by woops
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Don, you may find that a fair few melody just simply don't want to learn to back. It's not about thinking to be superior. They like playing melody and that's why they do. There's a hi-jack of a debate similar to this going on over on the plonkerometer thread. Have a look.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
KML, I have no problem at all with people just wanting to play melody. I far prefer playing fiddle myself, and rarely now days play guitar. I just find the attitude of some people very tedious in the disrespect they show fellow musicians. It's as if that they, being melody players, are in some way supierior beings than mere backers. Playing any music well, on any instrument, takes a great deal of hard work, and to criticize another persons musicianship purely on the basis of the instrument they play is ignorant and stupid.
However, critisizing them for being lazy sods who don't put in any work, and never learn the music properly, well, that's a different kettle of fish altogether.
I was not critisizing this thread, it's a bit of fun, just some of the comments expressed in it.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by woops
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
fair enough.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I play melody, harmony and backing on the fiddle, there are several factors to that - Do I know the tune? Can I keep up with the speed demons? Is it a song being sung? How many fiddles there are playing the same thing? Am I confident enough to play this and discover part way through the tune I learnt is not what everyone else is playing.
I have a slightly whacky philosophy. We are making music, not playing music. If we all just play music how boring could that be?
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by Joze
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Wow, who would have have thought there was so much emotion, drama, and tension underlying the peaceful appearance of a session?
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by crazy_fingerz
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Joze, do you make an instrument or play it? I play music, it's far more fun.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by woops
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
the Don... I MAKE and play mine, three guitars down, the fourth about to commence. Have I taken this obsession with guitars to the extreme or what????
I know one thing that will throw most accompanists almost every time, make them flounder really badly unless they are really experienced. If you melody players behave, I may even tell.... maybe tomorrow. You guitar players are probabaly guessing it.... but should I tell? Give them bad ideas? Or do you prefer to contact me off group for the answer, LOL.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Ah irisnevins, now that is a skill I really envy. To make a beautiful instrument. Maybe one day, maybe one day.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by woops
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Don... if you ever get to USA, I had a great teacher in Pennsylvania. He has week long boot camps. Not cheap, but less than you'd pay for a handmade guitar of the quality you go home with. I am addicted.
maybe there is someone in Australia (you are there right?) who teaches. Lacking that, my teacher, Frank Finocchio (good name for a woodworker or what???) has a good detailed set of five DVDs on the how to's. Many also start with a kit form StewMac or LMI, they have detailed instruction too.
I am female...of a "certain age" as they say... and girls never took woodshop or used power tools in my day. If I can do it, most guys can. I was terrified of the tools at first, nearly had a breakdown using a router!! I am still a little nervous, but carrying on.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
As per usual without body language the meaning is lost
There is a difference between mechanically playing (as some do) and playing for the sheer joy of it.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by Joze
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Bring it on.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Bodran Bliss... do you mean the answer to how to best throw a backer? Come on melody players... I can't believe you don't know this. Ask them to accompany you on --------- and watch them back off or mess up most of the time. Fill in the blank.
Hint... it is NOT a tune!!!
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
PS... maybe because so many melody players are bad
at ---------- they don't want to go there at all, LOL...
All in fun! Not really knocking anyone.
# Posted on January 13th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Smeceno Horo perhaps, in some unusual key, gone into before the guitarist has time to fix a capo. Or nearer home, under the same conditions, the beautiful slow Eb strathspey The Dean Brig - with no mercy to the backer if he / she doesn't second-guess the rhythm exactly.
# Posted on January 14th 2007 by nicholas
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
No....nicholas, not that. It's something one doesn't usually accompany, but I am saying if a melody player decided to get real testy, they might ask someone to back ------------! Knowing this is really rough on backers.
Sorry, getting a little payback here for us, LOL! All in fun though.
# Posted on January 14th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Fun? FUN? HOW DARE YOU! You'll be banned from this site if you are found to be having fun. This is serious. I'm afraid we'll have to introduce a three strikes and you're out policy if this trend towards frivolity continues.
# Posted on January 14th 2007 by woops
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Sorry the Don, I will thrash myself. I stand corrected. Never again.
But still, can't any one of you melody players take a guess at what is so hard for backers to back properly? Remember it is not any particular tune. It is usually played solo, but sometimes we are asked to back ---------- ????
Repressed giggles and smiles....
# Posted on January 14th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
PS...I wrote a jig to throw the melody players! Really. It has a few extra beats in part B. It was a birthday gift to a friend... "Linda Hickman's Birthday Jig".
Well, didn't write it per se, being an ear player... made it up is more like it.
When I play it those trying to follow and pick it up get lost at the end, LOL. See we can do it!! Then again, it is melody, not backing. Though a fingerstylist plays their own backing at the same time as the melody.... hmm.... was my index finger trying to throw my thumb in a fit of arrogance I wonder? Oh Dear... inner turmoil!!
# Posted on January 14th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Three days later... guess none of you figured out the best way to throw a backer.... oh well. There really is an answer to this, by the way.
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Still no answer...? It'll throw even some of the most experienced backers nearly all the time!!! Not a tune, a type of melody!! What a hint that is.
# Posted on January 18th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
I threw myself today
while messing around with recording
The Big Reel Of Ballynacally
how would you other backers back this?
G modal?
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/133
# Posted on January 18th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Yes G Modal... if you are talking basically G to F to C etc.
Piece of cake in Dropped D, awkward in standard tuning, at least to me. No comment on DADGAD.
Come one...whoever is left on this thread, can't you figure out how to consistently throw us.... does anyone care?
# Posted on January 19th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
Excuse me... I meant not to C, but to D.... though sometimes a C will fit as a note added in as a rule in G minor. So yes, G F D is the basic version.
Hugo... what is your background... a Spanish Celt? I have some of that ...And Breton and a little Scots... still looking for the Irish.
Nuts with typos today.... rushing!
# Posted on January 19th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: best tune for testing a backup player
PS....losing it...meant G modal, but can work in G minor too.
Think I've worked too hard today....g'night!!
# Posted on January 19th 2007 by irisnevins