When talking with guitarists is it more helpful to describe the tune I'm about to play as in "G" (because it only has one sharp) or "D mixolydian" (because that is the modal key it's in)? I hope this question makes sense and I'm sure it betrays my ignorance of music theory...which has never been a strength.
Being mainly an accompanist, I like to hear the actual mode, but key signature works also...
How useful that information is depends on whether the accompanist understands modes...
When says "G", I automatically assume it´s G major, though I would ask for confirmation. I´d rather expect any mode to be named. Maybe this is because I´m German and have spent time in Northern Ireland and I have realized that people around the globe treat this differently, so I ask to avoid misunderstandings.
In my experience, the best you're going to get most of the time from guitarists, if the 'key' is D mix, is to yell "D". They won't understand the 'mix' bit, but that could be worse, and if you say "G", they'll play in G even though it isn't, and then blame *you* for yelling the 'wrong' key.
If you tell someone a tune is in G and it's not, you have yelled the wrong key. D mix is derived from a G scale but you're not in the key of G in a D mix tune. The tonal center is D with a flatted 7th degree.
Most of the time I'd say the key. But often, I'd say the first chord. Strummers I play with know the tunes. When your making sets up on the fly, all they need is the first chord. They catch on quick enough
Yes, Steve, I know you'd have yelled a wrong key in that situation. My point was that most guitarists, as far as I can see, would plough on regardless without actually being able to work out that it was wrong. And I reckon that in that case, they have only themselves to blame for not bothering to listen properly.
I've yet to meet a guitar player who knows a mode from a bull's foot. And anyway, just try shouting out the key if you've got your mouth full of gob-iron. What we really need is a course to raise the average IQ of guitar accompanists to at least double figures. And a follow-up course designed to deflate their egos.
There are a lot of tunes, most of them pretty dull, but some good, that any decent strummer will make a reasonable stab at having never heard them before. Gmaj say? Start on the G, throw in a C, predict where the big Ds come. It's not rocket science.
A lot of the best tunes, however, are really just not that predictable. And there absolutely are no short cuts. You have to know the tune.
Pragmatically though, if you are a tune player in a session and you want the strummers to strum along, then it's your duty to know them. To know their predictive abilities and to know what tunes they know. If you don't know the strummers and you want them to strum along, the shout "G" and and play boring tunes in G.
I think the same rules should apply to guitar accompanists as to bodhranistas. Keep out of it unless you know the tune forward, backward and sideways. Otherwise, just accept that you can add nothing but can take an awful lot away. Basically, you are not needed, so if you want to join in learn the tunes in advance, not on the hoof.
I don't want to let this deteriorate into another anti bodhran thread. If anything, if we keep it constructive, the bodhran players might get more of a glimpse of the music.
I think it's pretty straight forward that if your strummers are any good at all, you shouldn't have to communicate with them in any other way than merely playing the music.
And if you are introducing a tune they don't know, merely tell them the key if you think they are up to strumming it with such little information. Or maybe just a simple direction like, "it starts with a Gmaj but it's actually in D and the B part's in Bmin". (you might say this before you start, of course)
Simple direction that, eh! Not round here it wouldn't be. As a melody player I have no great desire to concern myself with chords anyway, but an instruction like that would end up with an Eric Morecambe/André Previn moment. It's easier to let 'em flounder.
"I think the same rules should apply to guitar accompanists as to bodhranistas. Keep out of it unless you know the tune forward, backward and sideways. Otherwise, just accept that you can add nothing but can take an awful lot away. Basically, you are not needed, so if you want to join in learn the tunes in advance, not on the hoof."
I agree, but would apply the rule to melody players to this too, unless it's okay for them to just fart around even though they don't know the melody?
I also love when I hear any musician say a tune's in the key of whatever the first note is. Shows superior musical knowledge.
I prefer to let people know what I intend to play using the snippet method, i.e. playing a snippet of each tune so people will recognize the tune rather than the title. The guitarists I've been lucky enough to work with will garner everything they need from this and I won't have to try to shout out keys while I have a flute to my lips. But a lot of people are resistant to this approach and would rather be "spontaneous" even if they always put the same tunes together or know what they're going to play in advance. Because of this I'm often forced to go along with the crowd and do the same thing. But shouting out keys mid-tune has certain pitfalls.
So if I have to tell a guitar or other back-up player what's coming up mid-tune I usually say the key and mode. This is often inadequate and the back-up often ends up stumbling through the tune the first time or two. There are some tunes where I'd like to say, "This is in G major, but it starts on a C chord." Which is a lot to try to say while you're playing, and the odds that the back-up will hear it correctly are questionable as well. If I'm allowed to lay it out beforehand I might say things like, "It's in G major, but it sounds like it starts in the key of D. The B part is in G but goes to an E minor chord at the end."
Of course the best back-up people can sort all of this out on the fly -- but they're a rare breed.
I would definitely tell an accompanist D instead of G. Even if it is modal. It has always amazed me how some people can sit in on a session and happily bang away at your standard beginners shape G chord when a tune is in D or vice versa.
Another good one is some idiot playing D under an A minor tune. If only they new how hard it is to play a tune in that environment.
How bad can some peoples ears be?
There is implied harmony in the majority of tunes.
I've noticed that some people don't even realise there's a shift in the tonal centre in a lot of the tunes. They just sit there with an idiot grin and bang away with appalling rhythm to boot.
Maybe there should be a backers licensing board, where any potential guitar or bouzouki backer has to know a minimum of twenty tune melodies of different tonalities to at least have an idea of different tune settings so that they have better chance of analysing other tunes successfully spontaneously by ear.
You may have deduced I've had another irritating session in that regard, myself trying to pick tunes on the spanish guitar with a couple of fiddle players, having one guitar player either side of me playing in different keys. Have you ever had the experience when you yell "A-M i n o r " of realisation the person
your yelling to has no idea what an "A-Minor" is.
The afternoon was saved however by an accomplished young gent stepping in ( thanks Dave L.).
It takes years to learn all these tunes and I think there are some guitar strummers around who don't realise that or respect it at all.
Bottom line: You shouldn't even have to explain whether its modal or not , they should be able to recognise it immediately.
I think that the standard,common accepted way of teaching guitar,spread worldwide,is entirely unsuited for accompanying this kind of music.
It begins from a fundamentally different premise,designed for accompanying folk songs or for playing rock and roll,the basic three chord trick that permits almost anyone to appear to be a guitarist.For those who progress further,it's chord inversions up the neck,which is good for jazz.IMHO,(possibly in agreement with Mr Llig) musical theory can be more hindrance than help.It's about hearing,feeling,practice.
Depends on whether you're talking about a fairly experienced guitarist or not. When keys are called out at all around our sessions, we have one guy--a massively talented univ. music prof who leads the sessions when he's there--who's completely in control, calls out "D mix" sometimes and "D" other times, whether mix or not. When he's not there, or it's not his called set, sometimes I get no key and sometimes they'll call out just G or E, which most experienced players would know, without further explanation, that G is usually major and E usually minor. (Yeah, I know--many notable exceptions, but if you have to make a guess and play the first bar one way or the other, you know what to do.)
Beyond that, once you have a quick hint as to the general key, if you know the tunes at all, you'll know within the first few notes where you're going--mix, dor, straight major, whatever.
Also, half the sets you play at any local session where you play regularly tend to have many of the same tunes in the same order, so you're already covered for a lot of it if you've been paying attention.
So, with all that together, it's hardly ever a problem at most local sessions here. Worst comes to worst, a sharp guitarist drops for a bar, hears it, and is right back in.
Anyway...I guess the better short answer to the original question would be, I'd rather have the actual tonic chord called out on an unfamiliar tune, with mode if you want to. I've had too many times where a fiddler will call out "G!" when she actually means E minor or D mix. I don't really wanna hear the key signature per se; that's just notation on a page, a mediatory construct that requires translation. Just gimme the tonic, and I'll figure the rest, or I'll drop out and suck down a pint.
I'm sorry, let me revise that answer to the original question:
If anything has to be called out for a tune you know is unfamiliar, sure, call out the tonic and mode if you want. I'll get it either way, called or not.
But if that situation comes up a lot--particularly if I need to hear mode on every tune--that's a sign that I don't know the tunes, and I totally agree it should be up to accompanists to know their sh$%. It's a little embarrassing and worthless if you don't, since the accompanist's burden really is so much lighter than the tune player's--and I'm saying that as an accompanist.
There really just is no substitute for knowing the tunes. Not that the original question implied otherwise.
I just had to stop and make myself think, 'cos I was going to agree with Steve Shaw on the universal lack of knowledge of modes by guitarists.
In fairness, there are a few - a very few - guitarists that I've met on my travels who would know that this music is modal, and have *some* clue what that might mean. The rest? You might as well be talking Martian to them as to suggest anything to do with modes - most of them don't know what a key is, let alone a mode. They're just stuck with what chords there might be in the tune - they don't get how they fit together. As most guitarists know, *all* tunes can be accompanied using I, IV and V. If it needs anything else, the tune's wrong.
Reminds me of a photo with caption on the front of Melody Maker a very long time ago. The photo showed two members of the heavy metal (?) band Grand Funk Railroad arguing vociferously. The caption was "Look, it's E. Then A. Then B. Then back to E. But if you can't get it, just play loud."
Well, emncaity, you're right, I haven't. Actually, I have, but the best guitarists I've come across are also very good on other (melody) instruments and they hardly ever pick up their guitars these days (it's a breath of fresh air when they do!), preferring to play tunes, and to be honest they're a lot more use all round doing that.
Of course, it would be a wonderful world if ALL it took for an accompanist to be useful was to put the right chords in the right places...
There's plenty of guys who've had a lifetime career and got rich and famous with I,IV and V,e.g.Status Quo.
I have to admit that I spent 30+ years playing guitar,including playing all sorts of fancy diminished,augmented,suspended,what's yer names that would make many another guitarist feel small and inferior when they asked 'what's that chord?' before I even found there was such a thing as modal music.
I got into learning 5 string banjo and Appalachian oldtime,and suddenly people were talking about modes with bizarre Greek names.Modes?? Seems to me,Appalachian fiddlers and banjo players were into modes a hundred years ago,and guitarists still have not caught up.I'm still on the learning curve,that's why I'm here.I've discarded everything I learned before about the fretboard.The way I look at it now is more like a cello or fiddle,an alternative tuning and then melody lines or patterns.But I'm not having to accompany any other instrument,I'm trying to develop ways to play the melody and accompaniment all on the guitar.It's great,because that way I don't need to make you guys cross and incur your wrath and contempt
"Learn the tunes,learn the tunes,learn the tunes,learn the....." Gotcha,and thanks!
Play the tune, simple as that really. It's sound not science as far as I hear it. I may miss a little twist or turn the first time through, may stumble a bit with it the second, and have it fair enough on the third if I've heard the tune or one similar before. If I have no idea by listening then I rest the guitar on my lap, make progress on my whiskey whilst enjoying the tune, and go for a refill when the tune or set ends. I may lilt the tune in my head away from the others whilst working out that which I couldn't grasp so I'll have it for the next time it comes around.
A smart guitarist can make to with just the tonic note - G can cover a multitude of sins including major, minor, dorian, mixolydian. However, a good guitarist should start with a diad (ie a chord with no thirds in) and, within the space of a bar, have picked out whether it's a minor or major third, and a minor or major seventh. They should also be able to feel at the end of the phrase whether or not a chord change is going to be needed for the next one and, if it is, make a decent guess at which chord it'll be. Or change the diad into a sus4 chord (the standard get out).
Of course, a brilliant guitarist will know the players so well that they will be (by dint of knowing how many tunes in a certain key they've played, how likely they are to change key, what modulations they like, what sort of mood they're in and what tunes they like to put together) able to have a shortlist of 5 or so tunes they think are likely to come next so, in the opening phrase, they can pick it up and come in with appropriate chords for that tune.
Hmm... not quite sure the best approach here. I personally don't like to be told the keys - unless it's a particularly unusual key-change. Then again, I've come across people who've been playing guitar for 30 years plus, who'll NEVER get any better, and will always play in the wrong key unless it's shouted to them. Having said that, if playing in a concert situation, if you know the keys for the set of tunes beforehand, it can make things a bit tighter.
I think we need to draw a distiction here between guitarists and people with no aptitude for music who own guitars. I don't draw conclusions about flute and fiddle players from people with lousy intonation or box players who can't count to 4 or 6 or 9 with any discernable sense of rhythm.
I had a guy show up with a set of pipes one time and through every tune he sounded like he was sodomizing a burglar alarm. I wouldn't call him a piper.
The problem with the people you're talking about has nothing to do with the instrument. They can't play!!
I know quite a few melody players that like to shout the key to get a nice flow from one tune to the next- it means that I dont have to stop to hear what the new tune is before coming back in- though it should only take a beat or two to recognise whats happening.
It doesnt bother me either way.
The root of the key should be sufficient though as quite often melody players mistake ,say, Dmix for Dmin because of the C natural
Point taken, Steve L, but the fact is there are loads of good fiddlers/fluters/pipers and all the rest, but decent guitar accompanists are about as common as rocking-horse poo. That's why they get it in the neck, unfairly maybe, as a genre. Same applies to bodhranistas. The individual good player may well have more of an uphill struggle to overcome prejudice, but decent talent will always win through in the end.
Sorry to be cynical. But most of the guitarists I've worked with have the ability to zone out conversation and play whatever they damned well feel like.
Played with a couple fellows for 25 years or so regular. THe one guy was a really good diddly/flowery lead. The other a rhythm player.
Sometimes working with them was like talking to the freaking wall.
My Box tutor records with a couple of guys who are very good and apparently communicate. I can't say I've had the same good fortune.
The first thing I tell someone I am teaching is "It is not the melody player's job to tell you the key". The melody players want to get into the playing and not stop and think about it, let alone have to report it and babysit the guitar or bouzouki players.
That said, there are many nice and very helpful melody players, who if asked by a backer to tell them the keys, will be happy to help out....but.....I'd worry about a backer/accompanist who has to be told all or even many of the keys, it likely means they don't know the music well enough to be playing out yet, and should go home and learn the music, learn the tunes, play to CDs, which if done enough should theoretically get them to the point where they can sense the structure of even new tunes tossed at them in most cases, and be able to wing it and do it well. Some should seek the help of a teacher or get a good DVD for instruction. They need to sink this music deep into their brains and hearts so deeply that it actually changes their life. That's what this music does once you are hooked.
I really don't like when someone starts telling me keys, I inevitably hear the key wrong, hearing E as A or vice versa especially, or it's told wrong, or not that part B is some other key. I don't play many chords anyway, but treat it more like a harp of sorts. If I do have a problem on something, I just don't play it, and then will ask afterwards what tune it was and the key if I have not figured it out. There's no crime in that and it doesn't mean a backer has a single digit IQ. Many a melody player will also stop on an unfamiliar tune, and ask afterwards about it.
True many get into their own world and don't listen to the melody, and are lost in their own world, and they give the good ones a bad name. Just as you would frown on a bad melody player coming out using just three or four notes, it ought to be the same for a backer whether guitar or bouzouki. Learn the tunes, learn the tunes. Forget about all the big Greek words and just learn the music. You just hear so many tunes that are all over the place, music theory will go right out the window a lot of this time in the music. You can learn all the theory in the world, and maybe that is helpful to people but only up to a point in this music, but it can't give you the heart and soul of this music. Only playing, striving to be better, and loving every minute of it will convey that. A lot of backing too is instinctual, and listening closely to the melody player, hearing little nuances as you go along, keeping right there with them. Music theory won't ever teach you that, nor the curves that a great melody player will often throw at you as they improvise a bit.
This music is just so very little about what the key is. Of course you need the right key, but that's just the bones of it. It's just dead like typing on a typewriter (OK I date myself! Old!) without putting the feeling and life into it, just like the melody player. You need to know the music as well as they do.
Many guitar players drift into this music (At least in the US) from the folkie world, where strumming three chords per key for having sing-a-longs will suffice. That's a really big part of the problem, they try to do that same routine in this really extremely serious music. People live, breathe, are totally obsessed and captivated by the tunes, they live for it, live to play, it's a discipline people learn often from childhood, they practice, compete, study hard, take it very seriously, and anyone, even a backer should take it just as seriously if they intend to play out.
I have taught a few people coming into this from the folk music world, I can spot them in about a half a second. There are some good ones who can for example play ragtime or blues really well, but those usually stick with their discipline, and the good ones can be amazing.... I mean the ones who dabble in it. They have to unlearn pretty much everything they know, like strumming on the offbeat, or if picking, have to forget their picking patterns. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and they always find it's way harder than they ever expected. If they are to do it right that is.
OK...I'll get off the soap box (darn it....dating myself again) and shut up...gone on way too long as usual, sorry
What matters to us backers is key and mode, i.e. which chord/note the tune will resolve to and which will be the tension/"home" chords. The rest is listening to the tune and working with it, playing with your ears/brains rather than your fingers. The same goes for melody players: good melody players will work WITH the backers and not DESPITE backers, will listen to what backers are adding to the mix rather than expect to be "everything there is to the music you are listening to".
"guitar players can get the wrong key": sometimes THERE IS MORE THAN ONE RIGHT KEY (there are tunes which work just as well with G or D for backup, for instance, especially the "older" tunes which are so modal that major/minor just don't cut it), or the backers may choose to work with a derived/altered chord, or simply toss around ideas that will make for a different atmosphere.
Pablo.... I think (actually not think but feel) of the notes in the tune and fill many in, and when doing that partial melody thing, I am not thinking about the key but rather where the tune is going, and will note a lot, along with a drone. The chords, or really partial chord two noters I generally play are to accent and stress a note and are touched on just briefly. I am not saying it's the only right way to play guitar, but it's the way I do it. It's for sure not the usual way of backing with guitar, it was made up in isolation decades ago (as I took my own advice to practice home alone to recordings) with some influence from Martin Carthy and John Renbourne. Some don't like it style wise, this I know, but it is the way a harp player might back or a piano too.
Think about piano and harp backers, they don't linger on one chord too long, nor do they only alternate two or three repeatedly. I pick up a lot from piano backers who are really good, Felix Dolan for example, who lives in this general area and graces some local sessions at times with his great backing. This can be applied to guitar, rather than just playing it like an autoharp.
Honestly, I can't strum, I suppose I could learn though, but we each go our own ways and I enjoy further exploring the path I started on long ago...the learning is absolutely endless and fascinating. I admire great strummers like Donal Clancy in particular. He can also just break into tune playing then hop back onto the strumming, and always tasteful, with deadly timing.
That's a very interesting point about the melody player listening to the backer and working with them. I always assumed it was all about them, they set the tone to it all and it was our job to read their minds and just be there. Really, that is the great challenge in backing and what keeps it really interesting for me. The way, depending on the player, you alter your playing, either a little or a lot. Playing with a Kevin Burke, you will not play the same way you would with a Tommy Peoples for example. I like to stop short on a note with them, where a very staccato player does, or melodically stretch out a note for a more legato player (sorry now big Italian words!!). I like to pull a note or slide into a note where the melody player does too if you can catch it in time... it's a pretty thrilling moment.... now maybe this just shows what a dull life I lead, but I find those moments to be ecstatic!
Hi Chuneboi.... I just got really tired of the guitar bashing threads, so lay low for a while. How I got dragged into this one when I should be going to sleep is the question!
This will be a SHORT note.... hope you are doing well... how is the Spanish guitar playing going?
Did you catch the article I posted not long ago about a huge number of Celts being descended from Spaniards?
Iris: I couldn't agree more, especially on the thrilling moments you mention at the end (our lives are equally dull, maybe). I am not advocating autoharp guitar playing, or even 1-2-3-4 strumming. Good backing works the tune, whether it is fingerstyle, strum, playing the melody or any combination of them. Take Arty Mc Glynn, Donal Clancy, Tony Mc Manus backing Alasdair Fraser, John Doyle, Donough Henessy, or even more "heretic" guitar work like Dennis Cahill backing Martin Hayes... all of them different, all of them spanning the broad range of strum/finger/melody, and not one of them sounds a bit like the others. Some people go for some of them, other people prefer others, but they know what they are up to (Donal Clancy doing Toss the Feathers on solo guitar in Up in the Air is one of the best renditions of that reel for any instrument).
Knowing the tune includes knowing the key, even for those who cannot name it. Any good backing follows the tensions and releases of the tune, speeding up, slowing down, highlighting, filling/not filling, it is ideally a dynamic game and not a three chord trick 1-2-3-4 / 1-2-3 affair. You mention piano players: I find bouzouki players also an inspiration, with different features/limitations compared to the guitar but also with very different styles we can learn from (comparing Donal Lunny to Eoin O'Neill, for instance, and trying to bring those "philosophies of backing" to the guitar).
I am a beginner, and most of my playing so far has been "backing" CDs with players who would never be playing live with me (living in Argentina makes the 1-in-a-million chance of being in a session with Kevin Burke closer to 1-in-a-trillion-trillions), and yes, different styles call for different backings even for someone of my limited capacities. That is how player/backer partnerships get made (or undone, when it just does not fit).
But i am not a big fan of the "this is me doing melody like a steamroller, no matter what happens around me, follow me if you dare but just get out of my way" playing. Music is music: if a listener gets both melody and backing together it means they are a unit; if all parts are listening and responding to each other, things work well. An illuminati soloist graciously agreeing a backer to steal a glimmer of limelight from his work of genius is never a good musical start, it works just as badly as a dull guitarist doing the same backing to 5 tunes straight to my ears.
What really annoyed me a few weeks ago in a session was when I started a set of tunes on the whistle (a rare occurence) and the tune coming up was in D and so I stopped briefly and called out "D", only to be ignored by the guitarist(s). After a few bars of them playing in A I called out "D" again to be ignored again with them clearly deciding that I was wrong and they would plough on anyway. A sounded fine to them and that was that. It is not easy to call out keys when playing the whistle but try having a full blown argument at the same time as trying to play the tune
BTW If anyone from any of the sessions I go to is reading this, it was one of the other sessions! It was obviously not yourselves!
No Cause.... Find another session!! Or have a house session with your favorite people!
Pablo... brilliant...!
We just had Clancy/McAuley in for a concert at IAANJ... right.. you know, the fiddle laid back a lot and let Donal go at it. I was thrilled because Donal did so much of his tune playing you rarely hear when he is with Danu. They were amazing.... I sure hope they let that recording out, or parts of it down the line, they were amazing together.
BTW Pablo...did you get the article I posted a short while ago about some DNA studies showing a high % of Celts are descended from Spaniards? With all the marauding and pilaging, rape and murder... what do they expect! My Celtic roots are Galician I recently discovered, the name is anyway, and grandmother was Spanish and Breton, with Breton as her surname. Doesn't matter, if you love the music, you love the music.... just an interesting article you might like. I don't have the link any longer but it's somewhere here if you look up my old posts.
Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
When talking with guitarists is it more helpful to describe the tune I'm about to play as in "G" (because it only has one sharp) or "D mixolydian" (because that is the modal key it's in)? I hope this question makes sense and I'm sure it betrays my ignorance of music theory...which has never been a strength.
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by MarcoTam
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Being mainly an accompanist, I like to hear the actual mode, but key signature works also...
How useful that information is depends on whether the accompanist understands modes...
Greg
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by jardineromi
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
When says "G", I automatically assume it´s G major, though I would ask for confirmation. I´d rather expect any mode to be named. Maybe this is because I´m German and have spent time in Northern Ireland and I have realized that people around the globe treat this differently, so I ask to avoid misunderstandings.
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by Reelin´ man
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Sorry. "When somebody says "G",..", of course
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by Reelin´ man
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I'd like to be told the mode.
Thanks,
stv
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by stv culchie
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
In my experience, the best you're going to get most of the time from guitarists, if the 'key' is D mix, is to yell "D". They won't understand the 'mix' bit, but that could be worse, and if you say "G", they'll play in G even though it isn't, and then blame *you* for yelling the 'wrong' key.
David probably took fewer words ...
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
If you tell someone a tune is in G and it's not, you have yelled the wrong key. D mix is derived from a G scale but you're not in the key of G in a D mix tune. The tonal center is D with a flatted 7th degree.
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by Steve L
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Most of the time I'd say the key. But often, I'd say the first chord. Strummers I play with know the tunes. When your making sets up on the fly, all they need is the first chord. They catch on quick enough
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Yes, Steve, I know you'd have yelled a wrong key in that situation. My point was that most guitarists, as far as I can see, would plough on regardless without actually being able to work out that it was wrong. And I reckon that in that case, they have only themselves to blame for not bothering to listen properly.
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I've yet to meet a guitar player who knows a mode from a bull's foot. And anyway, just try shouting out the key if you've got your mouth full of gob-iron. What we really need is a course to raise the average IQ of guitar accompanists to at least double figures. And a follow-up course designed to deflate their egos.
# Posted on October 6th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
There are a lot of tunes, most of them pretty dull, but some good, that any decent strummer will make a reasonable stab at having never heard them before. Gmaj say? Start on the G, throw in a C, predict where the big Ds come. It's not rocket science.
A lot of the best tunes, however, are really just not that predictable. And there absolutely are no short cuts. You have to know the tune.
Pragmatically though, if you are a tune player in a session and you want the strummers to strum along, then it's your duty to know them. To know their predictive abilities and to know what tunes they know. If you don't know the strummers and you want them to strum along, the shout "G" and and play boring tunes in G.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I think the same rules should apply to guitar accompanists as to bodhranistas. Keep out of it unless you know the tune forward, backward and sideways. Otherwise, just accept that you can add nothing but can take an awful lot away. Basically, you are not needed, so if you want to join in learn the tunes in advance, not on the hoof.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Actually, bugger it, I don't believe in rules. But you know what I mean.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
You should always call the scale and the mode...
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by OTJunky
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
If I did that with our lot they'd think I was speaking in tongues or talking double Dutch.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I don't think it's the same.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
What isn't?
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I don't want to let this deteriorate into another anti bodhran thread. If anything, if we keep it constructive, the bodhran players might get more of a glimpse of the music.
I think it's pretty straight forward that if your strummers are any good at all, you shouldn't have to communicate with them in any other way than merely playing the music.
And if you are introducing a tune they don't know, merely tell them the key if you think they are up to strumming it with such little information. Or maybe just a simple direction like, "it starts with a Gmaj but it's actually in D and the B part's in Bmin". (you might say this before you start, of course)
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Simple direction that, eh! Not round here it wouldn't be. As a melody player I have no great desire to concern myself with chords anyway, but an instruction like that would end up with an Eric Morecambe/André Previn moment. It's easier to let 'em flounder.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bexIdm0awwo
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by oldstrings
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
oldstrings you beat me to it!
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
"I think the same rules should apply to guitar accompanists as to bodhranistas. Keep out of it unless you know the tune forward, backward and sideways. Otherwise, just accept that you can add nothing but can take an awful lot away. Basically, you are not needed, so if you want to join in learn the tunes in advance, not on the hoof."
I agree, but would apply the rule to melody players to this too, unless it's okay for them to just fart around even though they don't know the melody?
I also love when I hear any musician say a tune's in the key of whatever the first note is. Shows superior musical knowledge.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by dr_funkenstein
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I prefer to let people know what I intend to play using the snippet method, i.e. playing a snippet of each tune so people will recognize the tune rather than the title. The guitarists I've been lucky enough to work with will garner everything they need from this and I won't have to try to shout out keys while I have a flute to my lips. But a lot of people are resistant to this approach and would rather be "spontaneous" even if they always put the same tunes together or know what they're going to play in advance. Because of this I'm often forced to go along with the crowd and do the same thing. But shouting out keys mid-tune has certain pitfalls.
So if I have to tell a guitar or other back-up player what's coming up mid-tune I usually say the key and mode. This is often inadequate and the back-up often ends up stumbling through the tune the first time or two. There are some tunes where I'd like to say, "This is in G major, but it starts on a C chord." Which is a lot to try to say while you're playing, and the odds that the back-up will hear it correctly are questionable as well. If I'm allowed to lay it out beforehand I might say things like, "It's in G major, but it sounds like it starts in the key of D. The B part is in G but goes to an E minor chord at the end."
Of course the best back-up people can sort all of this out on the fly -- but they're a rare breed.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I would definitely tell an accompanist D instead of G. Even if it is modal. It has always amazed me how some people can sit in on a session and happily bang away at your standard beginners shape G chord when a tune is in D or vice versa.
Another good one is some idiot playing D under an A minor tune. If only they new how hard it is to play a tune in that environment.
How bad can some peoples ears be?
There is implied harmony in the majority of tunes.
I've noticed that some people don't even realise there's a shift in the tonal centre in a lot of the tunes. They just sit there with an idiot grin and bang away with appalling rhythm to boot.
Maybe there should be a backers licensing board, where any potential guitar or bouzouki backer has to know a minimum of twenty tune melodies of different tonalities to at least have an idea of different tune settings so that they have better chance of analysing other tunes successfully spontaneously by ear.
You may have deduced I've had another irritating session in that regard, myself trying to pick tunes on the spanish guitar with a couple of fiddle players, having one guitar player either side of me playing in different keys. Have you ever had the experience when you yell "A-M i n o r " of realisation the person
your yelling to has no idea what an "A-Minor" is.
The afternoon was saved however by an accomplished young gent stepping in ( thanks Dave L.).
It takes years to learn all these tunes and I think there are some guitar strummers around who don't realise that or respect it at all.
Bottom line: You shouldn't even have to explain whether its modal or not , they should be able to recognise it immediately.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by chuneboi slim
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I think that the standard,common accepted way of teaching guitar,spread worldwide,is entirely unsuited for accompanying this kind of music.
It begins from a fundamentally different premise,designed for accompanying folk songs or for playing rock and roll,the basic three chord trick that permits almost anyone to appear to be a guitarist.For those who progress further,it's chord inversions up the neck,which is good for jazz.IMHO,(possibly in agreement with Mr Llig) musical theory can be more hindrance than help.It's about hearing,feeling,practice.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Depends on whether you're talking about a fairly experienced guitarist or not. When keys are called out at all around our sessions, we have one guy--a massively talented univ. music prof who leads the sessions when he's there--who's completely in control, calls out "D mix" sometimes and "D" other times, whether mix or not. When he's not there, or it's not his called set, sometimes I get no key and sometimes they'll call out just G or E, which most experienced players would know, without further explanation, that G is usually major and E usually minor. (Yeah, I know--many notable exceptions, but if you have to make a guess and play the first bar one way or the other, you know what to do.)
Beyond that, once you have a quick hint as to the general key, if you know the tunes at all, you'll know within the first few notes where you're going--mix, dor, straight major, whatever.
Also, half the sets you play at any local session where you play regularly tend to have many of the same tunes in the same order, so you're already covered for a lot of it if you've been paying attention.
So, with all that together, it's hardly ever a problem at most local sessions here. Worst comes to worst, a sharp guitarist drops for a bar, hears it, and is right back in.
Anyway...I guess the better short answer to the original question would be, I'd rather have the actual tonic chord called out on an unfamiliar tune, with mode if you want to. I've had too many times where a fiddler will call out "G!" when she actually means E minor or D mix. I don't really wanna hear the key signature per se; that's just notation on a page, a mediatory construct that requires translation. Just gimme the tonic, and I'll figure the rest, or I'll drop out and suck down a pint.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by emncaity
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Oh, and the answer to chuneboi slim's question "how bad can some people's ears be?"
Heh. You know the answer to that--whether melody players or accompanists.
But I wonder the same too...like, can you not HEAR that, seriously?
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by emncaity
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Steve shaw said:
"I've yet to meet a guitar player who knows a mode from a bull's foot."
Well, you just haven't been playing with the right guitarists, now have you?
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by emncaity
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I'm sorry, let me revise that answer to the original question:
If anything has to be called out for a tune you know is unfamiliar, sure, call out the tonic and mode if you want. I'll get it either way, called or not.
But if that situation comes up a lot--particularly if I need to hear mode on every tune--that's a sign that I don't know the tunes, and I totally agree it should be up to accompanists to know their sh$%. It's a little embarrassing and worthless if you don't, since the accompanist's burden really is so much lighter than the tune player's--and I'm saying that as an accompanist.
There really just is no substitute for knowing the tunes. Not that the original question implied otherwise.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by emncaity
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I just had to stop and make myself think, 'cos I was going to agree with Steve Shaw on the universal lack of knowledge of modes by guitarists.
In fairness, there are a few - a very few - guitarists that I've met on my travels who would know that this music is modal, and have *some* clue what that might mean. The rest? You might as well be talking Martian to them as to suggest anything to do with modes - most of them don't know what a key is, let alone a mode. They're just stuck with what chords there might be in the tune - they don't get how they fit together. As most guitarists know, *all* tunes can be accompanied using I, IV and V. If it needs anything else, the tune's wrong.
Reminds me of a photo with caption on the front of Melody Maker a very long time ago. The photo showed two members of the heavy metal (?) band Grand Funk Railroad arguing vociferously. The caption was "Look, it's E. Then A. Then B. Then back to E. But if you can't get it, just play loud."
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Well, emncaity, you're right, I haven't. Actually, I have, but the best guitarists I've come across are also very good on other (melody) instruments and they hardly ever pick up their guitars these days (it's a breath of fresh air when they do!), preferring to play tunes, and to be honest they're a lot more use all round doing that.
Of course, it would be a wonderful world if ALL it took for an accompanist to be useful was to put the right chords in the right places...
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
There's plenty of guys who've had a lifetime career and got rich and famous with I,IV and V,e.g.Status Quo.
I have to admit that I spent 30+ years playing guitar,including playing all sorts of fancy diminished,augmented,suspended,what's yer names that would make many another guitarist feel small and inferior when they asked 'what's that chord?' before I even found there was such a thing as modal music.
I got into learning 5 string banjo and Appalachian oldtime,and suddenly people were talking about modes with bizarre Greek names.Modes?? Seems to me,Appalachian fiddlers and banjo players were into modes a hundred years ago,and guitarists still have not caught up.I'm still on the learning curve,that's why I'm here.I've discarded everything I learned before about the fretboard.The way I look at it now is more like a cello or fiddle,an alternative tuning and then melody lines or patterns.But I'm not having to accompany any other instrument,I'm trying to develop ways to play the melody and accompaniment all on the guitar.It's great,because that way I don't need to make you guys cross and incur your wrath and contempt
"Learn the tunes,learn the tunes,learn the tunes,learn the....." Gotcha,and thanks!
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Play the tune, simple as that really. It's sound not science as far as I hear it. I may miss a little twist or turn the first time through, may stumble a bit with it the second, and have it fair enough on the third if I've heard the tune or one similar before. If I have no idea by listening then I rest the guitar on my lap, make progress on my whiskey whilst enjoying the tune, and go for a refill when the tune or set ends. I may lilt the tune in my head away from the others whilst working out that which I couldn't grasp so I'll have it for the next time it comes around.
Tune names and key signatures confuse me.
Peace,
Ed
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by ejsant
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
A smart guitarist can make to with just the tonic note - G can cover a multitude of sins including major, minor, dorian, mixolydian. However, a good guitarist should start with a diad (ie a chord with no thirds in) and, within the space of a bar, have picked out whether it's a minor or major third, and a minor or major seventh. They should also be able to feel at the end of the phrase whether or not a chord change is going to be needed for the next one and, if it is, make a decent guess at which chord it'll be. Or change the diad into a sus4 chord (the standard get out).
Of course, a brilliant guitarist will know the players so well that they will be (by dint of knowing how many tunes in a certain key they've played, how likely they are to change key, what modulations they like, what sort of mood they're in and what tunes they like to put together) able to have a shortlist of 5 or so tunes they think are likely to come next so, in the opening phrase, they can pick it up and come in with appropriate chords for that tune.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Andy V
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
"There's plenty of guys who've had a lifetime career and got rich and famous with I,IV and V,e.g.Status Quo."
Yep. My point exactly. This ain't Status Quo.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Hmm... not quite sure the best approach here. I personally don't like to be told the keys - unless it's a particularly unusual key-change. Then again, I've come across people who've been playing guitar for 30 years plus, who'll NEVER get any better, and will always play in the wrong key unless it's shouted to them. Having said that, if playing in a concert situation, if you know the keys for the set of tunes beforehand, it can make things a bit tighter.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Ron P
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I think we need to draw a distiction here between guitarists and people with no aptitude for music who own guitars. I don't draw conclusions about flute and fiddle players from people with lousy intonation or box players who can't count to 4 or 6 or 9 with any discernable sense of rhythm.
I had a guy show up with a set of pipes one time and through every tune he sounded like he was sodomizing a burglar alarm. I wouldn't call him a piper.
The problem with the people you're talking about has nothing to do with the instrument. They can't play!!
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Steve L
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
I know quite a few melody players that like to shout the key to get a nice flow from one tune to the next- it means that I dont have to stop to hear what the new tune is before coming back in- though it should only take a beat or two to recognise whats happening.
It doesnt bother me either way.
The root of the key should be sufficient though as quite often melody players mistake ,say, Dmix for Dmin because of the C natural
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by JimR
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Put fingers up for sharp keys and down for flat keys.
I love telling the accompanist its D or Bb (and the goat beater that it is in G)
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by geoffwright
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Point taken, Steve L, but the fact is there are loads of good fiddlers/fluters/pipers and all the rest, but decent guitar accompanists are about as common as rocking-horse poo. That's why they get it in the neck, unfairly maybe, as a genre. Same applies to bodhranistas. The individual good player may well have more of an uphill struggle to overcome prejudice, but decent talent will always win through in the end.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
ITs been a long morning
communicating with Guitarists? an oxymoron....
Sorry to be cynical. But most of the guitarists I've worked with have the ability to zone out conversation and play whatever they damned well feel like.
Played with a couple fellows for 25 years or so regular. THe one guy was a really good diddly/flowery lead. The other a rhythm player.
Sometimes working with them was like talking to the freaking wall.
My Box tutor records with a couple of guys who are very good and apparently communicate. I can't say I've had the same good fortune.
# Posted on October 7th 2007 by zippydw
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
The first thing I tell someone I am teaching is "It is not the melody player's job to tell you the key". The melody players want to get into the playing and not stop and think about it, let alone have to report it and babysit the guitar or bouzouki players.
That said, there are many nice and very helpful melody players, who if asked by a backer to tell them the keys, will be happy to help out....but.....I'd worry about a backer/accompanist who has to be told all or even many of the keys, it likely means they don't know the music well enough to be playing out yet, and should go home and learn the music, learn the tunes, play to CDs, which if done enough should theoretically get them to the point where they can sense the structure of even new tunes tossed at them in most cases, and be able to wing it and do it well. Some should seek the help of a teacher or get a good DVD for instruction. They need to sink this music deep into their brains and hearts so deeply that it actually changes their life. That's what this music does once you are hooked.
I really don't like when someone starts telling me keys, I inevitably hear the key wrong, hearing E as A or vice versa especially, or it's told wrong, or not that part B is some other key. I don't play many chords anyway, but treat it more like a harp of sorts. If I do have a problem on something, I just don't play it, and then will ask afterwards what tune it was and the key if I have not figured it out. There's no crime in that and it doesn't mean a backer has a single digit IQ. Many a melody player will also stop on an unfamiliar tune, and ask afterwards about it.
True many get into their own world and don't listen to the melody, and are lost in their own world, and they give the good ones a bad name. Just as you would frown on a bad melody player coming out using just three or four notes, it ought to be the same for a backer whether guitar or bouzouki. Learn the tunes, learn the tunes. Forget about all the big Greek words and just learn the music. You just hear so many tunes that are all over the place, music theory will go right out the window a lot of this time in the music. You can learn all the theory in the world, and maybe that is helpful to people but only up to a point in this music, but it can't give you the heart and soul of this music. Only playing, striving to be better, and loving every minute of it will convey that. A lot of backing too is instinctual, and listening closely to the melody player, hearing little nuances as you go along, keeping right there with them. Music theory won't ever teach you that, nor the curves that a great melody player will often throw at you as they improvise a bit.
This music is just so very little about what the key is. Of course you need the right key, but that's just the bones of it. It's just dead like typing on a typewriter (OK I date myself! Old!) without putting the feeling and life into it, just like the melody player. You need to know the music as well as they do.
Many guitar players drift into this music (At least in the US) from the folkie world, where strumming three chords per key for having sing-a-longs will suffice. That's a really big part of the problem, they try to do that same routine in this really extremely serious music. People live, breathe, are totally obsessed and captivated by the tunes, they live for it, live to play, it's a discipline people learn often from childhood, they practice, compete, study hard, take it very seriously, and anyone, even a backer should take it just as seriously if they intend to play out.
I have taught a few people coming into this from the folk music world, I can spot them in about a half a second. There are some good ones who can for example play ragtime or blues really well, but those usually stick with their discipline, and the good ones can be amazing.... I mean the ones who dabble in it. They have to unlearn pretty much everything they know, like strumming on the offbeat, or if picking, have to forget their picking patterns. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and they always find it's way harder than they ever expected. If they are to do it right that is.
OK...I'll get off the soap box (darn it....dating myself again) and shut up...gone on way too long as usual, sorry
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
As usual, very articulate and colorfully put Iris! Long time no hear!
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by chuneboi slim
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
What matters to us backers is key and mode, i.e. which chord/note the tune will resolve to and which will be the tension/"home" chords. The rest is listening to the tune and working with it, playing with your ears/brains rather than your fingers. The same goes for melody players: good melody players will work WITH the backers and not DESPITE backers, will listen to what backers are adding to the mix rather than expect to be "everything there is to the music you are listening to".
"guitar players can get the wrong key": sometimes THERE IS MORE THAN ONE RIGHT KEY (there are tunes which work just as well with G or D for backup, for instance, especially the "older" tunes which are so modal that major/minor just don't cut it), or the backers may choose to work with a derived/altered chord, or simply toss around ideas that will make for a different atmosphere.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Pablofromargentina
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Pablo.... I think (actually not think but feel) of the notes in the tune and fill many in, and when doing that partial melody thing, I am not thinking about the key but rather where the tune is going, and will note a lot, along with a drone. The chords, or really partial chord two noters I generally play are to accent and stress a note and are touched on just briefly. I am not saying it's the only right way to play guitar, but it's the way I do it. It's for sure not the usual way of backing with guitar, it was made up in isolation decades ago (as I took my own advice to practice home alone to recordings) with some influence from Martin Carthy and John Renbourne. Some don't like it style wise, this I know, but it is the way a harp player might back or a piano too.
Think about piano and harp backers, they don't linger on one chord too long, nor do they only alternate two or three repeatedly. I pick up a lot from piano backers who are really good, Felix Dolan for example, who lives in this general area and graces some local sessions at times with his great backing. This can be applied to guitar, rather than just playing it like an autoharp.
Honestly, I can't strum, I suppose I could learn though, but we each go our own ways and I enjoy further exploring the path I started on long ago...the learning is absolutely endless and fascinating. I admire great strummers like Donal Clancy in particular. He can also just break into tune playing then hop back onto the strumming, and always tasteful, with deadly timing.
That's a very interesting point about the melody player listening to the backer and working with them. I always assumed it was all about them, they set the tone to it all and it was our job to read their minds and just be there. Really, that is the great challenge in backing and what keeps it really interesting for me. The way, depending on the player, you alter your playing, either a little or a lot. Playing with a Kevin Burke, you will not play the same way you would with a Tommy Peoples for example. I like to stop short on a note with them, where a very staccato player does, or melodically stretch out a note for a more legato player (sorry now big Italian words!!). I like to pull a note or slide into a note where the melody player does too if you can catch it in time... it's a pretty thrilling moment.... now maybe this just shows what a dull life I lead, but I find those moments to be ecstatic!
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Hi Chuneboi.... I just got really tired of the guitar bashing threads, so lay low for a while. How I got dragged into this one when I should be going to sleep is the question!
This will be a SHORT note.... hope you are doing well... how is the Spanish guitar playing going?
Did you catch the article I posted not long ago about a huge number of Celts being descended from Spaniards?
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
Iris: I couldn't agree more, especially on the thrilling moments you mention at the end (our lives are equally dull, maybe). I am not advocating autoharp guitar playing, or even 1-2-3-4 strumming. Good backing works the tune, whether it is fingerstyle, strum, playing the melody or any combination of them. Take Arty Mc Glynn, Donal Clancy, Tony Mc Manus backing Alasdair Fraser, John Doyle, Donough Henessy, or even more "heretic" guitar work like Dennis Cahill backing Martin Hayes... all of them different, all of them spanning the broad range of strum/finger/melody, and not one of them sounds a bit like the others. Some people go for some of them, other people prefer others, but they know what they are up to (Donal Clancy doing Toss the Feathers on solo guitar in Up in the Air is one of the best renditions of that reel for any instrument).
Knowing the tune includes knowing the key, even for those who cannot name it. Any good backing follows the tensions and releases of the tune, speeding up, slowing down, highlighting, filling/not filling, it is ideally a dynamic game and not a three chord trick 1-2-3-4 / 1-2-3 affair. You mention piano players: I find bouzouki players also an inspiration, with different features/limitations compared to the guitar but also with very different styles we can learn from (comparing Donal Lunny to Eoin O'Neill, for instance, and trying to bring those "philosophies of backing" to the guitar).
I am a beginner, and most of my playing so far has been "backing" CDs with players who would never be playing live with me (living in Argentina makes the 1-in-a-million chance of being in a session with Kevin Burke closer to 1-in-a-trillion-trillions), and yes, different styles call for different backings even for someone of my limited capacities. That is how player/backer partnerships get made (or undone, when it just does not fit).
But i am not a big fan of the "this is me doing melody like a steamroller, no matter what happens around me, follow me if you dare but just get out of my way" playing. Music is music: if a listener gets both melody and backing together it means they are a unit; if all parts are listening and responding to each other, things work well. An illuminati soloist graciously agreeing a backer to steal a glimmer of limelight from his work of genius is never a good musical start, it works just as badly as a dull guitarist doing the same backing to 5 tunes straight to my ears.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by Pablofromargentina
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
What really annoyed me a few weeks ago in a session was when I started a set of tunes on the whistle (a rare occurence) and the tune coming up was in D and so I stopped briefly and called out "D", only to be ignored by the guitarist(s). After a few bars of them playing in A I called out "D" again to be ignored again with them clearly deciding that I was wrong and they would plough on anyway. A sounded fine to them and that was that. It is not easy to call out keys when playing the whistle but try having a full blown argument at the same time as trying to play the tune
BTW If anyone from any of the sessions I go to is reading this, it was one of the other sessions! It was obviously not yourselves!
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Key signitures: communicating with guitarists
No Cause.... Find another session!! Or have a house session with your favorite people!
Pablo... brilliant...!
We just had Clancy/McAuley in for a concert at IAANJ... right.. you know, the fiddle laid back a lot and let Donal go at it. I was thrilled because Donal did so much of his tune playing you rarely hear when he is with Danu. They were amazing.... I sure hope they let that recording out, or parts of it down the line, they were amazing together.
BTW Pablo...did you get the article I posted a short while ago about some DNA studies showing a high % of Celts are descended from Spaniards? With all the marauding and pilaging, rape and murder... what do they expect! My Celtic roots are Galician I recently discovered, the name is anyway, and grandmother was Spanish and Breton, with Breton as her surname. Doesn't matter, if you love the music, you love the music.... just an interesting article you might like. I don't have the link any longer but it's somewhere here if you look up my old posts.
# Posted on October 8th 2007 by irisnevins