Okay, so we've determined that a guitar is not absolutely necessary at a session, and that some of us appreciate them more than others. But it seems to me a more interesting question - if you do enjoy hearing a guitar (or other accompanying instrument) in sessions, what do you think makes it all work?
I noticed in the previous thread that some people were working on the assumption that if there is a guitarist, than they will probably be singing in the session. Actually, I haven't found this to be the case with all guitarists, or all sessions. But it is interesting how one person doing a song at one session just adds to the quality and at another it's a total disaster. But the same thing is true of instrumental solos - requested or otherwise.
That aside, from the accompaniment point of view I do appreciate an accompanist who gives the session frequent breaks from being accompanied. Not playing every set, not coming in until the 2nd tune of some sets, etc. makes it more interesting. And definitely not trying to play tunes they don't know/can't manage. And please!! only one accompanist at a time.
I also appreciate versatility. No matter how good you are at the DADGAD open chords or interesting jazzy ones, one treatment does not suit the style of all tunes. I have seen myself afraid to start certain tunes off in the presence of some guitarists because I knew they were one trick ponies and just wouldn't get a change of style.
Maybe it's just like our reservations about a host of other instruments - it's more about the suitability of the behaviour of the person than the suitability of their instrument.
I think there's some truth in the idea (we've expressed it many times in this forum) that a true musician is someone who can play senstively / fit in / sometimes provoke, but who also knows when *not* to play.
Hey, crazyfingerz, my SO plays the washboard, spoons, and jews harp ( not all at the same time ) . Can she join in ? Also flute and whistle, but I'll keep quiet about them.
To get back to the topic....I imagine that most people on this forum would much rather that rhythmic chordal instruments were played with subtlety and discretion. I would further imagine that the thrashers of guitar and 'zouk that we are all complaining about aren't much interested in the tunes, and won't be found here.
I went to a session just last night, where there were no guitars, no fiddles, no flutes, no whistles, no anything. Silence. It worked out just fine.
How stupid is that?
Anything is ok at a session so long as it doesn't smother or alter the music from recognition. Now of course what the "music" is has to do with how you define your session, but assuming it's an Irish trad session, there are obvious instruments that would be excluded. You wouldn't find any trumpets or cathedral pipe organs, and Benjamin Franklin's glass harmonica aren't likely, but there is a tolerance for certain unorthodox accompaniment instruments that have found their way in; the bouzouki, guitar, piano etc., for example. But even with these instruments one needs to be careful to keep from smothering the music.
In the case of the guitar, (topic of this thread,) it can be played in many different styles and is widely used for many genres. The way it has been effective in ITM is as a supportive instrument to enhance the tonal qualities already inherent in the music. But if you amplify the other styles the guitar is known for, it can overwhelm the genre you're trying to support and you have in effect altered or smothered the music. If it’s intentional and the mission is to alter or fuse the music, that’s fine, but in a session environment you would need to have the people who started, host, or anchor the session in agreement.
My personal feeling is that the guitar adds a great deal to the music with its ability to enhance the tonal and rhythmical aspects already there. If someone wants to push it too far towards jazz or rock then I feel they have lost me… but that’s just me. I feel the same way about the other back-up instruments.
There are some people we’ve heard in many other threads like this who would like us to believe that there is some sort of defect in accepting the guitar into the music. They want us to believe that it somehow demonstrates our failure to understand the music correctly, or that we’ve been influenced by people who are “ruining the music” and other such nonsense. But I think it just demonstrates instead their insecurity about their own abilities. It gives them a false sense of importance to cloak their lack of ability and they seem to want us to believe that they hold some sort of unattainable secret that the rest of us are too corrupted to ever realize for ourselves.
On the other side you have a few guitar players who want easy access to the craic but haven’t bothered to gain any insight to the music they desire to join in with. These are the sorts of people likely to do things that smother or alter the music instead of supporting and adding to it. When we suggest that they become better acquainted with the music before joining in they will declare us all to be snobs and elitists. But it’s not because we are those things, but rather because we stand in the way of their easy access. Maybe one doesn’t have to spend as much time learning the tunes note for note like the melody players do, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to spend the necessary time understanding the music just because you’re playing back-up. There’s no easy, over-night access… sorry. This goes for all the other back-up instruments as well.
Yes, you hit it right on the, er, button. Especially paragraph 4. People seem so driven to snobbery about this stuff, as if to suggest they're somehow purer of heart and more artistic by what they allow and disallow in their tastes.
It's not like this stuff cures cancer or something. It's just music. What's to get snobby about?
Sure there are snobs on both sides of this issue. But not everyone who dislikes harmonic accompaniment in this music is a snob or is insecure. Perhaps some folks simply prefer their Irish trad without chords. The unaccompanied solo is a sound that has survived in this music for hundreds of years precisely because the tunes don't need anything else, in the hands of a good melody player.
Myself, I enjoy tasteful accompaniment from a guitar or zouk, sometimes a piano. But I wouldn't want it on every tune at every session. And in some places, and maybe looking at the music overall--recordings, the rarity of backer-less sessions--it seems we're headed in that direction. I worry when backers outnumber melody players and they all play at once, or the backer never stops. For me, that's "pushing it too far." There's no space left for the tune itself.
Sometimes--once in a while--I want only my imagination to fill in the harmonic color of the tune, and not have my imagination constrained or led by someone else's choices. Other melody players can join in and still leave that coloring wide open. But as soon as a guitar or zouk strikes a chord, we're all hearing his or her colorings, not our own.
Mind you, I enjoy hearing a sensitive and creative backer color a tune. It can be very surprising and enlightening. Bit I also enjoy letting the tunes speak for themselves sometimes. I don't think that's snobbery or insecurity. If anything, it's more a sense of humility, and a trust in the power and richness of these old melodies, letting them stand alone.
I don't think you have to be a snob to have a preference or that having a preference makes you a snob. How and why you express that preference or how far you're willing to go with that preference is a different story.
What drives me a bit mad is the sense that people have to declare their preferences, as if we're choosing up sides. What value does that declaration have, unless it's to set one's self apart? What's the motive behind that?
The reality of it is, the old melodies are rich and powerful and they stand up well on their own. They also stand up well against a variety of backing styles. In my opinion, they stack up well under some rather extreme backing styles, jazz included. To me, the good stuff is like that -- it can survive a variety of treatments. I still think one of the best things about being alive today is that you don't have to choose. It's all out there, and you can enjoy it all. Or, if you prefer, you can choose one element of it and enjoy just that. It's all good. Why declare? Why not enjoy your preferences quietly, or, if you must proselytize, do it in a nurturing sort of way: "Hey, you like that stuff that rocks out? You should check out how powerful the stuff can be without the backing -- it's very enjoyable."
But that "backing is crap" approach, or "kill the bodhran player" approach, I have no patience for.
I also enjoy the tunes on their own without back-up as much as I do with it provided it's supportive, (as I mentioned above.) I think the problems regarding snobbery crop up when people start choosing sides and putting down the opposition for not getting it or declaring outright dismissals. I think we can all agree that the most important thing isn't whether or not it's there, but rather how it's there. Then it just becomes a matter of personal taste and preference rather than who's right or wrong.
Agreed. Which is why I don't think it helps much to brand some of these people as snobs and insecure. They may have other reasons entirely for their opinions.
As for declaring preferences, I hope it helps people think through their own preferences when they read what other people here think. Maybe it helps us move from jumped-to conclusions and prejudices to more informed, thoughtful, reasoned opinions. I can dream can't I?
Alright... Windows - Mac.. Internet Exploder - Firefox.. This religion - that religion.. Accompaniment - no accompaniment..
There is always fanatics! And with fanatics, you can not discuss about anything. They are just dogmatically repeating themselves without listening to anybody else's opinions.
Why can't we just enjoy all the different variations and styles? It would make our lives so much less stressing, both ways!
Dat's about enough about filosophy from me, I guess.
Will, when someone comes in here and tells us we're "ruining the music," what would you attribute that to? I've thought about it a lot, and I knew personally one such individual that came in and declared such a thing, so I'm basing my conclusions on what I observed there. Insecurity was all I could come up with as an explanation for making such declarations and putting down the very people they were talking to in the process. What's your take?
To accompany tunes properly, to treat them with the respect they deserve, backers should know the tunes as well as, if not better than, the melody players.
I'm a guitar player. I also sing a bit but am quite happy not to sing at a session. I do play along with tunes that I know and occasionally tunes that I don't know very well but if there is another backer playing then I don't see the point of backing as well. There is very little chance of playing the same backing as someone else unless you have worked it out beforehand (as in a gig?). If you want to stop someone else from trying to back up just make sure your thirteenth flattened ninth chords are loud enough to make him/her stop!
Taking my guitar playing hat off I have to say that I find it easier to listen to accompanied tunes rather than unaccompanied. OK, most session tunes are pretty simple, running up and down scales and arpeggios but, for example, I find an hour listening to unaccompanied singing pretty knackering.
Harmony usually helps makes sense of a melody. Like the forces of nature, rhythm, melody and harmony are inextricably linked. I can't hear one without the others.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because I know a bit about harmony that I hear it. My experience of melody players is that generally their knowledge of harmony is pretty poor. A lot of fiddle players seem to think that harmony means playing an open string!
Oops! Did I say that.
When it comes to guitars I think, as with any accompaniment, they add infinitely to a session, when they are played right.
I started in sessions with the guitar and never played continuously, one tune after the next. Some tunes are just better without any accompaniment.
In my opinion the best guitar playing is done by waiting for the second turn before strumming out the chords and playing the odd bass run. I do also think that one guitar sounds best so I personally don’t play accompaniment if there is another guitarist playing. I’ll just play it if I do a song or rarely I’ll play the melody on the guitar and have the other guitarist accompany me – that can sound great.
Then again its not just guitarists that don’t know when to stop playing. I’ve been to a couple of sessions where the fiddle player(s) never stopped to allow any other instruments their due place in the spotlight. (although that hasn’t happened for a long time now) There’s nothing worse than a session where a fantastic selection of musical instruments such as mandolins, flutes, whistles, concertinas, banjos, etc are not being given a set or two each in the lead.
Of course I play both guitar and fiddle so that makes me the worst of all offenders
Excuse me for being a bit docile Donald, but I thought a fiddler played the tune . . note for note, someones got to. So you think the main melody player shouldn't do that, but play some form of harmonic variation?
That's exactly my point, Jack. I wouldn't assume anything. I'd be more inclined to ask them to explain themselves, rather than ascribing attitudes to them that I could only guess at. I certainly wouldn't assume that people here are necessarily anything like people I've met at my local session.
If the melody volume is say...10
the guitar should be 7 ish.
Rhythm (sp? can never spell that word) players should absolutely be on time! There are too many guitar players that think ITM is bluegrass or Cape Breton music.
Also the guitar is still being figured out in this music. At 30 years it's still a newcomer.There's DADGAD, drop D and Regular tuning. And people apply each a little differently, though the "regular" is the least used and loosing the battle.
Singing with guitar is done at my session after every 6 sets of tunes or so. The variety really breaks up the night wonderfully.
Just a song once in a great while is lovely.
snake... I agree... you can make up so called chords too, just by playing two strings that work at the right frets. Or one note and a droned open string.
and there are many meolody players out there too who ruin things by noodling to what they don't know, not tuning or attempting to, hijacking speeds, etc. It's not just backers who ruin things, in fact put a solid and good backer in a way untogether session with all the melody players at a different speed, and the backer, or drummer too, can pull them together and the sound isn't quite so painful anymore. Sometimes certain melody players don't know when to stop either.
OK... I think I am done for the month posting about backing, really nothing new to add..... well one thing, fingerstyle tune players, they back and play melody all with one hand, while noting with the other.... the thumb generally is doing the backing. So let me pose this question, would we sound better plucking the melody along on one line and not back ourselves with the droning on a lower string (though melody sometimes shifts to the low strings too, and we can back momentarily with a higher string if desired). To me it sounds pretty weak. It is also the reason some of the great flatpicker tune players, when they record, they are almost always backing themselves on a separate track. And on that note... an accordion, a concertina, etc, they back themselves too, harps.... so the point is that I don't really think backing per se is the culprit. Playing tastefully and not fighting the music is what is desired. And yes, nice if the backer drops out a bit... great for effect, but so can a fiddle or other instrument, and join in one by one.... really nice effect!
Iris -- I appreciate your insights on this and the other thread about backing the tunes, and I would love to meet you some day and listen to you... and maybe even have a few tunes together, but I think the issue raised on this thread might be more about the attitude that there's a defect of some sort in even accepting the guitar as a valid contribution to ITM. It seems that some people feel you don't understand the music if you even like to hear guitar or other back-up in it. I think this is nonsense of course, but sometimes we'll hear from people who seem to subscribe to this. Have you ever run across this in your circles?
PB - I think the reason for this is the perception (it may be a wrong perception, but it's there) that, as you move around different sessions in different parts of the world, there are lots of guitarists and most of them are awful. In fact, there are guitar backers that are great, but the demoralising and draining effect of a thrasher can leave emotional scars.
For a similar reason, I now tense up whenever it gets to the part where someone is going to sing a song. There was a session that I went to a while back where, at about 3 points in the evening, this woman started 'singing'. And the choice of material (kind of hippy/gospel/pop as far as I could tell) together with the excrutiating noises emanating from her have produced in me a sort of Pavlovian response.
Mind you, it does mean that, after a singer has started and I realise that, actually, it's not going to be so bad, and may actually be quite good, I'm so grateful I tend to think of it as totally brilliant. I find the same with guitars.
I'm not saying I agree with all of the following, but I can understand it as a rational, sensible perspective.
I think it's possible to build a well-reasoned case that this music, as it's been played for centuries, is better off with no backing instruments. The only "allowable" accompaniment being the drones of another string on a fiddle or the regulators. Some people understand this to be the more authentic form of the music, before chord progressions were imposed on it. The wash of harmonies and chords (and even rhythmic patterns) from a guitar, zouk, or piano can smother nuances of note articulation, pulse, and "tonal indeterminateness" that are, for some people, the heart and soul of this music.
Think of it this way--sean nos singing developed over generations as an unaccompanied art form. If backers suddenly arrived to play along on every song, sean nos would no longer be what it was. Bearers of that tradition might be understandably upset by "outsiders" not sensing the difference between unaccompanied singing and accompanied singing, and wading in where they were not only unwanted but very unwelcome. I suspect some tune players feel the same way.
Yes Phantom... I do run into it at times. Not always though, some sessions welcome it. And.... I'd dare say for every bad guitar player who ruins a session, I can find you two melody players that do the same.... maybe they are just more numerous... so the odds are higher....just anticipating the next response, LOL!
Ben... don't make me blush!! They think we are carrying on offline anyway!! But thank you.... I can play melody, but love to back more. More of a challenge to me is all. I know not to sing unless forced.... and then need a xanax and Jack Daniels...and a very noisy pub where no one can really hear.
Sure Will, some tune players feel that way, they are welcome to at any point ask us to please let them play something solo, and we are all happy to listen and respect that. If you want a guitar free session, then call it that.
Guitar accompanyment goes pretty far back BTW if you listen to some real early 78s, you hear it, it's not something that just happened in the 60s. I wish I could think of specifics but can't right now. Some theorize that what was recorded back then was very indicative of what had been going on for possibly centuries, since people didn't get out and around much to spread different styles. Piano accompaniment was certainly abundant on early recordings too, more than guitar, backup was used very often and considered traditional by many. I think worse than a bad guitar, is a bad piano to tell the truth, maybe because of the volume of it....but a great pianist...wow!!
What it's down to, is if you don't like it, don't have it. Don't have an open session and gripe when a backer walks in. Make it a rule for your session if you want, it won't offend anyone, we do get it that some just like it that way. I'll come in with a guitar maybe.... but promise to just play tunes.... would that be OK? Or is it guitar as an instrument in general? Just curious, not being testy there... maybe some consider just fiddle, flute, pipes, box, etc. as the trad insrruments... really am curious about that.
<<<Sometimes--once in a while--I want only my imagination to fill in the harmonic color of the tune, and not have my imagination constrained or led by someone else's choices. Other melody players can join in and still leave that coloring wide open. But as soon as a guitar or zouk strikes a chord, we're all hearing his or her colorings, not our own>>>>>
Just please kindly and politely just ask if the backer can sit out a few, if an open session. They will (OR SHOULD!!) happily oblige. Sometimes someone will say "let me play the first alone, come in on the second", or "let me play this set with just the flute player" things like that..... it's all OK, really, to do that. We like to listen too.
Yes, Will, lovely points all. Still, do you honestly think that 95 percent of the bodhran-bashing that goes on at this site is really just poets expressing their craving to let their imaginations fill the harmonic color of the tune?
Yes, some of that is in fun, but a lot of the backer-bashing and bodhran-bashing that takes place here is not, in my opinion, conducive toward encouraging anyone at all but geared toward discouraging. And not all of it comes from well-grounded traditionalists -- some of it seems to be coming from people with barely any experience at all. Yes, they have a right to their preferences, too, but where are they learning that tone of superiority, and why is it that seems to be the one quality of the experienced player that they're capable of picking up quickly?
I have nothing but sympathy for people whose sessions are ruined by insensitive drumming and strumming. I even have sympathy for the people who have an honest preference for sessions without drums and strums. But those people have a responsibility to build the kind of session they want, and they don't need to fix everyone else's.
I think the difference between my own attitude and the one that I'm addressing in this thread has more to do with acceptance than anything related to snobbery or indiscretion. As I pointed out, I like the music unaccompanied as much as I like it with accompaniment. I haven't chosen a side; I think both ways have their own quality and beauty. I can also listen to even slow airs both ways and derive equal pleasure. Take an air like 'The Flower Of Magherally' for example. I've heard it sung in the sean-nos style, and also in brilliant arrangements, (like what Altan gave it,) and I enjoy both very much. Sure the unaccompanied style is more traditional, but I can't see why anyone would have to dismiss the one with back-up in terms of 'ruining the music'. I have heard what I consider to be poor renditions of that song, but it's not based solely on the presence of back-up, but rather how the back-up is handled.
The backing of tunes has been around longer than sessions, and is a valid part of the tradition at this point. Not a necessary part, but a valid part indeed. There’s something very ‘flat-Earth’ about insisting that acceptance of anything new, or relatively new, means you’re ruining the music or don’t understand it correctly. But what drives this compulsion to dismiss it as well as anyone who accepts it is what leaves me befuddled. Why do some folks take so much stock in being on one side or the other in a battle to the death over who’s right and who’s wrong over this? Why do people think it’s necessary to tear down or destroy one way in order for their way to be appreciated?
Iris, just to be clear, our regular guitarist gets it--she seems to know instinctively when to sit out, when to come in. And she's very open to suggestions, though frankly the need to suggest anything different rarely comes up. Great fun playing with her.
But I have seen backers go off in a huff just because someone asked them to sit out one set. In fact, that seems to be the more typical response, in my experience, no matter how diplomatically the request is made. Some people (backers and melody players alike) assume that the goal of every session (paraphrasing Barry Foy here) is to get as many musicians playing as many tunes as possible. Any exception to this rubs their guard hairs the wrong way.
Jack, if I understand you right in your post above, you're saying we shouldn't put people down just because they like backing in this music, but then you put people down ("something falt earth") who don't accept anything new. I'm not sure I understand why it's okay to insult one set of people but not the other....
What about a session that's not a free for all, what about, and I am not kidding, you go around the circle and everyone who wants will start one, and they can pick a few people to play with them.....ok...the backer's tune comes.... they can either sing, or ask for a melody player or two or three or as many as they like to play a set of tunes they like. Someone told me they used to see some sessions, usually a house session, in Ireland that went like that.
Maybe too regimented? I think it would be nice, you could have an open session but keep everyone presumably happy. I have a notion to maybe give it a try sometime or suggest it at our session and see if people are receptive. Or maybe spend an hour at it that way to try it out...maybe people would like it.
Will.... If you ask one to sit out and they leave...let them. I am sure you are nice about it, if some take it to mean they play badly so be it. It shouldn't be taken personally unless delivered with a groan and look....!!!
I'd love to hear your backer! Any MP3s? Always interested. Backers can't expect the melody players or even expect one to regulary call out the keys for them either, they really need to learn the tunes in order to participate with a good flow, there is so much more to it than the key.
Will, I'm not putting them down, but rather trying to figure out what compels them to come on this site and put down anyone who accepts the guitar in ITM by characterizing them as "ruining the music" etc. You seem to be saying that any attempt to address this negative and disruptive attitude is no different than what they're doing. I have honestly expressed my hypothesis the best way I can with no attempt at insulting the responsible parties. How would you address this attitude and avoid using any terms that you feel might be considered offensive?
Iris, believe me, I have let them walk away, gratefully. If that's the ego-centric attitude they bring to the music, then we're better off without them. Especially when it's made clear to them that it's not about how well they play. And this is true of any player--backer or melody.
Mind you, I'm not the one complaining here about backers. I'm simply reiterating arguments I've heard other people make. It doesn't matter much to me. I like playing with accompaniment, and I like playing without it. But I can understand why some people are drawm to one extreme or the other. And in answer to Jack's questions, I think it's easy to understand how defensive some players get, given how some sessions are overrun by people who insist on bashing away even though they know little about the music.
It's been said a gazillion times here--the guitar is a common instrument. Lots of people who play one think they can just join in at a session, even if they've never played Irish music before. And some of them don't have a clue that they're wrecking the sound. So some people get worn out by this and they vent their frustrations here.
The same thing happens with fiddles. Again, it's a common instrument, so it's not unusual for a violinist or bluegrass fiddler to show up, eager to play Irish music, and throw the sesssion out of joint. I've seen a session infested with this sort of thing, week after week, one "session wrecker" leaves and another shows up to take his place. Look at Key Maniac Lad's posts--in some places, this sort of thing can really take its toll on other people's enjoyment of the music.
So guitars get singled out because they're ubiqitous. If the Beatles' sound had centered around trumpets, then we'd be hearing steady complaints about trumpet players storming Irish sessions....
I agree with cuch--the regular ugly venting here at the yella board about guitars and bodhrans does to this forum what the venters complain the guitars and bodhrans do to their sessions.
Jack, I'm just guessing but I doubt that the ant-guitar crowd likes being labeled as "flat earthers." Casting aspersions at them or inventing small-minded reasons for their opinions (snobbery and insecurity) won't likely move the conversation forward.
See my last sentence in my previous post for how I'd address the issue.
Ok, Will... fair enough... let's see... I'll just review some of your posts here to see if I can find any offensive words you might have used. "wrecking the sound" "bashing" "ego-centric" "But I have seen backers go off in a huff" Hmmm... I guess expressing our opinions and avoiding anything that might be considered offensive is easier said than done.
It wasn't my intent to insult people that come in here and insult us just because we might accept guitar back-up in Irish music. I was simply expressing what I think could be behind such assaults. I can't imagine doing so in a way that would please your censor, Will. I don't think you can either based on what's written in your past couple of posts. According to your standards neither of us are moving the discussion forward.
Now, now Will and Jack, step away from the railing there, take a deep breath, and don't jump over the cliff again!!!!!
Backing is like spices in food--they should never dominate the taste of the dish, so you forget what the main ingredient is--that can be caused by too much of one spice, or too many different spices at once. And adding the same spice to every dish only makes them taste all the same.
Following that analogy, there should not be too many backers, and the volume of the backing should never dominate the melody. And no one at a session (backers or melody) should play on every single tune. Varying the mix of instruments from tune to tune helps make it all sound that much better (and if you all know all the tunes the other folks are playing, you are all getting stale).
And every moment of trancendent beauty does not need to be accompanied--like Miles Davis said, the silence between notes can be as important as the notes.
'but a lot of the backer-bashing and bodhran-bashing that takes place here is not, in my opinion, conducive toward encouraging anyone at all but geared toward discouraging. And not all of it comes from well-grounded traditionalists -- some of it seems to be coming from people with barely any experience at all.'
Spot on Cuch.....
Sometimes its very easy (especially for me) To get annoyed and fight on the yellow board - but the above statement is exactly *why* I get so annoyed. This high and mnight -" I'm fabulous cause I play melody - even if Ive not been playing very long...and therefore backers blah blah'
I have to say - this constant bitching about backing in all forms is starting to wear very thin.
LOL, Jack, I wasn't trying to avoid being offensive. The quotes of mine you pulled out were aimed at people who don't know anything about Irish trad music or sessions, not knowledgeable backers. I wasn't talking about anyone who's posted here. All of us here have a stake in saving our sessions from clueless debutantes who wreck the sound with their ego-centric bashing. Saying so shouldn't ruffle anyone's feathers here because we're all in the same boat.
In your comments, in contrast, you've characterized people based on their posts here and their anti-guitar opinions as snobs and insecure, and compared them to flat earthers.
Go ahead and gilderize the lily, if that's where you want to take this, but I'm not biting.
"And in answer to Jack's questions, I think it's easy to understand how defensive some players get, given how some sessions are overrun by people who insist on bashing away even though they know little about the music."
Yes Will - and that is especially true for melody players !
Exactly right Beebs. I've never said anything different. Like I said above, clueless fiddlers are also a common session wrecker. Basically, any instrument that's widely popular and portable has a tendency to show up at Irish sessions, whether the people playing them know anything out Irish music or not. The more common the instrument (guitar, some sort of drum, fiddle), and the more accessible it is to beginners, the more likely it is that we'll hear complaints about it here.
In short, a prime reason we aren't sick of hearing about tubas wrecking sessions is because so few people play tuba.
Sorry to be so tardy in response, but no, docile Stewpot, I think fiddlers should stick to playing the tune note for note, as I do when I play mandolin, and stop trying to play harmony which just mucks it up for a backer who is trying to play accompaniment.
Well... I'm not interested in arguing with Will or anyone else about my approach, but I stand by my statements and make no apologies for my hunches regarding what drives people to come on this board and cast such wide disparaging dismissals at us for simply accepting guitars as legitimate contributors to ITM. If folks feel they need to be negative and condescending just to prove that they hold the golden challis of knowledge regarding everything ITM and all of us who don’t agree with them are condemned to ignorance and considered defective, then they should be prepared for what we might think compels them to denounce us so.
Another way to think about this is consider what instrument dominates the racks at most mainstream music stores. Even some of the CD chain stores sell guitars. And most nights of the week, especially leading up to Christmas, you see steady television infomercials for guitars by Esteban. I've never seen an infomercial selling uilleann pipes on tv.
So of course there are a lot of guitar-god wannabes out there. And some of them show up at Irish sessions.
The anti-guitar discussions here would be easier to tolerate (or ignore if it's just not your cup of tea) if people were clear about when they mean the wannabes, and when they mean any sort of backing at all, based on their preference for a melody-only approach to the music. Two very different conversations.
Though maybe there's a point, just the same. We often illustrate session etiquette to necomers by comparing it to a conversation between friends. Would you barge in as an outsider? No, of course not.
But equally, would you ask one of your friends to maybe not talk while we discuss a certain topic we would enjoy better without their contribution, just this time?
(Jack, I have to disagree. Putting words in other people's mouths and ascribing mindsets to them that they actually do not hold unnessarily degrades the conversation here and plays down to the level of people who use the same tactics. It's less a response, more a reaction. And it ignores the more reasonable arguments for limiting or eliminating backing from sessions.)
But what if you wanted to meet with like-minded friends to talk-- in Spanish--just about the original Spanish edition of Don Quijote? Would you welcome someone who didn't speak Spanish, or who wanted to converse only in French?
I think if you ask a guitar player to 'sit out these tunes' you're asking for trouble. In a session it's better to leave it up to them to decide. How would you feel if someone turned to you as a fiddler or flute player etc., and asked you to 'sit these tunes out'?
That's quite a different matter, Will. (The Spanish/French thing.) If I want to be part of a no-accompaniment session, I had better arrange it that way in advance and, sure, the guitar player would not be invited.
But we're talking about a group of friends gathered together for a few tunes and a bit of fun. I would never turn to the pipe player in this group and say "this one might sound better without pipes. Would you give it a rest for a while?" He or she might be a no-conflict type of person and acquiesce, but I wouldn't blame them for resenting it (and maybe finding another session the next time.)
I took Button's "flat-earther" term as a bit tongue-in-cheek, myself.
I'm a backer, so maybe I'm being defensive in all this. But here's the thing, as I see it. I'm not a very good backer, yet even so, I realize, in a session situation, I have it in my power to kind of take over the overall sound in a way. If I'm playing guitar with, say, a couple fiddles, a couple flutes and a banjo, I probably have more ability to influence the overall sound for good or evil than any other individual in that session, and that makes me very, very uncomfortable, because, in my opinion, that's should be the melody players' privilege. I can choose dark chords when maybe the melody players are feeling merry, or vice versa, or I can thrash away on something that the melody players see as delicate. I'm not talking about playing crap -- we all can do that, of course. I'm talking about imposing my musical will on a situation. It's not, in my opinion, a good thing. I feel as though the melody players should have the say, yet, because I'm working with rhythm and harmony, as opposed to the more subtle melody, I can have my way with the situation.
So I don't. I try not to, at least, especially among strangers. I don't enjoy playing in those situations very much at all, and I'll usually play for 20-30 minutes, for social reasons, before finding an excuse not to. And while I do, I try as best as I can to read the situation and respond to it. That's the kind of session where I find myself with a group of strangers, but when I and my son and a friend get together and session, I figure we're all hauling the load together, and so I need not feel funny about contributing my thing.
So I feel sensitive about it, about the outcome of the music and about my role in it. And I try to act accordingly, though, of course, I'm probably limited by what I know, don't know, can do, can't do, etc., just like any other musician. What I don't think I need, though, is some @$$hole lecturing me about how I'm not needed because guitarists are crap and they only take away from the music. That person may be right, but I don't think I need to hear it.
Based on everything I’ve read in these threads, 'backing' is just another way of saying ‘accompaniment,’ David. I think you realize this actually... or are you just getting testy since you gave up smoking?
I have seen many times two players for example ask, can we play this one alone... sort of like a person doing a song. Usally very few if any will back the song. A friend and I do some O'Carolan duets, and another friend does harp solos, that's what I mean to sit out a few. I wouldn't get offended personally...unless they told me to shut up and stop playing for an hour or something or until they felt like stopping playing for a break.... and that HAS happened... got it from a guitar basher!!
We seem to have drifted into the concept of being asked not to play. I usually stop playing when I realize the version is too different, or I don't know the tune. I never noodle or try to pick up tunes on the fly. If I played guitar or bouzouki etc., I would stop if the tune was too unfamiliar, especially if it's obvious that the chords aren't predictable. If someone said to me, "This tune is pretty tricky." I might listen to it before attempting to play along, or just let it go without any backing. If someone said, "You might want to sit out because the second tune is really different." or something along those lines -- I would be fine. If someone said "Would you mind sitting these tunes out? I prefer to hear them without back-up." It would be dodgy. If I knew the person well and understood and trusted them... well… no problem. But if they were someone I hardly knew it might feel a bit controlling.
On the other hand, you can tell when a couple of people have something worked out like O'Carolan tunes or something along those lines, and that it might be a good idea to sit it out... even as a melody player. And if it's made understood by all the musicians in attendance that everyone wants to hear the duet, then there's no problem. But if you get singled out and asked to not play I think it's going to feel bad no matter how you rationalize it.
I seem to see a really big difference in the way things are done in different areas around the world. For example - Most of the backers that I know and play with are spot on. They would be the majority (I'm only speaking about the people I play tunes with mind) The minorty would be the 3 chord wonder or thrasher or whatever. The backers that I play with are talented, and know what they are doing - more so than lots of tune players.
This thing about asking people to sit out? What??? I mean who died and made you god of the session? Thats just silly. If you want to do a little performance piece - then do it on a stage. Same thing goes - if you dont want backers in your session then spread the word......most people would not turn up to a session if they knew their kind would not be appreciated.
And If I heard that there was a session with no backing allowed I would not turn up. So really - thats probably the best way to go about it. Straight up without wasting any time I'd know that that isnt the kind of session that I'd like, the backers wouldnt go and annoy you guys and you guys wouldnt be annoying the backers....and then everyone would be happy.
("you guys" being a general term - not aimed at anyone specifically)
Heck. Occasionally someone'll play a tune no one else knows if another person's asked for it. But asking people to sit still and shut up while someone else plays to duet/solo piece. At the places I go to play we go to play (or listen to people playing ad hoc), not to listen to other people perform. When people want to hear amaturs/semi-pros perform they'll go to a folk club,when they want a pro performance they'll go to a gig (nothing against folk clubs by the way, I just got scared for life due to my local folk club where I was brought up)
Out of interest, at the "backer-free-session", will the box players be allowed to use their left hand?? (I believe these instruments, along with the harp, piano accordion and concertina nicely support the argument for chordality in trad. music by the way).
Exactly - its ok to play tunes no one else knows - but you cant sit there and say 'Me and my friend here are going to do a 'piece' - would you guys mind being quiet' - what the f***???
If you play tunes no one else knows - then shock, horror - people may have to go and *learn* it then they may be able to *join* in. I would never say - 'I am going to play a tune by myself now - please no one join in and please dont go and learn this tune as its *my solo piece because I'm a big ole show off'
I do remember one session I was at in Pepper's Bar in Feakle and Cyril asked me to play a tune. I was surprised that no one else joined in, but then he asked other people to play right after me that would play either solos or duets. Then after a few more it was back to the tunes we all played.
It might help others to understand where bb is coming from if I point out that I go to the same session that she does (well, one of them - how many do you go to bb?), Dow's session as it happens, and that the guitarist that we get there regularly is outstandingly, exceptionally tasteful and effective. When the average guitar is brought into the average session you can not generally expect to hear the class of contribution made by the person I'm talking about.
On the other hand, I can no longer resist relating this incident from the other end of the scale. It was about two years ago at what was then my most regular session. For reasons that will become apparent I looked closely at the left-hand work of the player next to me. He was playing D shapes, with capo of course, as the tune was in G.
"Gubby", I said above the music, for that was his name, "aren't you in the wrong key?"
He looked at his fingerboard, counted and saw that his capo was on the fourth fret. "Oh yes, so I am!" he replied, seemingly happily. He slid the capo up one more fret and carried on with almost no disturbance to the rhythm.
But it takes all sorts, they say, and isn't the joy of sessions that you really do get all sorts?
I agree with all the "tasteful and sensitive guitar accompaniment based upon knowledge of the melodies is good" comments previously expressed in this thread.
After all this, I have another question. What is the point in having a guitar at a session or performance
if the playing is so soft that you can't even hear it?
I'll give an example or two. In the last few years I've been to
performances by melody players who had guitar
accompaniment. In each case, I just couldn't hear the guitar it was played so softly.
I really couldn't figure out what the purpose of the accompaniment was, other than as a visual cue for the audience that a "group" was playing. I suppose the musicians could hear it, and maybe it benefited them, but I just couldn't hear them.
This has happened in sessions that I've listened to as well.
The guitarist is so soft and tentative that you can't hear anything all night. Well, I'm sure some people here will stand up and applaud for all silent guitars. However, I don't know why a guitar should be played at all if you can't hear it.
(I know someone will say that's the only way a guitar should be played.)
Another point or two...
It's always good to have a guitar handy as accompaniment for
the song that emerges from time to time at a session. Often
a singer really can benefit from the rhythm and chords provided by a guitar to guide them along, especially if they are inexperienced at singing in public.
Finally, few have mentioned the bass role that a guitar plays in
the music. I know that some people abhor the idea of
a 'bass" part. However, many people, like myself, have heard lots of music that uses bass as a fundamental
component - classical, rock, bluegrass, jazz, and on and on.
Yes, I know that the melodies can and do frequently stand alone. However, I just like it better when there's a bottom to the music to complement the tenor and soprano ranges of the fiddles, whistles, and flutes.
Funny Andy... a no left hand session!! For me a no thumb session!
Let me clarify about O'Carolan pieces for example a friend and I do, people ASK us, we never say shut up we're doing this alone. And then they tend to sit and listen. We wouldn't mind if they join in. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
At a session, I never ask anyone to do anything beyond play that great tune they played last time etc. All the asking, is hopefully positive. Sometimes someone wants to play something and if I am not sure, I have asked if they want me to play and they can say yes or no, up to them, I don't get offended.
To be told to just stop playing by one particular guitar player was over the top. I sat out, being stunned, and also because we didn't play well together, I even asked if we could take turns.....no. He said I would have to wait until he took his break!Then he says, you're not playing anyway, get out of your seat. At which point there was a skirmish, where I was told by others to stay right there. So he got mad and left, and I played. Very bad night. I won't go back. Who needs it.
That kind of rudeness, well, it's the only time it's ever happened like that. This person has done it, I found to some others. wants to be the only guitar there, yet it's an open session. Nothing wrong with conflicting styles taking turns, but this was something different. Often conflicting backers work it out among themselves, same as drummers, who plays on what. Sometimes surprisingly more than one works if there is no conflict. Being a more melodic based accomanist, I can usually gel with another guitar. Sometimes it does work. Often not though!
Hi Iris, I've been watching these threads with interest - you're excellent at explaining the issues relating to accompaniment in Irish Traditional Music - good on you!
I was interested in your experience regarding the other rude guitarist - that's a bit much! I must admit, I don't like the sessions where there's more than one accompaniest - (I normally go to the bar) - usually a recipe for disaster, with clashing styles and different voicings etc... Having said that, on occasions it does work, but it sure ain't easy. I recall being in a session when a friend who has a totally different style (and very much more in your face style) from mine, joining the session. I suggested that it might be wise if we took turns to play a few sets each - his answer was a flat, uncompromising NO! Despite the selfishness, we're still friends - having said that, I've managed to mostly avoid any sessions where he's playing.
Well, after reading all this bashing of guitar players, there still remains the more important question of fiddle players with bad ear and poor technique, what a pain that can be.
The guitar nightmare for me was back in the early 90s when a very aggressive Scottish fellow showed up to take the local session scene by storm. He was the sort that would join the sessions regardless of whether or not their was already a guitar player present and play much louder eventually driving the other player away. If the session was wedged tight and there was no room for anymore musicians he would walk around behind musicians who were sitting out a tune they didn't know and put a walkman on their head that had a tape featuring him playing with musicians in Scotland. Then he would keep after whomever was playing guitar to let him play a few tunes. Once he got the chance he would call out the tunes he wanted to play and then bash the same loud chord accompaniment over it. Amazingly some musicians went along with this. Eventually though he was banned by publicans from just about every pub in town, not just for bad guitar playing, but for just plain bad behavior. The funny thing was that outside of a session when no one had instruments in their hands he was a decent fellow. Putting a guitar in his hands had the same effect that putting a steering wheel in some folk's hands has.
I wonder who that might have been - you've got me thinking....? Any clues Jack? One phenomenon I've had the misfortune to experience here at some festivals concerns one guitarist in particular, who on a number of occasions at various festivals, when unable to get a seat, has strapped on his guitar and played directly behind me extremely loudly, despite the fact there was already a guitar in the session - the soundhole right beside my left lug - very, very annoying. Grrr....
However - he's not Scottish - so he's not the culprit.
I play banjo, as my main instrument, but started backing, as the sound I heard at sessions was never what I wanted, and as Will rightly pointed out, often drove the tune in a direction that I never wanted. Most recorded backers, never really do anything for me other then Squires Finn, Sproule, and Blake.
I have to say though, having spent the last couple of years, really getting into backing, I've realised, its so much harder to find a good sympathetic tasteful backer then it is a melody player. This is a challenge I've enjoyed, and as a result, I've got so many more gigs as a backer then I did as a banjo-er.
Its great to hear a raw tune find its own way out through 3 or 4 melody instruments, but its also great, to FOLLOW or BACK good players who can color the tune around your backing.
Or Vice Versa...It always boils down to the same answer on this topic. I do think, that some one who plays melody often has the headstart of having a good idea of the tunes and whats in them.
I heard Tony Mac Mahon was playing with Steve Cooney at the moment....that makes me laugh.
Ron.... I spoke to the guy before we started and said I would be happy to take turns, he said let's try it and see. I never played with him before, but we sure were on a different wavelength. I was going to sit out the next when he got up and yelled at me to stop playing until he took a break...when??? Anyway I was OK, I've fairly thick skinned, whatever, but to then be told to get out of my seat because I wasn't playing was too much. Esp. since the fiddler/leader had sat me across from him because he likes playing with me. That's when it started to blow up, he said I should stay right there. Whatever. I won't go back, it's too long a drive anyway, we have better ones closer.
Risto...ditto. But open session is open session. They can tell us to stop, but I sure would never go to a fiddler and say, stop, your intonation is way off. I have been next to some....and the worst I ever do is say....hmmmm.... I think maybe I am way out of tune to you..... then check my tuner and say, nope, not me, something sounds off, wonder who it could be, and look around the room. At which point they tune or are more aware of the intonation. Not to say I never go out of tune, LOL.... I even once said into a mike....Drat... my G String keeps slipping..... it got a lot of laughs and people say it all the time now at out sessions in NJ. First time, really a mistake!
Phantom.... I recently met one nearly as tactless. Whatever, it's an ope session I keep remembering. Sometimes I get a little testy myself...hopefully while maintaining total decorum (what an archaic term...my age must be showing) in that, when the melody players get a bit fed up, they will go into "throw the backer mode" and throw the person, who sometimes gets so lost they quit (and maybe those are the ones that show a little promise!) and then I will come back into the music.... not to brag about knowing odd tunes, these are people I have known a long time, I know their sets pretty much inside out is all, could do thme in my sleep. It's all abotu memory and knowing the tunes.
Hugo.... I'm with you.... one thing you say though, and I know it's just a choice of wording to not be taken literally... but the word FOLLOW.... a good backer doesn't technically FOLLOW, you need to be right there with them. I know that's not what you meant and am not disputing or being a pill.... it's just that many new backers think you FOLLOW, and I can really hear them a fraction of a second behind the melody. In fact sometimes you want to be a fraction of a second ahead of it, to sort of pave the way for the note to flow into. Not all the time but sometimes....say when part A or B end and there is that little space between the notes.... you do not want to fill the spaces, that's not what I am getting at, but leave the space and come in just a fraction of a second ahead of the melody player. Used sparingly, to may ear it gives a nice effect. Listen really closely to some of the best backers and you can hear it sometimes....it's extremely subtle and fleeting.
OK... I am sure to get an argument on that point!! It's just a seasoning to vary things a little, to wak up the listener on some real subtle level, it actually makes them, I think more aware of the melody, which is the point of backing. That is because there is this fleeting little sound, but OMG where is the melody.... Oh There It is!!
This is in no way that hitting the guitar on the offbeat, and filling in the very precious and important spaces between the notes, this is something else, and hope I have conveyed it properly. Mostly you have to be with the melody, not Follow it.
Sorry to sound so opinionated about backing, I do realize there are many ways to do it, I just am saying what I like to hear in it personally. Not knocking others.
Iris I used to post on every guitar thread here on the mustard board but now that you are here I never really bother because by the time I get there you have said it all. And said it better than I could ever do.
My biggest self-realisation about what I was doing wrong in backing,was when I listened to a recording and heard that I was 'following' and that was why it sounded wrong. I guess I was just a millisecond behind the fiddle player but it was enough to make it sound lame to my ears.
Hi Donough.... you can take over after this.... I am burnt out on posting!!! Not quite yet on reading, but realize I could be playing tunes with this precious time!
Anyway, sometimes we musicians are a bit high strung (pun intended) and we hear all sorts of picciaune (sp?) stuff that others never hear. I wonder does it matter to most if they are heard "following" by a little, or is it just us that get insanely irritated by it, not even so much in others, but in ourselves? In any case, being a born perfectionist with impossibly high standards that will never be reached, it makes me nuts when I hear myself following, and I berate myself in the most abusive ways that I would never ever dream of inflicting on others....what is that???Time for a chill pill maybe!
Sometimes, maybe first go round in a new tune, you do follow a split second behind on parts here and there, when you are playing on the fly. Preferably on a new tune presented, I like to lay low and listen once through.... sometimes though I think they are starting something I know, but it turns out not to be the case. I don't like to cut out in the middle of a tune suddenly, but if I get the feeling that I will mess someone up by continuing, I'll fade myself out... just cleaner that way.
I know once you have started playing a set with someone, you ought to stick with it, but not if you are going to mess it up, same as for a melody player, it's the lesser of two evils.... get yourself out in a way that sounds graceful... in fact a lot of the current super groups use that (admittedly at the END of a tune) for effect, and let the melody carry on. Then they fade back in. Melody players rarely tell you what they are going to play next in a set, nor should they be required to, so sometimes you are faced with a second tune you never heard before, and you either "follow" by a hair once through until you get it, or fade out is my take on it.
Usually there seems to be a particular pattern to *most* tunes which is one of a generic handful of patterns, and whether conscious or not, I believe that aside from the odd tunes that really deviate from the normal predictable patterns, you can sense them after backing for a long time, and be able to back on the fly and not be "following". You can pick up the chord/note patterns fairly quickly too... and also that is how many fiddlers, for example, can pick up and play a new tune on the fly too. It would be an interesting outlay for someone well versed in reading and writing music to do.... show these generic patterns laid out, that come up over and over again in many tunes. I am not the one to do it, being an ear player, I have a lot of trouble explaining these things, let alone analyzing them and writing them down.
Again... I think we're down to the fact that by many, backers are not considered musicians. Many are not, true, ,but many melody players also will never get beyond that line where they have an ease and comfort and good flow with the instrument and it comes out sounding like really good music. Still, they love it, love playing and want to partake in it all and I don't believe should be banished (unless arrogant and rude to the others, but that's not about the music) or belittled. Many are learning and trying to improve, we're all trying to improve, or should be no matter what the level, there is always room to play better. People are in it for the fun and the social aspects as well as the music at a session. You find all levels, you see your pals and have a good time. If they noodle to things they don't know, guitars included, tell them tactfully or get someone to do it. Many are not aware it bothers people until you tell them and they are happy to stop. Many think they are doing it so quietly no one hears but them, most are fine about stopping, guitar or melody players.
OK... I said I wouldn't post anymore on this old topic anyway!!
Donough, it's yours.....!
Guitars again
Guitars again
Okay, so we've determined that a guitar is not absolutely necessary at a session, and that some of us appreciate them more than others. But it seems to me a more interesting question - if you do enjoy hearing a guitar (or other accompanying instrument) in sessions, what do you think makes it all work?
I noticed in the previous thread that some people were working on the assumption that if there is a guitarist, than they will probably be singing in the session. Actually, I haven't found this to be the case with all guitarists, or all sessions. But it is interesting how one person doing a song at one session just adds to the quality and at another it's a total disaster. But the same thing is true of instrumental solos - requested or otherwise.
That aside, from the accompaniment point of view I do appreciate an accompanist who gives the session frequent breaks from being accompanied. Not playing every set, not coming in until the 2nd tune of some sets, etc. makes it more interesting. And definitely not trying to play tunes they don't know/can't manage. And please!! only one accompanist at a time.
I also appreciate versatility. No matter how good you are at the DADGAD open chords or interesting jazzy ones, one treatment does not suit the style of all tunes. I have seen myself afraid to start certain tunes off in the presence of some guitarists because I knew they were one trick ponies and just wouldn't get a change of style.
Maybe it's just like our reservations about a host of other instruments - it's more about the suitability of the behaviour of the person than the suitability of their instrument.
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by kris
Re: Guitars again
I went to a session last night where there were no guitars, and lots of fiddles. It worked out just fine.
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by timmy!
Re: Guitars again
I think there's some truth in the idea (we've expressed it many times in this forum) that a true musician is someone who can play senstively / fit in / sometimes provoke, but who also knows when *not* to play.
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Guitars again
I ws at a session last night, three guitars, one fiddle, great. And three bodhrans.
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Guitars again
Maybe I should start up a "guitars and bodhrans only" session. I guess we could allow spoons too. And didgeridoos.
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by timmy!
Re: Guitars again
Is there anywhere on the net thats good for learning trad stuff from????????? i know it's off topic but i'm dying to progress
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by fap
Re: Guitars again
I heard it all the time in Ireland, "Of course you sing, you've got a guitar..."
No, sorry... I don't sing...
Really. No, I just play guitar. Honestly, no, I don't.
No, I'm not just reluctant, I just -don't- sing.
Funny...
To this day, the world is a far better place because I don't sing.
stv
http://cdbaby.com/Culchies
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by stv culchie
Re: Guitars again
Hey, crazyfingerz, my SO plays the washboard, spoons, and jews harp ( not all at the same time ) . Can she join in ? Also flute and whistle, but I'll keep quiet about them.
To get back to the topic....I imagine that most people on this forum would much rather that rhythmic chordal instruments were played with subtlety and discretion. I would further imagine that the thrashers of guitar and 'zouk that we are all complaining about aren't much interested in the tunes, and won't be found here.
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Guitars again
I went to a session just last night, where there were no guitars, no fiddles, no flutes, no whistles, no anything. Silence. It worked out just fine.
How stupid is that?
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by cuchulain54
Re: Guitars again
No need to over react Crazy Fingers, allowing didwhatevers, you'll be allowing mandolins next.
# Posted on January 15th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Guitars again
Mandolins? Arghhh, the horror! Wait, I play mandolin.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by timmy!
Re: Guitars again
Hey Cuchulain54 - the Silent Session. Is that one of those John Cage concept-pieces?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Guitars again
So do I, play the mandolin that is. What a coincidence. I had no idea you played mandolin, Crazy. Honest.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Guitars again
Good one, Mark Harmer.
But no, there was no such event, actually. I was just making fun of the idea of judging a session by what's not there.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by cuchulain54
Re: Guitars again
Anything is ok at a session so long as it doesn't smother or alter the music from recognition. Now of course what the "music" is has to do with how you define your session, but assuming it's an Irish trad session, there are obvious instruments that would be excluded. You wouldn't find any trumpets or cathedral pipe organs, and Benjamin Franklin's glass harmonica aren't likely, but there is a tolerance for certain unorthodox accompaniment instruments that have found their way in; the bouzouki, guitar, piano etc., for example. But even with these instruments one needs to be careful to keep from smothering the music.
In the case of the guitar, (topic of this thread,) it can be played in many different styles and is widely used for many genres. The way it has been effective in ITM is as a supportive instrument to enhance the tonal qualities already inherent in the music. But if you amplify the other styles the guitar is known for, it can overwhelm the genre you're trying to support and you have in effect altered or smothered the music. If it’s intentional and the mission is to alter or fuse the music, that’s fine, but in a session environment you would need to have the people who started, host, or anchor the session in agreement.
My personal feeling is that the guitar adds a great deal to the music with its ability to enhance the tonal and rhythmical aspects already there. If someone wants to push it too far towards jazz or rock then I feel they have lost me… but that’s just me. I feel the same way about the other back-up instruments.
There are some people we’ve heard in many other threads like this who would like us to believe that there is some sort of defect in accepting the guitar into the music. They want us to believe that it somehow demonstrates our failure to understand the music correctly, or that we’ve been influenced by people who are “ruining the music” and other such nonsense. But I think it just demonstrates instead their insecurity about their own abilities. It gives them a false sense of importance to cloak their lack of ability and they seem to want us to believe that they hold some sort of unattainable secret that the rest of us are too corrupted to ever realize for ourselves.
On the other side you have a few guitar players who want easy access to the craic but haven’t bothered to gain any insight to the music they desire to join in with. These are the sorts of people likely to do things that smother or alter the music instead of supporting and adding to it. When we suggest that they become better acquainted with the music before joining in they will declare us all to be snobs and elitists. But it’s not because we are those things, but rather because we stand in the way of their easy access. Maybe one doesn’t have to spend as much time learning the tunes note for note like the melody players do, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to spend the necessary time understanding the music just because you’re playing back-up. There’s no easy, over-night access… sorry. This goes for all the other back-up instruments as well.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Yes, you hit it right on the, er, button. Especially paragraph 4. People seem so driven to snobbery about this stuff, as if to suggest they're somehow purer of heart and more artistic by what they allow and disallow in their tastes.
It's not like this stuff cures cancer or something. It's just music. What's to get snobby about?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by cuchulain54
Re: Guitars again
Sure there are snobs on both sides of this issue. But not everyone who dislikes harmonic accompaniment in this music is a snob or is insecure. Perhaps some folks simply prefer their Irish trad without chords. The unaccompanied solo is a sound that has survived in this music for hundreds of years precisely because the tunes don't need anything else, in the hands of a good melody player.
Myself, I enjoy tasteful accompaniment from a guitar or zouk, sometimes a piano. But I wouldn't want it on every tune at every session. And in some places, and maybe looking at the music overall--recordings, the rarity of backer-less sessions--it seems we're headed in that direction. I worry when backers outnumber melody players and they all play at once, or the backer never stops. For me, that's "pushing it too far." There's no space left for the tune itself.
Sometimes--once in a while--I want only my imagination to fill in the harmonic color of the tune, and not have my imagination constrained or led by someone else's choices. Other melody players can join in and still leave that coloring wide open. But as soon as a guitar or zouk strikes a chord, we're all hearing his or her colorings, not our own.
Mind you, I enjoy hearing a sensitive and creative backer color a tune. It can be very surprising and enlightening. Bit I also enjoy letting the tunes speak for themselves sometimes. I don't think that's snobbery or insecurity. If anything, it's more a sense of humility, and a trust in the power and richness of these old melodies, letting them stand alone.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Some of us - guitarists - play the melody too. And you don't have to play all of the strings at once to get a chord. OFten a couple of notes will do.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Snakefingers
Re: Guitars again
I don't think you have to be a snob to have a preference or that having a preference makes you a snob. How and why you express that preference or how far you're willing to go with that preference is a different story.
What drives me a bit mad is the sense that people have to declare their preferences, as if we're choosing up sides. What value does that declaration have, unless it's to set one's self apart? What's the motive behind that?
The reality of it is, the old melodies are rich and powerful and they stand up well on their own. They also stand up well against a variety of backing styles. In my opinion, they stack up well under some rather extreme backing styles, jazz included. To me, the good stuff is like that -- it can survive a variety of treatments. I still think one of the best things about being alive today is that you don't have to choose. It's all out there, and you can enjoy it all. Or, if you prefer, you can choose one element of it and enjoy just that. It's all good. Why declare? Why not enjoy your preferences quietly, or, if you must proselytize, do it in a nurturing sort of way: "Hey, you like that stuff that rocks out? You should check out how powerful the stuff can be without the backing -- it's very enjoyable."
But that "backing is crap" approach, or "kill the bodhran player" approach, I have no patience for.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by cuchulain54
Re: Guitars again
I also enjoy the tunes on their own without back-up as much as I do with it provided it's supportive, (as I mentioned above.) I think the problems regarding snobbery crop up when people start choosing sides and putting down the opposition for not getting it or declaring outright dismissals. I think we can all agree that the most important thing isn't whether or not it's there, but rather how it's there. Then it just becomes a matter of personal taste and preference rather than who's right or wrong.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Agreed. Which is why I don't think it helps much to brand some of these people as snobs and insecure. They may have other reasons entirely for their opinions.
As for declaring preferences, I hope it helps people think through their own preferences when they read what other people here think. Maybe it helps us move from jumped-to conclusions and prejudices to more informed, thoughtful, reasoned opinions. I can dream can't I?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Alright... Windows - Mac.. Internet Exploder - Firefox.. This religion - that religion.. Accompaniment - no accompaniment..
There is always fanatics! And with fanatics, you can not discuss about anything. They are just dogmatically repeating themselves without listening to anybody else's opinions.
Why can't we just enjoy all the different variations and styles? It would make our lives so much less stressing, both ways!
Dat's about enough about filosophy from me, I guess.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Markku
Re: Guitars again
Will, when someone comes in here and tells us we're "ruining the music," what would you attribute that to? I've thought about it a lot, and I knew personally one such individual that came in and declared such a thing, so I'm basing my conclusions on what I observed there. Insecurity was all I could come up with as an explanation for making such declarations and putting down the very people they were talking to in the process. What's your take?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
To accompany tunes properly, to treat them with the respect they deserve, backers should know the tunes as well as, if not better than, the melody players.
I'm a guitar player. I also sing a bit but am quite happy not to sing at a session. I do play along with tunes that I know and occasionally tunes that I don't know very well but if there is another backer playing then I don't see the point of backing as well. There is very little chance of playing the same backing as someone else unless you have worked it out beforehand (as in a gig?). If you want to stop someone else from trying to back up just make sure your thirteenth flattened ninth chords are loud enough to make him/her stop!
Taking my guitar playing hat off I have to say that I find it easier to listen to accompanied tunes rather than unaccompanied. OK, most session tunes are pretty simple, running up and down scales and arpeggios but, for example, I find an hour listening to unaccompanied singing pretty knackering.
Harmony usually helps makes sense of a melody. Like the forces of nature, rhythm, melody and harmony are inextricably linked. I can't hear one without the others.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because I know a bit about harmony that I hear it. My experience of melody players is that generally their knowledge of harmony is pretty poor. A lot of fiddle players seem to think that harmony means playing an open string!
Oops! Did I say that.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by DonaldK
Re: Guitars again
When it comes to guitars I think, as with any accompaniment, they add infinitely to a session, when they are played right.
I started in sessions with the guitar and never played continuously, one tune after the next. Some tunes are just better without any accompaniment.
In my opinion the best guitar playing is done by waiting for the second turn before strumming out the chords and playing the odd bass run. I do also think that one guitar sounds best so I personally don’t play accompaniment if there is another guitarist playing. I’ll just play it if I do a song or rarely I’ll play the melody on the guitar and have the other guitarist accompany me – that can sound great.
Then again its not just guitarists that don’t know when to stop playing. I’ve been to a couple of sessions where the fiddle player(s) never stopped to allow any other instruments their due place in the spotlight. (although that hasn’t happened for a long time now) There’s nothing worse than a session where a fantastic selection of musical instruments such as mandolins, flutes, whistles, concertinas, banjos, etc are not being given a set or two each in the lead.
Of course I play both guitar and fiddle so that makes me the worst of all offenders
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by session savage
Re: Guitars again
Excuse me for being a bit docile Donald, but I thought a fiddler played the tune . . note for note, someones got to. So you think the main melody player shouldn't do that, but play some form of harmonic variation?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Justintime
Re: Guitars again
That's exactly my point, Jack. I wouldn't assume anything. I'd be more inclined to ask them to explain themselves, rather than ascribing attitudes to them that I could only guess at. I certainly wouldn't assume that people here are necessarily anything like people I've met at my local session.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
My random thoughts here are:
If the melody volume is say...10
the guitar should be 7 ish.
Rhythm (sp? can never spell that word) players should absolutely be on time! There are too many guitar players that think ITM is bluegrass or Cape Breton music.
Also the guitar is still being figured out in this music. At 30 years it's still a newcomer.There's DADGAD, drop D and Regular tuning. And people apply each a little differently, though the "regular" is the least used and loosing the battle.
Singing with guitar is done at my session after every 6 sets of tunes or so. The variety really breaks up the night wonderfully.
Just a song once in a great while is lovely.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by saltcast
Re: Guitars again
snake... I agree... you can make up so called chords too, just by playing two strings that work at the right frets. Or one note and a droned open string.
and there are many meolody players out there too who ruin things by noodling to what they don't know, not tuning or attempting to, hijacking speeds, etc. It's not just backers who ruin things, in fact put a solid and good backer in a way untogether session with all the melody players at a different speed, and the backer, or drummer too, can pull them together and the sound isn't quite so painful anymore. Sometimes certain melody players don't know when to stop either.
OK... I think I am done for the month posting about backing, really nothing new to add..... well one thing, fingerstyle tune players, they back and play melody all with one hand, while noting with the other.... the thumb generally is doing the backing. So let me pose this question, would we sound better plucking the melody along on one line and not back ourselves with the droning on a lower string (though melody sometimes shifts to the low strings too, and we can back momentarily with a higher string if desired). To me it sounds pretty weak. It is also the reason some of the great flatpicker tune players, when they record, they are almost always backing themselves on a separate track. And on that note... an accordion, a concertina, etc, they back themselves too, harps.... so the point is that I don't really think backing per se is the culprit. Playing tastefully and not fighting the music is what is desired. And yes, nice if the backer drops out a bit... great for effect, but so can a fiddle or other instrument, and join in one by one.... really nice effect!
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Iris -- I appreciate your insights on this and the other thread about backing the tunes, and I would love to meet you some day and listen to you... and maybe even have a few tunes together, but I think the issue raised on this thread might be more about the attitude that there's a defect of some sort in even accepting the guitar as a valid contribution to ITM. It seems that some people feel you don't understand the music if you even like to hear guitar or other back-up in it. I think this is nonsense of course, but sometimes we'll hear from people who seem to subscribe to this. Have you ever run across this in your circles?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
PB - I think the reason for this is the perception (it may be a wrong perception, but it's there) that, as you move around different sessions in different parts of the world, there are lots of guitarists and most of them are awful. In fact, there are guitar backers that are great, but the demoralising and draining effect of a thrasher can leave emotional scars.
For a similar reason, I now tense up whenever it gets to the part where someone is going to sing a song. There was a session that I went to a while back where, at about 3 points in the evening, this woman started 'singing'. And the choice of material (kind of hippy/gospel/pop as far as I could tell) together with the excrutiating noises emanating from her have produced in me a sort of Pavlovian response.
Mind you, it does mean that, after a singer has started and I realise that, actually, it's not going to be so bad, and may actually be quite good, I'm so grateful I tend to think of it as totally brilliant. I find the same with guitars.
(Not you, Iris, you actually ARE brilliant!)
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Guitars again
I'm not saying I agree with all of the following, but I can understand it as a rational, sensible perspective.
I think it's possible to build a well-reasoned case that this music, as it's been played for centuries, is better off with no backing instruments. The only "allowable" accompaniment being the drones of another string on a fiddle or the regulators. Some people understand this to be the more authentic form of the music, before chord progressions were imposed on it. The wash of harmonies and chords (and even rhythmic patterns) from a guitar, zouk, or piano can smother nuances of note articulation, pulse, and "tonal indeterminateness" that are, for some people, the heart and soul of this music.
Think of it this way--sean nos singing developed over generations as an unaccompanied art form. If backers suddenly arrived to play along on every song, sean nos would no longer be what it was. Bearers of that tradition might be understandably upset by "outsiders" not sensing the difference between unaccompanied singing and accompanied singing, and wading in where they were not only unwanted but very unwelcome. I suspect some tune players feel the same way.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Yes Phantom... I do run into it at times. Not always though, some sessions welcome it. And.... I'd dare say for every bad guitar player who ruins a session, I can find you two melody players that do the same.... maybe they are just more numerous... so the odds are higher....just anticipating the next response, LOL!
Ben... don't make me blush!! They think we are carrying on offline anyway!! But thank you.... I can play melody, but love to back more. More of a challenge to me is all. I know not to sing unless forced.... and then need a xanax and Jack Daniels...and a very noisy pub where no one can really hear.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Sure Will, some tune players feel that way, they are welcome to at any point ask us to please let them play something solo, and we are all happy to listen and respect that. If you want a guitar free session, then call it that.
Guitar accompanyment goes pretty far back BTW if you listen to some real early 78s, you hear it, it's not something that just happened in the 60s. I wish I could think of specifics but can't right now. Some theorize that what was recorded back then was very indicative of what had been going on for possibly centuries, since people didn't get out and around much to spread different styles. Piano accompaniment was certainly abundant on early recordings too, more than guitar, backup was used very often and considered traditional by many. I think worse than a bad guitar, is a bad piano to tell the truth, maybe because of the volume of it....but a great pianist...wow!!
What it's down to, is if you don't like it, don't have it. Don't have an open session and gripe when a backer walks in. Make it a rule for your session if you want, it won't offend anyone, we do get it that some just like it that way. I'll come in with a guitar maybe.... but promise to just play tunes.... would that be OK? Or is it guitar as an instrument in general? Just curious, not being testy there... maybe some consider just fiddle, flute, pipes, box, etc. as the trad insrruments... really am curious about that.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Will... I like the way you put it.....
<<<Sometimes--once in a while--I want only my imagination to fill in the harmonic color of the tune, and not have my imagination constrained or led by someone else's choices. Other melody players can join in and still leave that coloring wide open. But as soon as a guitar or zouk strikes a chord, we're all hearing his or her colorings, not our own>>>>>
Just please kindly and politely just ask if the backer can sit out a few, if an open session. They will (OR SHOULD!!) happily oblige. Sometimes someone will say "let me play the first alone, come in on the second", or "let me play this set with just the flute player" things like that..... it's all OK, really, to do that. We like to listen too.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Yes, Will, lovely points all. Still, do you honestly think that 95 percent of the bodhran-bashing that goes on at this site is really just poets expressing their craving to let their imaginations fill the harmonic color of the tune?
Yes, some of that is in fun, but a lot of the backer-bashing and bodhran-bashing that takes place here is not, in my opinion, conducive toward encouraging anyone at all but geared toward discouraging. And not all of it comes from well-grounded traditionalists -- some of it seems to be coming from people with barely any experience at all. Yes, they have a right to their preferences, too, but where are they learning that tone of superiority, and why is it that seems to be the one quality of the experienced player that they're capable of picking up quickly?
I have nothing but sympathy for people whose sessions are ruined by insensitive drumming and strumming. I even have sympathy for the people who have an honest preference for sessions without drums and strums. But those people have a responsibility to build the kind of session they want, and they don't need to fix everyone else's.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by cuchulain54
Re: Guitars again
I think the difference between my own attitude and the one that I'm addressing in this thread has more to do with acceptance than anything related to snobbery or indiscretion. As I pointed out, I like the music unaccompanied as much as I like it with accompaniment. I haven't chosen a side; I think both ways have their own quality and beauty. I can also listen to even slow airs both ways and derive equal pleasure. Take an air like 'The Flower Of Magherally' for example. I've heard it sung in the sean-nos style, and also in brilliant arrangements, (like what Altan gave it,) and I enjoy both very much. Sure the unaccompanied style is more traditional, but I can't see why anyone would have to dismiss the one with back-up in terms of 'ruining the music'. I have heard what I consider to be poor renditions of that song, but it's not based solely on the presence of back-up, but rather how the back-up is handled.
The backing of tunes has been around longer than sessions, and is a valid part of the tradition at this point. Not a necessary part, but a valid part indeed. There’s something very ‘flat-Earth’ about insisting that acceptance of anything new, or relatively new, means you’re ruining the music or don’t understand it correctly. But what drives this compulsion to dismiss it as well as anyone who accepts it is what leaves me befuddled. Why do some folks take so much stock in being on one side or the other in a battle to the death over who’s right and who’s wrong over this? Why do people think it’s necessary to tear down or destroy one way in order for their way to be appreciated?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Agree 100 percent cuch.
Iris, just to be clear, our regular guitarist gets it--she seems to know instinctively when to sit out, when to come in. And she's very open to suggestions, though frankly the need to suggest anything different rarely comes up. Great fun playing with her.
But I have seen backers go off in a huff just because someone asked them to sit out one set. In fact, that seems to be the more typical response, in my experience, no matter how diplomatically the request is made. Some people (backers and melody players alike) assume that the goal of every session (paraphrasing Barry Foy here) is to get as many musicians playing as many tunes as possible. Any exception to this rubs their guard hairs the wrong way.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Jack, if I understand you right in your post above, you're saying we shouldn't put people down just because they like backing in this music, but then you put people down ("something falt earth") who don't accept anything new. I'm not sure I understand why it's okay to insult one set of people but not the other....
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
What about a session that's not a free for all, what about, and I am not kidding, you go around the circle and everyone who wants will start one, and they can pick a few people to play with them.....ok...the backer's tune comes.... they can either sing, or ask for a melody player or two or three or as many as they like to play a set of tunes they like. Someone told me they used to see some sessions, usually a house session, in Ireland that went like that.
Maybe too regimented? I think it would be nice, you could have an open session but keep everyone presumably happy. I have a notion to maybe give it a try sometime or suggest it at our session and see if people are receptive. Or maybe spend an hour at it that way to try it out...maybe people would like it.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Will.... If you ask one to sit out and they leave...let them. I am sure you are nice about it, if some take it to mean they play badly so be it. It shouldn't be taken personally unless delivered with a groan and look....!!!
I'd love to hear your backer! Any MP3s? Always interested. Backers can't expect the melody players or even expect one to regulary call out the keys for them either, they really need to learn the tunes in order to participate with a good flow, there is so much more to it than the key.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Will, I'm not putting them down, but rather trying to figure out what compels them to come on this site and put down anyone who accepts the guitar in ITM by characterizing them as "ruining the music" etc. You seem to be saying that any attempt to address this negative and disruptive attitude is no different than what they're doing. I have honestly expressed my hypothesis the best way I can with no attempt at insulting the responsible parties. How would you address this attitude and avoid using any terms that you feel might be considered offensive?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Iris, believe me, I have let them walk away, gratefully. If that's the ego-centric attitude they bring to the music, then we're better off without them. Especially when it's made clear to them that it's not about how well they play. And this is true of any player--backer or melody.
Mind you, I'm not the one complaining here about backers. I'm simply reiterating arguments I've heard other people make. It doesn't matter much to me. I like playing with accompaniment, and I like playing without it. But I can understand why some people are drawm to one extreme or the other. And in answer to Jack's questions, I think it's easy to understand how defensive some players get, given how some sessions are overrun by people who insist on bashing away even though they know little about the music.
It's been said a gazillion times here--the guitar is a common instrument. Lots of people who play one think they can just join in at a session, even if they've never played Irish music before. And some of them don't have a clue that they're wrecking the sound. So some people get worn out by this and they vent their frustrations here.
The same thing happens with fiddles. Again, it's a common instrument, so it's not unusual for a violinist or bluegrass fiddler to show up, eager to play Irish music, and throw the sesssion out of joint. I've seen a session infested with this sort of thing, week after week, one "session wrecker" leaves and another shows up to take his place. Look at Key Maniac Lad's posts--in some places, this sort of thing can really take its toll on other people's enjoyment of the music.
So guitars get singled out because they're ubiqitous. If the Beatles' sound had centered around trumpets, then we'd be hearing steady complaints about trumpet players storming Irish sessions....
I agree with cuch--the regular ugly venting here at the yella board about guitars and bodhrans does to this forum what the venters complain the guitars and bodhrans do to their sessions.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Jack, I'm just guessing but I doubt that the ant-guitar crowd likes being labeled as "flat earthers." Casting aspersions at them or inventing small-minded reasons for their opinions (snobbery and insecurity) won't likely move the conversation forward.
See my last sentence in my previous post for how I'd address the issue.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Ok, Will... fair enough... let's see... I'll just review some of your posts here to see if I can find any offensive words you might have used. "wrecking the sound" "bashing" "ego-centric" "But I have seen backers go off in a huff" Hmmm... I guess expressing our opinions and avoiding anything that might be considered offensive is easier said than done.
It wasn't my intent to insult people that come in here and insult us just because we might accept guitar back-up in Irish music. I was simply expressing what I think could be behind such assaults. I can't imagine doing so in a way that would please your censor, Will. I don't think you can either based on what's written in your past couple of posts. According to your standards neither of us are moving the discussion forward.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Now, now Will and Jack, step away from the railing there, take a deep breath, and don't jump over the cliff again!!!!!
Backing is like spices in food--they should never dominate the taste of the dish, so you forget what the main ingredient is--that can be caused by too much of one spice, or too many different spices at once. And adding the same spice to every dish only makes them taste all the same.
Following that analogy, there should not be too many backers, and the volume of the backing should never dominate the melody. And no one at a session (backers or melody) should play on every single tune. Varying the mix of instruments from tune to tune helps make it all sound that much better (and if you all know all the tunes the other folks are playing, you are all getting stale).
And every moment of trancendent beauty does not need to be accompanied--like Miles Davis said, the silence between notes can be as important as the notes.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Guitars again
'but a lot of the backer-bashing and bodhran-bashing that takes place here is not, in my opinion, conducive toward encouraging anyone at all but geared toward discouraging. And not all of it comes from well-grounded traditionalists -- some of it seems to be coming from people with barely any experience at all.'
Spot on Cuch.....
Sometimes its very easy (especially for me) To get annoyed and fight on the yellow board - but the above statement is exactly *why* I get so annoyed. This high and mnight -" I'm fabulous cause I play melody - even if Ive not been playing very long...and therefore backers blah blah'
I have to say - this constant bitching about backing in all forms is starting to wear very thin.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Guitars again
LOL, Jack, I wasn't trying to avoid being offensive. The quotes of mine you pulled out were aimed at people who don't know anything about Irish trad music or sessions, not knowledgeable backers. I wasn't talking about anyone who's posted here. All of us here have a stake in saving our sessions from clueless debutantes who wreck the sound with their ego-centric bashing. Saying so shouldn't ruffle anyone's feathers here because we're all in the same boat.
In your comments, in contrast, you've characterized people based on their posts here and their anti-guitar opinions as snobs and insecure, and compared them to flat earthers.
Go ahead and gilderize the lily, if that's where you want to take this, but I'm not biting.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
"And in answer to Jack's questions, I think it's easy to understand how defensive some players get, given how some sessions are overrun by people who insist on bashing away even though they know little about the music."
Yes Will - and that is especially true for melody players !
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Guitars again
Exactly right Beebs. I've never said anything different. Like I said above, clueless fiddlers are also a common session wrecker. Basically, any instrument that's widely popular and portable has a tendency to show up at Irish sessions, whether the people playing them know anything out Irish music or not. The more common the instrument (guitar, some sort of drum, fiddle), and the more accessible it is to beginners, the more likely it is that we'll hear complaints about it here.
In short, a prime reason we aren't sick of hearing about tubas wrecking sessions is because so few people play tuba.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Very true!
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Guitars again
Sorry to be so tardy in response, but no, docile Stewpot, I think fiddlers should stick to playing the tune note for note, as I do when I play mandolin, and stop trying to play harmony which just mucks it up for a backer who is trying to play accompaniment.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by DonaldK
Re: Guitars again
And tubas are much harder to lug around!
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Guitars again
Well... I'm not interested in arguing with Will or anyone else about my approach, but I stand by my statements and make no apologies for my hunches regarding what drives people to come on this board and cast such wide disparaging dismissals at us for simply accepting guitars as legitimate contributors to ITM. If folks feel they need to be negative and condescending just to prove that they hold the golden challis of knowledge regarding everything ITM and all of us who don’t agree with them are condemned to ignorance and considered defective, then they should be prepared for what we might think compels them to denounce us so.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Another way to think about this is consider what instrument dominates the racks at most mainstream music stores. Even some of the CD chain stores sell guitars. And most nights of the week, especially leading up to Christmas, you see steady television infomercials for guitars by Esteban. I've never seen an infomercial selling uilleann pipes on tv.
So of course there are a lot of guitar-god wannabes out there. And some of them show up at Irish sessions.
The anti-guitar discussions here would be easier to tolerate (or ignore if it's just not your cup of tea) if people were clear about when they mean the wannabes, and when they mean any sort of backing at all, based on their preference for a melody-only approach to the music. Two very different conversations.
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Will, do you think you might sit this conversation out?
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by grego
Re: Guitars again
(Just kidding :>) :>) :>) :>) )
# Posted on January 16th 2007 by grego
Re: Guitars again
Though maybe there's a point, just the same. We often illustrate session etiquette to necomers by comparing it to a conversation between friends. Would you barge in as an outsider? No, of course not.
But equally, would you ask one of your friends to maybe not talk while we discuss a certain topic we would enjoy better without their contribution, just this time?
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by grego
Re: Guitars again
(Jack, I have to disagree. Putting words in other people's mouths and ascribing mindsets to them that they actually do not hold unnessarily degrades the conversation here and plays down to the level of people who use the same tactics. It's less a response, more a reaction. And it ignores the more reasonable arguments for limiting or eliminating backing from sessions.)
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
Hup hey grego. I'll butt out.
But what if you wanted to meet with like-minded friends to talk-- in Spanish--just about the original Spanish edition of Don Quijote? Would you welcome someone who didn't speak Spanish, or who wanted to converse only in French?
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
But if we are talking about sessions then we are all 'speaking' the same language - ie playing trad.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Guitars again
I think if you ask a guitar player to 'sit out these tunes' you're asking for trouble. In a session it's better to leave it up to them to decide. How would you feel if someone turned to you as a fiddler or flute player etc., and asked you to 'sit these tunes out'?
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
That's quite a different matter, Will. (The Spanish/French thing.) If I want to be part of a no-accompaniment session, I had better arrange it that way in advance and, sure, the guitar player would not be invited.
But we're talking about a group of friends gathered together for a few tunes and a bit of fun. I would never turn to the pipe player in this group and say "this one might sound better without pipes. Would you give it a rest for a while?" He or she might be a no-conflict type of person and acquiesce, but I wouldn't blame them for resenting it (and maybe finding another session the next time.)
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by grego
Re: Guitars again
.. um, what Jack said. But he said it better.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by grego
Re: Guitars again
I took Button's "flat-earther" term as a bit tongue-in-cheek, myself.
I'm a backer, so maybe I'm being defensive in all this. But here's the thing, as I see it. I'm not a very good backer, yet even so, I realize, in a session situation, I have it in my power to kind of take over the overall sound in a way. If I'm playing guitar with, say, a couple fiddles, a couple flutes and a banjo, I probably have more ability to influence the overall sound for good or evil than any other individual in that session, and that makes me very, very uncomfortable, because, in my opinion, that's should be the melody players' privilege. I can choose dark chords when maybe the melody players are feeling merry, or vice versa, or I can thrash away on something that the melody players see as delicate. I'm not talking about playing crap -- we all can do that, of course. I'm talking about imposing my musical will on a situation. It's not, in my opinion, a good thing. I feel as though the melody players should have the say, yet, because I'm working with rhythm and harmony, as opposed to the more subtle melody, I can have my way with the situation.
So I don't. I try not to, at least, especially among strangers. I don't enjoy playing in those situations very much at all, and I'll usually play for 20-30 minutes, for social reasons, before finding an excuse not to. And while I do, I try as best as I can to read the situation and respond to it. That's the kind of session where I find myself with a group of strangers, but when I and my son and a friend get together and session, I figure we're all hauling the load together, and so I need not feel funny about contributing my thing.
So I feel sensitive about it, about the outcome of the music and about my role in it. And I try to act accordingly, though, of course, I'm probably limited by what I know, don't know, can do, can't do, etc., just like any other musician. What I don't think I need, though, is some @$$hole lecturing me about how I'm not needed because guitarists are crap and they only take away from the music. That person may be right, but I don't think I need to hear it.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by cuchulain54
Re: Guitars again
Based on everything I’ve read in these threads, 'backing' is just another way of saying ‘accompaniment,’ David. I think you realize this actually... or are you just getting testy since you gave up smoking?
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Cute
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Dont worry Cuch - that person is not right......at all.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Guitars again
I have seen many times two players for example ask, can we play this one alone... sort of like a person doing a song. Usally very few if any will back the song. A friend and I do some O'Carolan duets, and another friend does harp solos, that's what I mean to sit out a few. I wouldn't get offended personally...unless they told me to shut up and stop playing for an hour or something or until they felt like stopping playing for a break.... and that HAS happened... got it from a guitar basher!!
I hope this is my last post on this topic!!
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
We seem to have drifted into the concept of being asked not to play. I usually stop playing when I realize the version is too different, or I don't know the tune. I never noodle or try to pick up tunes on the fly. If I played guitar or bouzouki etc., I would stop if the tune was too unfamiliar, especially if it's obvious that the chords aren't predictable. If someone said to me, "This tune is pretty tricky." I might listen to it before attempting to play along, or just let it go without any backing. If someone said, "You might want to sit out because the second tune is really different." or something along those lines -- I would be fine. If someone said "Would you mind sitting these tunes out? I prefer to hear them without back-up." It would be dodgy. If I knew the person well and understood and trusted them... well… no problem. But if they were someone I hardly knew it might feel a bit controlling.
On the other hand, you can tell when a couple of people have something worked out like O'Carolan tunes or something along those lines, and that it might be a good idea to sit it out... even as a melody player. And if it's made understood by all the musicians in attendance that everyone wants to hear the duet, then there's no problem. But if you get singled out and asked to not play I think it's going to feel bad no matter how you rationalize it.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
I seem to see a really big difference in the way things are done in different areas around the world. For example - Most of the backers that I know and play with are spot on. They would be the majority (I'm only speaking about the people I play tunes with mind) The minorty would be the 3 chord wonder or thrasher or whatever. The backers that I play with are talented, and know what they are doing - more so than lots of tune players.
This thing about asking people to sit out? What??? I mean who died and made you god of the session? Thats just silly. If you want to do a little performance piece - then do it on a stage. Same thing goes - if you dont want backers in your session then spread the word......most people would not turn up to a session if they knew their kind would not be appreciated.
And If I heard that there was a session with no backing allowed I would not turn up. So really - thats probably the best way to go about it. Straight up without wasting any time I'd know that that isnt the kind of session that I'd like, the backers wouldnt go and annoy you guys and you guys wouldnt be annoying the backers....and then everyone would be happy.
("you guys" being a general term - not aimed at anyone specifically)
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Guitars again
Heck. Occasionally someone'll play a tune no one else knows if another person's asked for it. But asking people to sit still and shut up while someone else plays to duet/solo piece. At the places I go to play we go to play (or listen to people playing ad hoc), not to listen to other people perform. When people want to hear amaturs/semi-pros perform they'll go to a folk club,when they want a pro performance they'll go to a gig (nothing against folk clubs by the way, I just got scared for life due to my local folk club where I was brought up)
Out of interest, at the "backer-free-session", will the box players be allowed to use their left hand?? (I believe these instruments, along with the harp, piano accordion and concertina nicely support the argument for chordality in trad. music by the way).
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Andy V
Re: Guitars again
Exactly - its ok to play tunes no one else knows - but you cant sit there and say 'Me and my friend here are going to do a 'piece' - would you guys mind being quiet' - what the f***???
If you play tunes no one else knows - then shock, horror - people may have to go and *learn* it then they may be able to *join* in. I would never say - 'I am going to play a tune by myself now - please no one join in and please dont go and learn this tune as its *my solo piece because I'm a big ole show off'
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Guitars again
When I've seen it happen it's usually been vollunteer. Very rarely have I seen it happen in any organized way.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
I do remember one session I was at in Pepper's Bar in Feakle and Cyril asked me to play a tune. I was surprised that no one else joined in, but then he asked other people to play right after me that would play either solos or duets. Then after a few more it was back to the tunes we all played.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Nice use of understatement there, Beebs.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Guitars again
It might help others to understand where bb is coming from if I point out that I go to the same session that she does (well, one of them - how many do you go to bb?), Dow's session as it happens, and that the guitarist that we get there regularly is outstandingly, exceptionally tasteful and effective. When the average guitar is brought into the average session you can not generally expect to hear the class of contribution made by the person I'm talking about.
On the other hand, I can no longer resist relating this incident from the other end of the scale. It was about two years ago at what was then my most regular session. For reasons that will become apparent I looked closely at the left-hand work of the player next to me. He was playing D shapes, with capo of course, as the tune was in G.
"Gubby", I said above the music, for that was his name, "aren't you in the wrong key?"
He looked at his fingerboard, counted and saw that his capo was on the fourth fret. "Oh yes, so I am!" he replied, seemingly happily. He slid the capo up one more fret and carried on with almost no disturbance to the rhythm.
But it takes all sorts, they say, and isn't the joy of sessions that you really do get all sorts?
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Lingpupa
Re: Guitars again
Its okay Alex - Will knows exactly what I'm like!
\
But yes - at Dow's session the guitar player is a realy treat. Exceptional - lovely fiddle player as well.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Guitars again
I agree with all the "tasteful and sensitive guitar accompaniment based upon knowledge of the melodies is good" comments previously expressed in this thread.
After all this, I have another question. What is the point in having a guitar at a session or performance
if the playing is so soft that you can't even hear it?
I'll give an example or two. In the last few years I've been to
performances by melody players who had guitar
accompaniment. In each case, I just couldn't hear the guitar it was played so softly.
I really couldn't figure out what the purpose of the accompaniment was, other than as a visual cue for the audience that a "group" was playing. I suppose the musicians could hear it, and maybe it benefited them, but I just couldn't hear them.
This has happened in sessions that I've listened to as well.
The guitarist is so soft and tentative that you can't hear anything all night. Well, I'm sure some people here will stand up and applaud for all silent guitars. However, I don't know why a guitar should be played at all if you can't hear it.
(I know someone will say that's the only way a guitar should be played.)
Another point or two...
It's always good to have a guitar handy as accompaniment for
the song that emerges from time to time at a session. Often
a singer really can benefit from the rhythm and chords provided by a guitar to guide them along, especially if they are inexperienced at singing in public.
Finally, few have mentioned the bass role that a guitar plays in
the music. I know that some people abhor the idea of
a 'bass" part. However, many people, like myself, have heard lots of music that uses bass as a fundamental
component - classical, rock, bluegrass, jazz, and on and on.
Yes, I know that the melodies can and do frequently stand alone. However, I just like it better when there's a bottom to the music to complement the tenor and soprano ranges of the fiddles, whistles, and flutes.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by halfwaythere
Re: Guitars again
Funny Andy... a no left hand session!! For me a no thumb session!
Let me clarify about O'Carolan pieces for example a friend and I do, people ASK us, we never say shut up we're doing this alone. And then they tend to sit and listen. We wouldn't mind if they join in. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
At a session, I never ask anyone to do anything beyond play that great tune they played last time etc. All the asking, is hopefully positive. Sometimes someone wants to play something and if I am not sure, I have asked if they want me to play and they can say yes or no, up to them, I don't get offended.
To be told to just stop playing by one particular guitar player was over the top. I sat out, being stunned, and also because we didn't play well together, I even asked if we could take turns.....no. He said I would have to wait until he took his break!Then he says, you're not playing anyway, get out of your seat. At which point there was a skirmish, where I was told by others to stay right there. So he got mad and left, and I played. Very bad night. I won't go back. Who needs it.
That kind of rudeness, well, it's the only time it's ever happened like that. This person has done it, I found to some others. wants to be the only guitar there, yet it's an open session. Nothing wrong with conflicting styles taking turns, but this was something different. Often conflicting backers work it out among themselves, same as drummers, who plays on what. Sometimes surprisingly more than one works if there is no conflict. Being a more melodic based accomanist, I can usually gel with another guitar. Sometimes it does work. Often not though!
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Hi Iris, I've been watching these threads with interest - you're excellent at explaining the issues relating to accompaniment in Irish Traditional Music - good on you!
I was interested in your experience regarding the other rude guitarist - that's a bit much! I must admit, I don't like the sessions where there's more than one accompaniest - (I normally go to the bar) - usually a recipe for disaster, with clashing styles and different voicings etc... Having said that, on occasions it does work, but it sure ain't easy. I recall being in a session when a friend who has a totally different style (and very much more in your face style) from mine, joining the session. I suggested that it might be wise if we took turns to play a few sets each - his answer was a flat, uncompromising NO! Despite the selfishness, we're still friends - having said that, I've managed to mostly avoid any sessions where he's playing.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Ron P
Re: Guitars again
Well, after reading all this bashing of guitar players, there still remains the more important question of fiddle players with bad ear and poor technique, what a pain that can be.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Risto
Re: Guitars again
Methinks you play guitar and methinks you do not play fiddle?
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by domnull
Re: Guitars again
The guitar nightmare for me was back in the early 90s when a very aggressive Scottish fellow showed up to take the local session scene by storm. He was the sort that would join the sessions regardless of whether or not their was already a guitar player present and play much louder eventually driving the other player away. If the session was wedged tight and there was no room for anymore musicians he would walk around behind musicians who were sitting out a tune they didn't know and put a walkman on their head that had a tape featuring him playing with musicians in Scotland. Then he would keep after whomever was playing guitar to let him play a few tunes. Once he got the chance he would call out the tunes he wanted to play and then bash the same loud chord accompaniment over it. Amazingly some musicians went along with this. Eventually though he was banned by publicans from just about every pub in town, not just for bad guitar playing, but for just plain bad behavior. The funny thing was that outside of a session when no one had instruments in their hands he was a decent fellow. Putting a guitar in his hands had the same effect that putting a steering wheel in some folk's hands has.
# Posted on January 17th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
I wonder who that might have been - you've got me thinking....? Any clues Jack? One phenomenon I've had the misfortune to experience here at some festivals concerns one guitarist in particular, who on a number of occasions at various festivals, when unable to get a seat, has strapped on his guitar and played directly behind me extremely loudly, despite the fact there was already a guitar in the session - the soundhole right beside my left lug - very, very annoying. Grrr....
However - he's not Scottish - so he's not the culprit.
# Posted on January 18th 2007 by Ron P
Re: Guitars again
I've probably said too much as it is.
# Posted on January 18th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Guitars again
Don't worry - I wouldn't have expected you to divulge more. Though must admit.......that it wasn't me!
# Posted on January 18th 2007 by Ron P
Re: Guitars again
I play banjo, as my main instrument, but started backing, as the sound I heard at sessions was never what I wanted, and as Will rightly pointed out, often drove the tune in a direction that I never wanted. Most recorded backers, never really do anything for me other then Squires Finn, Sproule, and Blake.
I have to say though, having spent the last couple of years, really getting into backing, I've realised, its so much harder to find a good sympathetic tasteful backer then it is a melody player. This is a challenge I've enjoyed, and as a result, I've got so many more gigs as a backer then I did as a banjo-er.
Its great to hear a raw tune find its own way out through 3 or 4 melody instruments, but its also great, to FOLLOW or BACK good players who can color the tune around your backing.
Or Vice Versa...It always boils down to the same answer on this topic. I do think, that some one who plays melody often has the headstart of having a good idea of the tunes and whats in them.
I heard Tony Mac Mahon was playing with Steve Cooney at the moment....that makes me laugh.
# Posted on January 18th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: Guitars again
Ron.... I spoke to the guy before we started and said I would be happy to take turns, he said let's try it and see. I never played with him before, but we sure were on a different wavelength. I was going to sit out the next when he got up and yelled at me to stop playing until he took a break...when??? Anyway I was OK, I've fairly thick skinned, whatever, but to then be told to get out of my seat because I wasn't playing was too much. Esp. since the fiddler/leader had sat me across from him because he likes playing with me. That's when it started to blow up, he said I should stay right there. Whatever. I won't go back, it's too long a drive anyway, we have better ones closer.
Risto...ditto. But open session is open session. They can tell us to stop, but I sure would never go to a fiddler and say, stop, your intonation is way off. I have been next to some....and the worst I ever do is say....hmmmm.... I think maybe I am way out of tune to you..... then check my tuner and say, nope, not me, something sounds off, wonder who it could be, and look around the room. At which point they tune or are more aware of the intonation. Not to say I never go out of tune, LOL.... I even once said into a mike....Drat... my G String keeps slipping..... it got a lot of laughs and people say it all the time now at out sessions in NJ. First time, really a mistake!
Phantom.... I recently met one nearly as tactless. Whatever, it's an ope session I keep remembering. Sometimes I get a little testy myself...hopefully while maintaining total decorum (what an archaic term...my age must be showing) in that, when the melody players get a bit fed up, they will go into "throw the backer mode" and throw the person, who sometimes gets so lost they quit (and maybe those are the ones that show a little promise!) and then I will come back into the music.... not to brag about knowing odd tunes, these are people I have known a long time, I know their sets pretty much inside out is all, could do thme in my sleep. It's all abotu memory and knowing the tunes.
Hugo.... I'm with you.... one thing you say though, and I know it's just a choice of wording to not be taken literally... but the word FOLLOW.... a good backer doesn't technically FOLLOW, you need to be right there with them. I know that's not what you meant and am not disputing or being a pill.... it's just that many new backers think you FOLLOW, and I can really hear them a fraction of a second behind the melody. In fact sometimes you want to be a fraction of a second ahead of it, to sort of pave the way for the note to flow into. Not all the time but sometimes....say when part A or B end and there is that little space between the notes.... you do not want to fill the spaces, that's not what I am getting at, but leave the space and come in just a fraction of a second ahead of the melody player. Used sparingly, to may ear it gives a nice effect. Listen really closely to some of the best backers and you can hear it sometimes....it's extremely subtle and fleeting.
OK... I am sure to get an argument on that point!! It's just a seasoning to vary things a little, to wak up the listener on some real subtle level, it actually makes them, I think more aware of the melody, which is the point of backing. That is because there is this fleeting little sound, but OMG where is the melody.... Oh There It is!!
This is in no way that hitting the guitar on the offbeat, and filling in the very precious and important spaces between the notes, this is something else, and hope I have conveyed it properly. Mostly you have to be with the melody, not Follow it.
Sorry to sound so opinionated about backing, I do realize there are many ways to do it, I just am saying what I like to hear in it personally. Not knocking others.
# Posted on January 18th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Gee.... Queen of the typos this morning. Rushing as always.... must get off this darned machine... this discussion is so provocative though!
# Posted on January 18th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Iris I used to post on every guitar thread here on the mustard board but now that you are here I never really bother because by the time I get there you have said it all. And said it better than I could ever do.
My biggest self-realisation about what I was doing wrong in backing,was when I listened to a recording and heard that I was 'following' and that was why it sounded wrong. I guess I was just a millisecond behind the fiddle player but it was enough to make it sound lame to my ears.
# Posted on January 19th 2007 by Donough
Re: Guitars again
Hi Donough.... you can take over after this.... I am burnt out on posting!!! Not quite yet on reading, but realize I could be playing tunes with this precious time!
Anyway, sometimes we musicians are a bit high strung (pun intended) and we hear all sorts of picciaune (sp?) stuff that others never hear. I wonder does it matter to most if they are heard "following" by a little, or is it just us that get insanely irritated by it, not even so much in others, but in ourselves? In any case, being a born perfectionist with impossibly high standards that will never be reached, it makes me nuts when I hear myself following, and I berate myself in the most abusive ways that I would never ever dream of inflicting on others....what is that???Time for a chill pill maybe!
Sometimes, maybe first go round in a new tune, you do follow a split second behind on parts here and there, when you are playing on the fly. Preferably on a new tune presented, I like to lay low and listen once through.... sometimes though I think they are starting something I know, but it turns out not to be the case. I don't like to cut out in the middle of a tune suddenly, but if I get the feeling that I will mess someone up by continuing, I'll fade myself out... just cleaner that way.
I know once you have started playing a set with someone, you ought to stick with it, but not if you are going to mess it up, same as for a melody player, it's the lesser of two evils.... get yourself out in a way that sounds graceful... in fact a lot of the current super groups use that (admittedly at the END of a tune) for effect, and let the melody carry on. Then they fade back in. Melody players rarely tell you what they are going to play next in a set, nor should they be required to, so sometimes you are faced with a second tune you never heard before, and you either "follow" by a hair once through until you get it, or fade out is my take on it.
Usually there seems to be a particular pattern to *most* tunes which is one of a generic handful of patterns, and whether conscious or not, I believe that aside from the odd tunes that really deviate from the normal predictable patterns, you can sense them after backing for a long time, and be able to back on the fly and not be "following". You can pick up the chord/note patterns fairly quickly too... and also that is how many fiddlers, for example, can pick up and play a new tune on the fly too. It would be an interesting outlay for someone well versed in reading and writing music to do.... show these generic patterns laid out, that come up over and over again in many tunes. I am not the one to do it, being an ear player, I have a lot of trouble explaining these things, let alone analyzing them and writing them down.
Again... I think we're down to the fact that by many, backers are not considered musicians. Many are not, true, ,but many melody players also will never get beyond that line where they have an ease and comfort and good flow with the instrument and it comes out sounding like really good music. Still, they love it, love playing and want to partake in it all and I don't believe should be banished (unless arrogant and rude to the others, but that's not about the music) or belittled. Many are learning and trying to improve, we're all trying to improve, or should be no matter what the level, there is always room to play better. People are in it for the fun and the social aspects as well as the music at a session. You find all levels, you see your pals and have a good time. If they noodle to things they don't know, guitars included, tell them tactfully or get someone to do it. Many are not aware it bothers people until you tell them and they are happy to stop. Many think they are doing it so quietly no one hears but them, most are fine about stopping, guitar or melody players.
OK... I said I wouldn't post anymore on this old topic anyway!!
Donough, it's yours.....!
# Posted on January 19th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Guitars again
Why does it make you laugh Hugo ?
# Posted on January 23rd 2007 by BegF