Has anyone come across any good books or websites that give arrangements of folk/session tunes for classical guitar?
I've been trying to take some of my favourate session tunes and work them up into guitar arrangements, but my skills don't go beyond fairly basic, dull arrangements. I've been looking for books that might have richer arrangements but can't seem to find any. Anyone have any suggestions?
What do you mean by richer? More harmony? More counterpoint? What do you mean by books? Notated counterpoint and/or tabulator?
These tunes float around in a strange ethereal mix of collective memory which is constantly being sucked dry by attempts to nail them to paper arrangements.
Cathf,
I'd recommend sticking to the melody, without anything else added. Arrangements for classical guitar would be nice for airs and folk tunes, but the jigs and reels we play at sessions are complete unto themselves.
This drawing room approach to traditional music is a disaster. You are left with a music that is neither folk or classical. If its being played right a tune should be subtly diffferent each time its played-- not arranged -- yet still fit into the session with others. But this session thing is only a recent phenomenon. It was a solo art.
Get some recordings of Tony McManus or Donal Clancy.
Don't know of anyone who has mastered what you are talking about on a classical guitar but you can flatpick tunes on a spanish guitar.
Check out this website for a more appropriate forum for your interest: http://celticguitartalk.com/phpBB/
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with being neither this nor that. But if it's to have any value, your music has to have something valuabe at its core. If you are a genius, then whatever you do will have value.
I'm no genius. That's why I like to play music with cor value.
Respect the music. Strive to understand it for what it is. And that should be enough for anyone.
What you need is to get your hands on a copy of "McGlynn's Fancy" a solo guitar LP by the unique genius Arty McGlynn. It may be difficult to get a copy , I don't know if it was ever released on CD. John Renbourne or Dick Gaughan also have good LPs but nobody touches McGlynn.
PDSMusic has a lot of very nice, beginner pieces for guitar on the internet. They aren't Irish, but I like the arrangements. If you care to try The Malaguena for classical guitar, it is a flamenco piece that should be enough to challenge any beginner. There are many great sources of guitar tablature out there.
Lots of mandolin arrangements of traditional works. You could tune the top four of your guitar in fifths, instead of E-A-D-G, use C-G-D-E, and try some mandolin arrangements on those four strings. (Such low tuned strings probably wouldn't be very audible in a crowd.) Alternately, tune the 5-3 strings to G-D-A (from A-D-G) and leave the 1st at E. You can then use mandolin tablature with strings 2-4 on the mandolin translated to 3-5 on the guitar. (Might be complicated to translate at first.)
Alternately, try tuning the bottom four down from D-G-B-E to C-G-A-E and let me know how it works with traditional arrangements for mandolin in tablature. (Haven't tried it. It's two pairs of strings tuned in fifths with two fifths between the G and A.) It might require an element of adjustment to bridge the large gap using mando tablature.
I'll stick with the low D flute, the whistle, and more recently, the chanter.
What Matt Malloy can do to color the tones of an Irish flute...
HEY ! llig leachim !! There was a time, about 4 years ago or thereabouts ,when the session,org played host to a lot of people who knew and played irish music well and were knowledgeable about it. Nowadays its hardly worth looking at it for any length of time , mostly it consists of inane posts and the majority of the topics discussed are frivouous without being humourous , you are a prime example of what I am talking about . Your comments about Arty McGlynn are an embarrassment to yourself but you don't even realise it
IMO & as mentioned above learn the tune as a single melody line first and allow your arrangement to evolve from there. I'd be careful as regards over arranging as this can complicate duet or indeed session playing (not much scope for that if your on the classical though).
Bass; notes look at trad piano arranged bass cleft for ideas or just make them up (3rds & 5ths and roots are most likely enough)
Double stops, triads etc.. for punctuating the odd phrase on the top end.
I think trad tunes stand up as single melody lines but thats just my opinion. You could always check out Alistair Fraser's Driven bow album and get your self a copy of the Athole collection, again just my opinion but I always thought that many of this type of tune would sound good on the classical guitar.
The classical guitarists John Williams and Scott Tennant have both done some nice recordings of trad tunes. Scott's album was called Wild Mountain Thyme, if I recall correctly.
Sorry, but can't help with specific book suggestions though as I work out my own arrangements - these tend to vary a little from time to time as I never write them down, though I have recorded some, largely to assist my failing memory!
As has been said, airs and waltzes etc work best - and you might well find some books of Carolan's tunes harmonised for solo guitar. Jigs and reels certainly aren't impossible as solo guitar pieces but tend to benefit from being more simply arranged, which may well be what you are already doing.
Trad tunes have been used and/or abused (according to whose ears are listening) for many years and the tradition will not, I'm sure, be harmed in any way by those of us who, as well as playing and enjoying uncluttered melodies sometimes also play tunes in ways that displease the purists.
Good luck to you!
Keith
The Donal Clancy CD "Close to Home" has some beautiful fingerstyle playing. The eclectic Duck Baker has recorded some Irish music. One Cd that comes to mind is "My Heart Belongs To Jenny". You might try some of the harp players for ideas, Derek Bell's recordings are widely available, but I'd also suggest you keep persevering with your own attempts at arranging. You talk of your own "fairly basic,dull arrangements" but you will find that the more you work on this facet of your music the more competent you will become. The other suggestion I have is that you might want to try some alternate tunings. There are many possibilities.
While I admire the skill of the players in the You Tube video above, the result is a distinctly un-Irish sounding rendition of the tune. That may be why Ilig commented as he did.
I guess you can play tunes any way you want, but Irish music played in a classical style is no longer Irish music.
Michael Raven is English but his books include arrangements according to John Renbourne (scottish?), Duck Baker, Nic Jones and lots of others. Not trad irish but of interest.. eg www.mally.com/details.asp?id=729
Michael Raven is English but his books include arrangements according to John Renbourne (scottish?), Duck Baker, Nic Jones and lots of others. Not trad irish but of interest.. eg http://www.mally.com/details.asp?id=729
“The classical guitarists John Williams and Scott Tennant have both done some nice recordings of trad tunes. Scott's album was called Wild Mountain Thyme, if I recall correctly.”
David Russell has done the same thing. These are examples of classical guitarists bringing Irish tunes into the classical guitar world, not of bringing the classical guitar into ITM, if you know what I mean. Pleasant listening for established classical guitar fans; usually not satisfying for ITM fans. If this is what you’re after, I would guess that these guys have published their arrangements somewhere. They usually do. Check with a shop that caters to classical guitarists.
Duck Baker was really the pioneer in recording and publishing fingerstyle guitar arrangements of traditional Irish tunes. I don’t like all of his renditions, but you can probably learn from deconstructing some of them.
For bringing a trad tune (not necessarily Irish) to life on fingerstyle guitar, it’s hard to beat Martin Carthy. He’s one of the few fingerpickers who can project the rhythm and lift of a dance tune and make it sound danceable. I’m not recommending verbatim copying, but listen to what he’s doing and apply it to your own playing.
there is a very good reason that the nylon string classical guitar is a solo instrument, you can't compete for volume. I know, I tried. It can't be done
you have to play as loud as you possibly can every moment. it is MISERABLE
you can maybe play a duet with a polymer low whistle or maybe a diet with a flute, but other than that, forget it.
sorry to be so negative, but you will have to invest a good bit of practise time into something that isn't going to work out like you think it is.
Bob.... Martin Carthy is a genius... there should be a Stefan G. DVD of him.
In my opinion.... I prefer dots or ears to tablature... get the melody line down and fill in complimentary notes your own way. tab is good in the sense it will show you how someone else, a good player, will handle a tune, and you can borrow from that. Too many focus on sounding just like this or that person and slavishly following the tab. Most will only ever sound like a stilted verson of that person.
Also, start easy. I start people off with Twinkle Little Star, or something well ingrained in their heads for decades, so you don't have to struggle with learning a tune at the same time you are trying to learn the hand mechanics of fingerstyle playing. A fairly simple tune on guitar if played in DADGAD is O'Carolan's Welcome, if that is what you are thinking about doing. it's a good starter tune, but only after you have the fingers working well together.
Exercises for strength and stretching are helpful too. The stringer the right muscles are, you will have more ease of playing. Guitar is a very complex instrument played in this way, and especially if, as in fingerstyle playing, you do both melody and backup with one hand.
I should maybe have explained more. It's not really "classical guitar" as such, as the guitar I play is acoustic, light bronze strung, so not "proper" nylon classical. I used to play classical, up to a pretty simple level. Now I play trad/folk/session guitar. I also play fiddle, mandolin and banjo, so it's not a case of taking any/every session tune and trying to turn it into a classical masterpiece or anything! More a case of just trying to get better on each instrument, and do more that just always strum away on the guitar.
At its heart, the guitar will always be a rhythm instrument to me - you can't beat a jig or reel rhythm and there's no way (imo) a guitar can ever play a folk melody the way a fiddle or whistle can. But it would be really nice to be able to do more with the guitar, even if it's just play the occasional solo, when everyone else is outside having a smoke. Or even if it's just for playing at home and never gets used in a session...
The tunes are easy enough to play on their own, but at the moment, all I can really do is play the basic chords around the tune here and there, which works fine for some tunes. A more "classical" approach, with a few more interesting combinations, using fingering further up the neck, for example, would be good to try as well though, so it's just to get some ideas.
I'll check out some of the names mentioned above though.
It’s been pointed out here before that playing these tunes on fingerstyle guitar falls more naturally into the solo harp tradition than the session tradition. It hadn‘t occurred to me at the time, but it really does make sense. So maybe harp arrangements would be another resource to look into.
Some of these tunes are little masterpieces that can easily become gilded lilies if you get carried away with arranging them. My advice is, as llig said, to respect the tune. Don’t sacrifice the tune to the arrangement. It’s okay to drop the bass line or harmony when it gets in the way of letting the tune sing. Again, Martin Carthy is brilliant at minimalist arrangements that let him concentrate on letting the tune do what it wants to do.
I think I get the gist of what you mean. In this case, get Tony McManus' recordings, you can learn a lot from him in terms of "spicing up" traditional tunes on a solo guitar.
As to the choice of tunes, when I play fingerstyle "spiced up" tunes I choose the ones that sound better in slower rhythms - fingerstyle guitar will never sound half as good as fiddle or flute in fast tunes, but in slower jigs and reels you can both get a nice lilt, put in ornamentation, exploit ringing strings to the full, and do some arranging as well. I found out that multi-part tunes work well in this case, as they give you a chance to have a story to tell.
As I play in DADGAD, I like to play tunes in Dmix, as it allows to make use ringing empty strings.
My personal favourites to play in this disreputable way (I only do it at home!) are: Flagstone of Memories, The Mist-Covered Mountain, The Frieze Britches (7 parts), Roaring Waters (all possible parts), Roaring Waves (played stately and slow).
I usually play them them first in a very basic way, just maybe adding a note or two for accompaniment, the second time through with the most obvious base (usually ringing out empty D and A strings), and the third time with more fancy stuff (like some non-obvious harmony or chord), or adding countermelody on the bass strings.
Cathf, I think I see where you're coming from.
If you check out the Celtic Guitar site you will finds lots of links to arrangements of Irish tunes as suggested above.
Maybe you need a teacher or good tutor book that will help you do a lot more with accompaniment than the 'basic chord' approach you mention above.
Finally, learn to flatpick the tunes: you can start a well known set at your session that way even if you can't lead it all the way through.
That should be enough challenge to keep you going!
Bob.... I think it's true that many fingerstyle tune players get too caught up in the ornaments and lose the swing of the tune somehow. Trying to recreate fiddle/flute ornaments in the same places will often be awkward and clumsy, sometimes they need to go elswhere or be forgotten. Right...Carthy stays with the tune. Not at all fussy playing. My motto is to never sacrifice the passion and the swing in the tune to the ornaments, period. It can sound too prissy and effete if you don't. Carthy never sounds that way, very gutsy and strong attack. Total brilliance.
As someone said here or was it at Celtic Guitar Talk.. the guitar is the new harp in ways. Nice for a solo as well as a rhythm thing. ...I do everything backwards though... onto the harp... it's quite a fascinating journey after fingerstyle guitar playing...and much easier to find the tunes on by far! Harp, played with Carthy-esque attack too makes a great backing instrument. Harp tunes lend themselves to guitar very well though...it really is a sort of abreviated harp though.
Session tunes for classical guitar
Session tunes for classical guitar
Has anyone come across any good books or websites that give arrangements of folk/session tunes for classical guitar?
I've been trying to take some of my favourate session tunes and work them up into guitar arrangements, but my skills don't go beyond fairly basic, dull arrangements. I've been looking for books that might have richer arrangements but can't seem to find any. Anyone have any suggestions?
# Posted on June 14th 2009 by Cathf
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
What do you mean by richer? More harmony? More counterpoint? What do you mean by books? Notated counterpoint and/or tabulator?
These tunes float around in a strange ethereal mix of collective memory which is constantly being sucked dry by attempts to nail them to paper arrangements.
# Posted on June 14th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Cathf,
I'd recommend sticking to the melody, without anything else added. Arrangements for classical guitar would be nice for airs and folk tunes, but the jigs and reels we play at sessions are complete unto themselves.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
This drawing room approach to traditional music is a disaster. You are left with a music that is neither folk or classical. If its being played right a tune should be subtly diffferent each time its played-- not arranged -- yet still fit into the session with others. But this session thing is only a recent phenomenon. It was a solo art.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by awwilko
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Get some recordings of Tony McManus or Donal Clancy.
Don't know of anyone who has mastered what you are talking about on a classical guitar but you can flatpick tunes on a spanish guitar.
Check out this website for a more appropriate forum for your interest:
http://celticguitartalk.com/phpBB/
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Donough
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with being neither this nor that. But if it's to have any value, your music has to have something valuabe at its core. If you are a genius, then whatever you do will have value.
I'm no genius. That's why I like to play music with cor value.
Respect the music. Strive to understand it for what it is. And that should be enough for anyone.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
What you need is to get your hands on a copy of "McGlynn's Fancy" a solo guitar LP by the unique genius Arty McGlynn. It may be difficult to get a copy , I don't know if it was ever released on CD. John Renbourne or Dick Gaughan also have good LPs but nobody touches McGlynn.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Red Robin
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
If you think Arty McGlyn is a genius, the you are seriously under resourced
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
or deluded
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
PDSMusic has a lot of very nice, beginner pieces for guitar on the internet. They aren't Irish, but I like the arrangements. If you care to try The Malaguena for classical guitar, it is a flamenco piece that should be enough to challenge any beginner. There are many great sources of guitar tablature out there.
Lots of mandolin arrangements of traditional works. You could tune the top four of your guitar in fifths, instead of E-A-D-G, use C-G-D-E, and try some mandolin arrangements on those four strings. (Such low tuned strings probably wouldn't be very audible in a crowd.) Alternately, tune the 5-3 strings to G-D-A (from A-D-G) and leave the 1st at E. You can then use mandolin tablature with strings 2-4 on the mandolin translated to 3-5 on the guitar. (Might be complicated to translate at first.)
Alternately, try tuning the bottom four down from D-G-B-E to C-G-A-E and let me know how it works with traditional arrangements for mandolin in tablature. (Haven't tried it. It's two pairs of strings tuned in fifths with two fifths between the G and A.) It might require an element of adjustment to bridge the large gap using mando tablature.
I'll stick with the low D flute, the whistle, and more recently, the chanter.
What Matt Malloy can do to color the tones of an Irish flute...
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
HEY ! llig leachim !! There was a time, about 4 years ago or thereabouts ,when the session,org played host to a lot of people who knew and played irish music well and were knowledgeable about it. Nowadays its hardly worth looking at it for any length of time , mostly it consists of inane posts and the majority of the topics discussed are frivouous without being humourous , you are a prime example of what I am talking about . Your comments about Arty McGlynn are an embarrassment to yourself but you don't even realise it
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Red Robin
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Scratch the E-A-D-G to C-G-D-E suggestion, try C-G-D-A instead... (Oops - sorry.)
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Cathf
IMO & as mentioned above learn the tune as a single melody line first and allow your arrangement to evolve from there. I'd be careful as regards over arranging as this can complicate duet or indeed session playing (not much scope for that if your on the classical though).
Bass; notes look at trad piano arranged bass cleft for ideas or just make them up (3rds & 5ths and roots are most likely enough)
Double stops, triads etc.. for punctuating the odd phrase on the top end.
I think trad tunes stand up as single melody lines but thats just my opinion. You could always check out Alistair Fraser's Driven bow album and get your self a copy of the Athole collection, again just my opinion but I always thought that many of this type of tune would sound good on the classical guitar.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Solidmahog
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
The classical guitarists John Williams and Scott Tennant have both done some nice recordings of trad tunes. Scott's album was called Wild Mountain Thyme, if I recall correctly.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by will morgan
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
"McGlynn's Fancy" has been released on CD.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Kenny
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Hi Cathf - check out Steve Cooney!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv0z0OyMB9U
- here with Arty too.
Sorry, but can't help with specific book suggestions though as I work out my own arrangements - these tend to vary a little from time to time as I never write them down, though I have recorded some, largely to assist my failing memory!
As has been said, airs and waltzes etc work best - and you might well find some books of Carolan's tunes harmonised for solo guitar. Jigs and reels certainly aren't impossible as solo guitar pieces but tend to benefit from being more simply arranged, which may well be what you are already doing.
Trad tunes have been used and/or abused (according to whose ears are listening) for many years and the tradition will not, I'm sure, be harmed in any way by those of us who, as well as playing and enjoying uncluttered melodies sometimes also play tunes in ways that displease the purists.
Good luck to you!
Keith
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by ocarolan
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
The Donal Clancy CD "Close to Home" has some beautiful fingerstyle playing. The eclectic Duck Baker has recorded some Irish music. One Cd that comes to mind is "My Heart Belongs To Jenny". You might try some of the harp players for ideas, Derek Bell's recordings are widely available, but I'd also suggest you keep persevering with your own attempts at arranging. You talk of your own "fairly basic,dull arrangements" but you will find that the more you work on this facet of your music the more competent you will become. The other suggestion I have is that you might want to try some alternate tunings. There are many possibilities.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Tony O'Rourke
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
While I admire the skill of the players in the You Tube video above, the result is a distinctly un-Irish sounding rendition of the tune. That may be why Ilig commented as he did.
I guess you can play tunes any way you want, but Irish music played in a classical style is no longer Irish music.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Celtic Guitar
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Michael Raven is English but his books include arrangements according to John Renbourne (scottish?), Duck Baker, Nic Jones and lots of others. Not trad irish but of interest.. eg www.mally.com/details.asp?id=729
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by greg n'sheils
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Michael Raven is English but his books include arrangements according to John Renbourne (scottish?), Duck Baker, Nic Jones and lots of others. Not trad irish but of interest.. eg http://www.mally.com/details.asp?id=729
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by greg n'sheils
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
“The classical guitarists John Williams and Scott Tennant have both done some nice recordings of trad tunes. Scott's album was called Wild Mountain Thyme, if I recall correctly.”
David Russell has done the same thing. These are examples of classical guitarists bringing Irish tunes into the classical guitar world, not of bringing the classical guitar into ITM, if you know what I mean. Pleasant listening for established classical guitar fans; usually not satisfying for ITM fans. If this is what you’re after, I would guess that these guys have published their arrangements somewhere. They usually do. Check with a shop that caters to classical guitarists.
Duck Baker was really the pioneer in recording and publishing fingerstyle guitar arrangements of traditional Irish tunes. I don’t like all of his renditions, but you can probably learn from deconstructing some of them.
For bringing a trad tune (not necessarily Irish) to life on fingerstyle guitar, it’s hard to beat Martin Carthy. He’s one of the few fingerpickers who can project the rhythm and lift of a dance tune and make it sound danceable. I’m not recommending verbatim copying, but listen to what he’s doing and apply it to your own playing.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Duck Baker’s arrangements have been published, but they might out of print. Check with Stefan Grossman.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
there is a very good reason that the nylon string classical guitar is a solo instrument, you can't compete for volume. I know, I tried. It can't be done
you have to play as loud as you possibly can every moment. it is MISERABLE
you can maybe play a duet with a polymer low whistle or maybe a diet with a flute, but other than that, forget it.
sorry to be so negative, but you will have to invest a good bit of practise time into something that isn't going to work out like you think it is.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Nate Ryan
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
sorry, that's not "diet with flute" its "duet with flute"
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Nate Ryan
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Stefan Grossman does a lot of tab books. Worth a look, but bear in mind it's not exactly trad style.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by gam
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Stefan's site:
http://guitarvideos.com/
Bob.... Martin Carthy is a genius... there should be a Stefan G. DVD of him.
In my opinion.... I prefer dots or ears to tablature... get the melody line down and fill in complimentary notes your own way. tab is good in the sense it will show you how someone else, a good player, will handle a tune, and you can borrow from that. Too many focus on sounding just like this or that person and slavishly following the tab. Most will only ever sound like a stilted verson of that person.
Also, start easy. I start people off with Twinkle Little Star, or something well ingrained in their heads for decades, so you don't have to struggle with learning a tune at the same time you are trying to learn the hand mechanics of fingerstyle playing. A fairly simple tune on guitar if played in DADGAD is O'Carolan's Welcome, if that is what you are thinking about doing. it's a good starter tune, but only after you have the fingers working well together.
Exercises for strength and stretching are helpful too. The stringer the right muscles are, you will have more ease of playing. Guitar is a very complex instrument played in this way, and especially if, as in fingerstyle playing, you do both melody and backup with one hand.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by irisnevins
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Thanks for all the comments.
I should maybe have explained more. It's not really "classical guitar" as such, as the guitar I play is acoustic, light bronze strung, so not "proper" nylon classical. I used to play classical, up to a pretty simple level. Now I play trad/folk/session guitar. I also play fiddle, mandolin and banjo, so it's not a case of taking any/every session tune and trying to turn it into a classical masterpiece or anything! More a case of just trying to get better on each instrument, and do more that just always strum away on the guitar.
At its heart, the guitar will always be a rhythm instrument to me - you can't beat a jig or reel rhythm and there's no way (imo) a guitar can ever play a folk melody the way a fiddle or whistle can. But it would be really nice to be able to do more with the guitar, even if it's just play the occasional solo, when everyone else is outside having a smoke. Or even if it's just for playing at home and never gets used in a session...
The tunes are easy enough to play on their own, but at the moment, all I can really do is play the basic chords around the tune here and there, which works fine for some tunes. A more "classical" approach, with a few more interesting combinations, using fingering further up the neck, for example, would be good to try as well though, so it's just to get some ideas.
I'll check out some of the names mentioned above though.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Cathf
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
It’s been pointed out here before that playing these tunes on fingerstyle guitar falls more naturally into the solo harp tradition than the session tradition. It hadn‘t occurred to me at the time, but it really does make sense. So maybe harp arrangements would be another resource to look into.
Some of these tunes are little masterpieces that can easily become gilded lilies if you get carried away with arranging them. My advice is, as llig said, to respect the tune. Don’t sacrifice the tune to the arrangement. It’s okay to drop the bass line or harmony when it gets in the way of letting the tune sing. Again, Martin Carthy is brilliant at minimalist arrangements that let him concentrate on letting the tune do what it wants to do.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Hi Cathf,
I think I get the gist of what you mean. In this case, get Tony McManus' recordings, you can learn a lot from him in terms of "spicing up" traditional tunes on a solo guitar.
As to the choice of tunes, when I play fingerstyle "spiced up" tunes I choose the ones that sound better in slower rhythms - fingerstyle guitar will never sound half as good as fiddle or flute in fast tunes, but in slower jigs and reels you can both get a nice lilt, put in ornamentation, exploit ringing strings to the full, and do some arranging as well. I found out that multi-part tunes work well in this case, as they give you a chance to have a story to tell.
As I play in DADGAD, I like to play tunes in Dmix, as it allows to make use ringing empty strings.
My personal favourites to play in this disreputable way (I only do it at home!) are: Flagstone of Memories, The Mist-Covered Mountain, The Frieze Britches (7 parts), Roaring Waters (all possible parts), Roaring Waves (played stately and slow).
I usually play them them first in a very basic way, just maybe adding a note or two for accompaniment, the second time through with the most obvious base (usually ringing out empty D and A strings), and the third time with more fancy stuff (like some non-obvious harmony or chord), or adding countermelody on the bass strings.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by EastPole
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
And excuse my linguistic mistakes, it's been a long and tedious day.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by EastPole
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Cathf, I think I see where you're coming from.
If you check out the Celtic Guitar site you will finds lots of links to arrangements of Irish tunes as suggested above.
Maybe you need a teacher or good tutor book that will help you do a lot more with accompaniment than the 'basic chord' approach you mention above.
Finally, learn to flatpick the tunes: you can start a well known set at your session that way even if you can't lead it all the way through.
That should be enough challenge to keep you going!
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by Rob
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Surprised no ones mentioned tim edey yet, lovely stuff altogether:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utd9CxoS9PE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goc_1h8neAI
Proper tunes on classical guitar.
# Posted on June 15th 2009 by tnoumarap
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Bob.... I think it's true that many fingerstyle tune players get too caught up in the ornaments and lose the swing of the tune somehow. Trying to recreate fiddle/flute ornaments in the same places will often be awkward and clumsy, sometimes they need to go elswhere or be forgotten. Right...Carthy stays with the tune. Not at all fussy playing. My motto is to never sacrifice the passion and the swing in the tune to the ornaments, period. It can sound too prissy and effete if you don't. Carthy never sounds that way, very gutsy and strong attack. Total brilliance.
As someone said here or was it at Celtic Guitar Talk.. the guitar is the new harp in ways. Nice for a solo as well as a rhythm thing. ...I do everything backwards though... onto the harp... it's quite a fascinating journey after fingerstyle guitar playing...and much easier to find the tunes on by far! Harp, played with Carthy-esque attack too makes a great backing instrument. Harp tunes lend themselves to guitar very well though...it really is a sort of abreviated harp though.
# Posted on June 16th 2009 by irisnevins
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Bobhimself re Duck Baker ( a great guitar player)
Check with Nell (Helen Roche) as she is married to him
# Posted on June 16th 2009 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
Do you suppose she’s ever been asked, “Why a duck?”
Wait, do Marx Brothers allusions still work?
# Posted on June 16th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
I believe they call him Duck due to really big feet?
# Posted on June 16th 2009 by irisnevins
Re: Session tunes for classical guitar
I think The Duck himself has said it was an arbitrary playground appellation that just stuck.
# Posted on June 16th 2009 by Bob himself