Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Just an observation - I don't remember ever seeing a guitar backing Trad Music in the fifties. I think the first time I saw a guitar player backing Trad was Jimmy Power's son Tommy in The Favourite in London. Circa 1967.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
phase 1:
John J. Kimmel. "Early Recordings of Irish Traditional Dance Music"
John J. Kimmel (accordion), with Ed de Veau (piano), Joe Linder (piano), Andy Fiedler (guitar) http://www.irishtune.info/album/JKm/
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
In Scotland Dick Gaughan is credited for introducing flatpicking tunes on the guitar. I don't know of anyone who did it earlier in Ireland but I stand to be corrected.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
themush,
Guitarists would have no problem if they played the tune melodies, instead of chords. Once you try to introduce chords as harmony, you cause problems. As a session member, I really hate to hear guitarists scramble to add chords to tunes. The melody is all we really need.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Interesting how our perceptions differ - I take quite the opposite view - I don't mind guitarists playing chords (providing they get them right, play in the same rhythm as the melody players and avoid showy effects), but I don't enjoy playing music with guitarists playing melody. It seems such a clumsy instrument for melody - a constant struggle to be in the right place at more-or-less the right time. A bit like the hammer dulcimer trying to play jigs - it's possible, but as the man said, if I were going to Dublin, I wouldn't leave from here.
Funny, because I really like the tenor banjo (if well played!). Perhaps part of the problem is the longer sustain of the guitar - it make it an issue of when you leave a note as well as when you pluck it, whereas the banjo is more staccato and makes leaving the note less of an issue?
I'm not convinced of the guitar playing melody in other musics either - I remember the fuss people made of Segovia, but all I could hear were the squeaks and buzzes! And I'm a guitar player! (Although mostly just for accompanying songs. I'm a flute player in ITM.)
Getting back to the original question, I seem to remember a recording of Michael Coleman (possibly Lord Gordon?) with guitar accompaniment which worked well, while his other recordings with piano were often strained by inappropriate chording and stiff timing. So that was a while back!
Interesting to note that, contrary to popular belief, Guitar like instruments have been around in Europe, since Roman times & that ITALY, not Spain, is the natural home of this instrument, for it was in Italy where first the 5th & then the 6th strings were added.
Not surprising really, when you consider that Italy is also the home of the World's greatest musical instrument .... the VIOLIN!
What? .. oh you thought I was going to say Mandolin, did you!
As for Guitars in Irish Sessions.
Firstly, I prefer them when they don't try to control the tempo, because they have a habit of speeding up.
Apart from that fact, Irish Music has a natural rhythm all of it's own .... so it doesn't actually need percussion.
Secondly, too many Guitar players play far, far too loudly & end up drowning out the melody they are supposed to be accompanying!
Basically, when the other musicians in the session find that all they're doing is accompanying the bl@@dy Guitar player, .......... it's time to call them a Taxi!
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Milestone?, possibly, but not in Gaughans fantastic catalogue. Being a huge admirer of the man, I've tried hard to like this but, really, it's just OK. You probably already know that.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I am not aware of any traditional music recordings featuring guitar between the 78 era and the mid-60s. The Dubliners, of course, were using guitar accompaniment to traditional tunes in the mid to late 60s. But I think much of the credit (or blame? ) must be given to the late Micheál Ó Domhnaill (along with Tríona Ní Domnaill's keyboards and Dónal Lunny's bouzouki) for developing an accompaniment style that was sensitive both to the implied harmony and the rhythmic nuances of traditional tunes. Whilst some might find his playing a little primitive compared to some of today's guitar accompanists, it laid the foundation for them and opened up a new way of hearing traditional tunes.
Reflecting on what I have written above, I think it is impossible to consider the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional Music in isolation. What developed in the late 60s and early 70s was a kind of 'attitude' of accompaniment, that is present as much in the bouzouki playing of Donal Lunny and Alec Finn and the tenor banjo playing of Mick O'Connor (on Paddy Carty's 'Traditional Irish Music'). It is also important to listen back to the early piano vampers (even the rubbish ones on some of Coleman's recordings ), this being the dominant style of accompaniment for several decades prior to the ubiquitization of the guitar.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
It is not only Help! It is all the other Beatles classics, mauled over and over in their teenage lairs by cub musos in the Sixties, in Ireland as everywhere else. Or so I confidently guess.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
no, no..you've got it all wrong. The guitar came along with the Spainish when their armada ran aground all along the west coast of Ireland. The few Spainiards that survived the storm were then put to death for playing the wrong chords, but their guitars remained in Ireland to this day.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I grew up in an Irish midland town in the forties and fifties and was always involved with musical things. I can't even remember seeing anyone playing a guitar in those times. Not even the dance bands of the time had a guitar in them. Guitars were mostly played by the singing cowboys and cowboy singing groups in America. Of course we listened to the electric guitar of Les Paul on radio, and in the early fifties there was a singer called (I think) Charlie McGee on Radio Eireann. He was billed as 'He sings to a small guitar'. The first guitar I ever saw 'live' was in 1955 in England when 'skiffle' was king. Every teenager seem to own one.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
ha ha, I think Lear wrote The Owl and the Pussycat in about 1870, back in the days when when singing to a small guitar was a kind of quaint upperclass thing. Them were the days.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Charlie McGee, he was a relative of one of my mates who very recently bought a 45rpm single of him on ebay. Played it to me and I have to say its, well, sorta straaange. Jazzy guitar and rather affected vocals. Nice to see him mentioned on here though. I'll tell the leader (me mates nickname)
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Reg Hall's thesis includes just three guitarists in his list of musicians active in the Irish music scene in London during the period 1945-1970: Ted Franklyn; Mick Sheridan; and, the aforementioned Tom Power.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Milestone?, possibly, but not in Gaughans fantastic catalogue."
Strayaway. I agree that in terms of Dick's work it was surely his weakest, but it was memorable because of the use of the Guitar in Trad Music.
Like many milestones, they are but creatures of their time.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
It is interesting that the recollections of folks in Ireland above from 'the old days' see no signs of guitar, while in America it was a common practice.
Again, perhaps like the banjo, Irish music first met and mingled with the guitar in America, and then brought them both back.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Charlie Mcgee is suppossed to have picked up a guitar which was left behind by a G.I.(en route to the war in europe) who had been in his family's pub in Derry in the early 1940s. Charlie then learnt the instrument from Django Rhienhart records-hence his "jazzy" style.
Donal Gallagher (Rory's brother/manager) tells a story that the same Charlie Mcgee was a friend of his fathers and advised Rory's father to buy young Rory a guitar and taught him his first few chords!
According to the Irish Times Charlie Mcgee made the first recording of an irish song with solo guitar backing in late forties - don't know if this is true and can't remember what the song was!
How's she cuttin' Strayaway?
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Welcome to the session, leader. Your life will now change forever. Black cats will be required! No, not the one in Belleek!
I agree, Ptarmigan, good in it's time but def his weakest.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Quoth Michael: " 'Any instrument is capable of being played poorly, why single out the guitar?'
Because globally, it must be without a doubt the instrument that is played poorly the most. I'd guestimate by a factor of at least 20 at the very least. "
Yeah but that's only because there are 21 times more guitars in existence than bodhrans.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
To be earnest and helpful to the discussion-posting dude, I'd suggest you check out the two most interesting guitarists willing to do Irish trad accompaniment, c. 2009: John Doyle and Tim Edey.
(Both of them are also well beyond adept at other instruments.)
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
But, to get back to the original question, what IS the history ?
Nothing much before the '60s' basically.
Emmet Spiceland, Sweeney's Men, Planxty, The Johnstons', etc.
Nothing significant before that.
Then the second generation; De Danaan, Bothy Band, Moving Hearts, etc.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Michael O'Domhnaill ("primitive?") and Daithi Sproule were probably influenced more by English folk rockers than "Yanks."
You could ask Daithi. Check out bits of guitar from both with Skara Brae.
I'm really glad they added what they did to Irish Traditional music-brilliant.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Thank you very much for all this information.
But what about the likes of Pierre Bensusan?
He's from Brittany but does he get any credit for his work in the Irish Traditional world?
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Michael O'Domhnaill ("primitive?")"
Not my personal opinion. But guitar accompaniment has evolved quite a bit since then and I'm guessing that his playing might sound that way to some who are used to the likes of John Doyle and Tim Edey.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
To my ears, it's all part of the same idea of accompaniment that harmonizes every note of the melody, rather than just emphasizing the basic chord changes. I know John's playing well, and feel he is not that far removed from Micheal, but must check out Tim Edey. How about the swing style of the Wrigley Sisters from Orkney?
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I would have to say that Michael O'Domhnaill set a new standard for impeccably supporting the melody without sounding like a rhythm section. Primitive? Maybe, in a sense. He might accompany an entire tune using just two simple first-position chords, but it was, well … impeccable.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
'Secondly, too many Guitar players play far, far too loudly & end up drowning out the melody they are supposed to be accompanying!'
From my limited knowledge of ITM, I do prefer the guitar as accompaniment (maybe a bit of melody is nice sometimes though), but I think if guitarists come from other genres, they can bring elements of these to irish music and can have a detrimental effect. I went to see a group last year- Grada (http://www.gradamusic.com/) and while some of the members were all-Ireland winning musicians, the bandleader was a (fantastic) guitarist, who was way too rock and roll and showy, which didn't suit the music at all. Put me off. And I'm a guitarist also!
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I remember seeing De Danaan, and thinking "I could play that guitar line, no problem." He was certainly doing less on guitar than I would have done at the time, where I was still a bit influenced by the boom-chuck of old-timey style which was about the only thing equivalent to draw on, although I like to think I was already being a bit more free and variable than that.
I'd certainly go with minimalist rather than continuous strum which is what some individuals do for these days.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Thinking of all that manic ~ Boom Chuck, Boom Chuck you hear from Guitars, at some sessions, makes me wonder if, after all the wonderful, beautiful & imaginative music that has been created on & for the Guitar over the centuries, is this noble instrument really destined to become nothing more than a ....... String Drum!
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I'm too young to weigh in most of the dates listed for guitar introduction are before my time. The word "clumsy" I read in a few posts above I think get the guitar it's bad rap. Sometimes when you have a Bouzouki (sp?) and a guitar, and two banjos, it starts to sound pretty nuts! and in my opinion not very Irish trad anymore. Awe. I DO like when that strummer gets between me and a noisy noodler, however, or if that strummer has good speed control, and drowns out the "racer". I've sat back to back with the guitarist once in a large session (was so big didnt matter how we were oriented) I really liked that. Just enough to give me a rhythmic sensation... but not have to really have every chord pouring into my ears.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Ha! Too funny. The poster asks for a history lesson, and instead gets a multiple post opinion piece on current affairs. This proves once again that when it comes to guitars and bodhrans, the esteemed members of the yellow board simply can't help themselves. It's fresh red meat thrown to cynical lions.
But back to the issue at hand. It seems to me the guitar began to creep it's way into Irish music in the early 60's during the folk / civil rights movements. It was the preferred ballad - story telling instrument of the time, and was simply absorbed by Irish trad music also experiencing renewed enthusiasm in the 1960s.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
The Tarbolton set as recorded in the 30s in New York by Michael Coleman was backed by guitar. Tastefully so. Sounds like a small parlor sized instrument to my ears. I think it's plausible that the guitar was used earlier in the US than in Ireland.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I think it's worth mentioning Paul Brady's nice session work for Shanachie records back in the 60's/70's, especially on "Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds" and McGann's great "A Hard Road". Tasty and understated.
These were some of the recordings that introduced me to Irish Fiddle playing- So I guess you could say I started out "corrupted" since I never like the piano as much as the guitar for accompanying tunes.
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
The input of the guitar to Britain and Ireland after WW2 was massively from America, where it was in widespread use in all manner of ways.
Britain and Ireland were flat broke for years after WW2. When the economies improved in the mid-50s, there was the Skiffle craze - it was probably the first time lots of kids could afford a guitar; also, for that matter, imported albums. Many post-war musos started on skiffle (I think it's great!). Skiffle (in UK) was a British take on American musics such as jug band.
America continued to inspire British guitarniks through the 50s and 60s. Rock-and-roll and singer-songwriter-guitarist folk / protest song were straight American imports. So was blues - but it also morphed into British rock music that, along with the Beatles phenomenon, gave the UK scene a critical mass of its own. Anyway - by the end of the Sixties, there was no shortage of able guitarists in Britain and no doubt Ireland who had taken on board American styles as well as whatever was developing out of them in this part of the world. Davey Graham, born in the UK, was an important figure in all this, from the trad music point of view - he popularised the DADGAD tuning and experimented in the folk / trad area.
(Though I'm sure American music was far and away the main source of UK / Ir guitar styles, the Old World contributed some. There was classical guitar / lute material, taken up by, e.g., John Renbourn; forays into Arab music by, e.g., Robin Williamson; people tackling flamenco and Gypsy music; and some from the pre-war Jazz Age who were still playing, like Swing guitarist 'Peerie Willie' Johnson in Shetland who came to have an impact on trad.)
But as far as I can see, all this didn't feed through into instrumental trad backing all that quickly or easily. Guitar accompaniment for this in the Sixties (here I *am* generalising pretty widely and washily) tended to be fairly rudimentary chord-bashing - which of course can be done better or worse.There would have been far more people around who could sing and accompany themselves really well, or pick a tune of some kind ditto, than people used to accompanying trad.
This is because there was very little tradition of guitar accompaniment in Ir / UK trad. (I say "very little" just to cover my bases if I'm wrong here - and indeed, Willie Johnson was accompanying trad in Shetland.) And the trad and contemporary music worlds didn't mesh, as far as I see. The two seemed quite polarised in their tastes and outlook, as well as in the backgrounds their members were likely to come from. And in England, anyway, there just weren't many proficient melody players around to accompany.
So - I imagine the Irish guitarists who'd lived with largely the same influences as the Brits and New Worlders, and got interested in trad, began to progress past the basics of ballad-group backing and into more advanced engagement with trad tunes *once* various barriers between them and the trad world, especially its more able and adaptable players, had begun to come down. I guess this was round about 1970.
I expect a Masters from Rockall for this, delivered by registered puffin.
Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I'm doing an essay on it at the moment for college.
Finding it hard to find info on it here on the net.
Please send me some links that I can read.
Thanks in advance!
Patrick
# Posted on November 2nd 2009 by patrick o'flynn
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
'Quite brief' would be one answer!
Seriously, search guitar on the links section and discussion sections of this site and it's all there for you.
Have a look at http://www.celticguitartalk.com
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Rob
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Just an observation - I don't remember ever seeing a guitar backing Trad Music in the fifties. I think the first time I saw a guitar player backing Trad was Jimmy Power's son Tommy in The Favourite in London. Circa 1967.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
phase 1:
John J. Kimmel. "Early Recordings of Irish Traditional Dance Music"
John J. Kimmel (accordion), with Ed de Veau (piano), Joe Linder (piano), Andy Fiedler (guitar)
http://www.irishtune.info/album/JKm/
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
The Flanagan Brothers used guitar as far back as the 1920's
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by t byrne
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
In Scotland Dick Gaughan is credited for introducing flatpicking tunes on the guitar. I don't know of anyone who did it earlier in Ireland but I stand to be corrected.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Contact divilthebit on this site. I seem to remember a few years back he wrote an article about it???
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Greenwiggle
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/818/comments#comment11773
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Greenwiggle
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Minions of the Devil introduced the guitar into Irish sessions as part of their plot to poison the minds of man, and it has been all downhill since!
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
What is the difference between guitars and hypertension?
Hypertension is the SILENT killer!
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Pardon my ignorance, but why is the guitar so frowned upon in ITM- is it so even if is played 'correctly'- as accompaniment and in the background?
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by themush
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
themush - A quick search of this site will turn up hours of reading on the subject. I'd say it's more accepted than frowned upon.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Bob himself
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
It's more accepted than frowned upon, but accepting the guitar is more frowned upon than accepted. Strange but true.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
themush,
Guitarists would have no problem if they played the tune melodies, instead of chords. Once you try to introduce chords as harmony, you cause problems. As a session member, I really hate to hear guitarists scramble to add chords to tunes. The melody is all we really need.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Interesting how our perceptions differ - I take quite the opposite view - I don't mind guitarists playing chords (providing they get them right, play in the same rhythm as the melody players and avoid showy effects), but I don't enjoy playing music with guitarists playing melody. It seems such a clumsy instrument for melody - a constant struggle to be in the right place at more-or-less the right time. A bit like the hammer dulcimer trying to play jigs - it's possible, but as the man said, if I were going to Dublin, I wouldn't leave from here.
Funny, because I really like the tenor banjo (if well played!). Perhaps part of the problem is the longer sustain of the guitar - it make it an issue of when you leave a note as well as when you pluck it, whereas the banjo is more staccato and makes leaving the note less of an issue?
I'm not convinced of the guitar playing melody in other musics either - I remember the fuss people made of Segovia, but all I could hear were the squeaks and buzzes! And I'm a guitar player! (Although mostly just for accompanying songs. I'm a flute player in ITM.)
Getting back to the original question, I seem to remember a recording of Michael Coleman (possibly Lord Gordon?) with guitar accompaniment which worked well, while his other recordings with piano were often strained by inappropriate chording and stiff timing. So that was a while back!
Terry
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Terry McGee
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Patrick, you might like to check out the History of the Guitar.
http://www.guyguitars.com/eng/handbook/BriefHistory.html
Interesting to note that, contrary to popular belief, Guitar like instruments have been around in Europe, since Roman times & that ITALY, not Spain, is the natural home of this instrument, for it was in Italy where first the 5th & then the 6th strings were added.
Not surprising really, when you consider that Italy is also the home of the World's greatest musical instrument .... the VIOLIN!
What? .. oh you thought I was going to say Mandolin, did you!
As for Guitars in Irish Sessions.
Firstly, I prefer them when they don't try to control the tempo, because they have a habit of speeding up.
Apart from that fact, Irish Music has a natural rhythm all of it's own .... so it doesn't actually need percussion.
Secondly, too many Guitar players play far, far too loudly & end up drowning out the melody they are supposed to be accompanying!
Basically, when the other musicians in the session find that all they're doing is accompanying the bl@@dy Guitar player, .......... it's time to call them a Taxi!
By the way, this LP was a milestone!
Dick Gaughan ~ 'Coppers & Brass' {1977}
http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/discography/dsc-cb.html
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Milestone?, possibly, but not in Gaughans fantastic catalogue. Being a huge admirer of the man, I've tried hard to like this but, really, it's just OK. You probably already know that.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by strayaway
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
twaddle
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by mcknowall
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Any instrument is capable of being played poorly, why single out the guitar?
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Phantom Button
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Any instrument is capable of being played poorly, why single out the guitar?"
Unlike the flute or the fiddle the guitar is capable of playing 6 bum notes all at once.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"a recording of Michael Coleman (possibly Lord Gordon?) with guitar accompaniment"
Yes - I can confirm that. There are also recordings of Donegal fiddler from around the same time (1930s-40s) with guitar accompaniment.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
...Sorry - I meant to say "Donegal fiddler *Hugh Gillespie*" there.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Unlike the flute or the fiddle the guitar is capable of playing 6 bum notes all at once."
Frankly one bum note is more than enough. The only reason the guitarists are singled out is jealousy, pure and simple. We get all the girls.....
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I am not aware of any traditional music recordings featuring guitar between the 78 era and the mid-60s. The Dubliners, of course, were using guitar accompaniment to traditional tunes in the mid to late 60s. But I think much of the credit (or blame?
) must be given to the late Micheál Ó Domhnaill (along with Tríona Ní Domnaill's keyboards and Dónal Lunny's bouzouki) for developing an accompaniment style that was sensitive both to the implied harmony and the rhythmic nuances of traditional tunes. Whilst some might find his playing a little primitive compared to some of today's guitar accompanists, it laid the foundation for them and opened up a new way of hearing traditional tunes.
Reflecting on what I have written above, I think it is impossible to consider the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional Music in isolation. What developed in the late 60s and early 70s was a kind of 'attitude' of accompaniment, that is present as much in the bouzouki playing of Donal Lunny and Alec Finn and the tenor banjo playing of Mick O'Connor (on Paddy Carty's 'Traditional Irish Music'). It is also important to listen back to the early piano vampers (even the rubbish ones on some of Coleman's recordings
), this being the dominant style of accompaniment for several decades prior to the ubiquitization of the guitar.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
The six string devil in 'this' music is dead!
It IS history.
Long live the baritone ukulele!
It is the way forward.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by yhaalhouse
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
It is not only Help! It is all the other Beatles classics, mauled over and over in their teenage lairs by cub musos in the Sixties, in Ireland as everywhere else. Or so I confidently guess.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by nicholas
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
no, no..you've got it all wrong. The guitar came along with the Spainish when their armada ran aground all along the west coast of Ireland. The few Spainiards that survived the storm were then put to death for playing the wrong chords, but their guitars remained in Ireland to this day.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Nate Ryan
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Unlike the flute or the fiddle the guitar is capable of playing 6 bum notes all at once."
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Steve Shaw
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I grew up in an Irish midland town in the forties and fifties and was always involved with musical things. I can't even remember seeing anyone playing a guitar in those times. Not even the dance bands of the time had a guitar in them. Guitars were mostly played by the singing cowboys and cowboy singing groups in America. Of course we listened to the electric guitar of Les Paul on radio, and in the early fifties there was a singer called (I think) Charlie McGee on Radio Eireann. He was billed as 'He sings to a small guitar'. The first guitar I ever saw 'live' was in 1955 in England when 'skiffle' was king. Every teenager seem to own one.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
ha ha, I think Lear wrote The Owl and the Pussycat in about 1870, back in the days when when singing to a small guitar was a kind of quaint upperclass thing. Them were the days.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Charlie McGee, he was a relative of one of my mates who very recently bought a 45rpm single of him on ebay. Played it to me and I have to say its, well, sorta straaange. Jazzy guitar and rather affected vocals. Nice to see him mentioned on here though. I'll tell the leader (me mates nickname)
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by strayaway
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Wasn't it Rory Gallagher??
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Dennis Regan
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Any instrument is capable of being played poorly, why single out the guitar?"
Err ......... perhaps because this is a Guitar thread!
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Reg Hall's thesis includes just three guitarists in his list of musicians active in the Irish music scene in London during the period 1945-1970: Ted Franklyn; Mick Sheridan; and, the aforementioned Tom Power.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Floss the Tethers
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Any instrument is capable of being played poorly, why single out the guitar?"
Because globally, it must be without a doubt the instrument that is played poorly the most. I'd guestimate by a factor of at the very least 20.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Milestone?, possibly, but not in Gaughans fantastic catalogue."
Strayaway. I agree that in terms of Dick's work it was surely his weakest, but it was memorable because of the use of the Guitar in Trad Music.
Like many milestones, they are but creatures of their time.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Guitars were included for their ability to project a driving bass note through the giant Irish American dance halls in Boston as early as the 1920s.
http://www.upne.com/1-55553-610-7.html
Visual evidence of The Flanagan Brothers and their guitar:
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/flanagan.htm
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
It is interesting that the recollections of folks in Ireland above from 'the old days' see no signs of guitar, while in America it was a common practice.
Again, perhaps like the banjo, Irish music first met and mingled with the guitar in America, and then brought them both back.
*#$&*# Yanks...
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Charlie Mcgee is suppossed to have picked up a guitar which was left behind by a G.I.(en route to the war in europe) who had been in his family's pub in Derry in the early 1940s. Charlie then learnt the instrument from Django Rhienhart records-hence his "jazzy" style.
Donal Gallagher (Rory's brother/manager) tells a story that the same Charlie Mcgee was a friend of his fathers and advised Rory's father to buy young Rory a guitar and taught him his first few chords!
According to the Irish Times Charlie Mcgee made the first recording of an irish song with solo guitar backing in late forties - don't know if this is true and can't remember what the song was!
How's she cuttin' Strayaway?
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by leader1
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Welcome to the session, leader. Your life will now change forever. Black cats will be required! No, not the one in Belleek!
I agree, Ptarmigan, good in it's time but def his weakest.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by strayaway
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Quoth Michael: " 'Any instrument is capable of being played poorly, why single out the guitar?'
Because globally, it must be without a doubt the instrument that is played poorly the most. I'd guestimate by a factor of at least 20 at the very least. "
Yeah but that's only because there are 21 times more guitars in existence than bodhrans.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Steve Shaw
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
To be earnest and helpful to the discussion-posting dude, I'd suggest you check out the two most interesting guitarists willing to do Irish trad accompaniment, c. 2009: John Doyle and Tim Edey.
(Both of them are also well beyond adept at other instruments.)
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I think you're missing the point, Steve Shaw, that a bodhrán isn't an instrument. Well, not a musical one, at any rate.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by ethical blend
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
But, to get back to the original question, what IS the history ?
Nothing much before the '60s' basically.
Emmet Spiceland, Sweeney's Men, Planxty, The Johnstons', etc.
Nothing significant before that.
Then the second generation; De Danaan, Bothy Band, Moving Hearts, etc.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Michael O'Domhnaill ("primitive?") and Daithi Sproule were probably influenced more by English folk rockers than "Yanks."
You could ask Daithi. Check out bits of guitar from both with Skara Brae.
I'm really glad they added what they did to Irish Traditional music-brilliant.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by primrose lass
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Thank you very much for all this information.
But what about the likes of Pierre Bensusan?
He's from Brittany but does he get any credit for his work in the Irish Traditional world?
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by patrick o'flynn
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Yes! Good call. Pierre was influential and is well respected.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by primrose lass
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"Michael O'Domhnaill ("primitive?")"
Not my personal opinion. But guitar accompaniment has evolved quite a bit since then and I'm guessing that his playing might sound that way to some who are used to the likes of John Doyle and Tim Edey.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
To my ears, it's all part of the same idea of accompaniment that harmonizes every note of the melody, rather than just emphasizing the basic chord changes. I know John's playing well, and feel he is not that far removed from Micheal, but must check out Tim Edey. How about the swing style of the Wrigley Sisters from Orkney?
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by primrose lass
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
"I think you're missing the point, Steve Shaw, that a bodhrán isn't an instrument. Well, not a musical one, at any rate."
Too bloody right, e-blend. In spite of the best (worst?) efforts of JJK and his ilk to play tunes on the damn thing. Too bloody right, mate!
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by Steve Shaw
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Sorry, that's not Irish guitar-but an interesting example of an influence on a tradition.
# Posted on November 3rd 2009 by primrose lass
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I would have to say that Michael O'Domhnaill set a new standard for impeccably supporting the melody without sounding like a rhythm section. Primitive? Maybe, in a sense. He might accompany an entire tune using just two simple first-position chords, but it was, well … impeccable.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Aye Bob, my thoughts exactly & the words less is more, spring to mind!
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Amen bobhimself and Ptarmigan, busier is not necessarily better.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
'Secondly, too many Guitar players play far, far too loudly & end up drowning out the melody they are supposed to be accompanying!'
From my limited knowledge of ITM, I do prefer the guitar as accompaniment (maybe a bit of melody is nice sometimes though), but I think if guitarists come from other genres, they can bring elements of these to irish music and can have a detrimental effect. I went to see a group last year- Grada (http://www.gradamusic.com/) and while some of the members were all-Ireland winning musicians, the bandleader was a (fantastic) guitarist, who was way too rock and roll and showy, which didn't suit the music at all. Put me off. And I'm a guitarist also!
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by themush
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I remember seeing De Danaan, and thinking "I could play that guitar line, no problem." He was certainly doing less on guitar than I would have done at the time, where I was still a bit influenced by the boom-chuck of old-timey style which was about the only thing equivalent to draw on, although I like to think I was already being a bit more free and variable than that.
I'd certainly go with minimalist rather than continuous strum which is what some individuals do for these days.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Thinking of all that manic ~ Boom Chuck, Boom Chuck you hear from Guitars, at some sessions, makes me wonder if, after all the wonderful, beautiful & imaginative music that has been created on & for the Guitar over the centuries, is this noble instrument really destined to become nothing more than a ....... String Drum!
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Denis Cahill leads the way in guitar accompaniment with his sparse, considered approach to the music.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
the history of guitar playing in irish traditional music are as follows:
those that can play rarely do as those that cant take over and scandalise the instrument!!!
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by irishmuso
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I'm too young to weigh in most of the dates listed for guitar introduction are before my time. The word "clumsy" I read in a few posts above I think get the guitar it's bad rap. Sometimes when you have a Bouzouki (sp?) and a guitar, and two banjos, it starts to sound pretty nuts! and in my opinion not very Irish trad anymore. Awe. I DO like when that strummer gets between me and a noisy noodler, however, or if that strummer has good speed control, and drowns out the "racer". I've sat back to back with the guitarist once in a large session (was so big didnt matter how we were oriented) I really liked that. Just enough to give me a rhythmic sensation... but not have to really have every chord pouring into my ears.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by SandyBottoms
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Ha! Too funny. The poster asks for a history lesson, and instead gets a multiple post opinion piece on current affairs. This proves once again that when it comes to guitars and bodhrans, the esteemed members of the yellow board simply can't help themselves. It's fresh red meat thrown to cynical lions.
But back to the issue at hand. It seems to me the guitar began to creep it's way into Irish music in the early 60's during the folk / civil rights movements. It was the preferred ballad - story telling instrument of the time, and was simply absorbed by Irish trad music also experiencing renewed enthusiasm in the 1960s.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I was going to give a link to Duck Baker's writings but I did not see anything about the history of guitar in ITM.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Robin Williamson probably has some pontificating somewhere about guitars. FWIW
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
The Tarbolton set as recorded in the 30s in New York by Michael Coleman was backed by guitar. Tastefully so. Sounds like a small parlor sized instrument to my ears. I think it's plausible that the guitar was used earlier in the US than in Ireland.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by fidkid
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
This is another Coleman set backed by guitar (1934):
http://www.archive.org/details/MichaelColemanWanderingMinstrelFastentheLeginHerColemansCross
and a set of hornpipes played by Paddy Killoran backed by guitar too (1950):
http://www.archive.org/details/PaddyKilloranJoeCooleysMartinFeenysFavorite
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Ramiro
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
I think it's worth mentioning Paul Brady's nice session work for Shanachie records back in the 60's/70's, especially on "Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds" and McGann's great "A Hard Road". Tasty and understated.
These were some of the recordings that introduced me to Irish Fiddle playing- So I guess you could say I started out "corrupted" since I never like the piano as much as the guitar for accompanying tunes.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Murph
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
Another Paul who ought to be mentioned is de Grae - http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/512.
# Posted on November 4th 2009 by Floss the Tethers
Re: Help! What is the history of the guitar in Irish Traditional music?
The input of the guitar to Britain and Ireland after WW2 was massively from America, where it was in widespread use in all manner of ways.
Britain and Ireland were flat broke for years after WW2. When the economies improved in the mid-50s, there was the Skiffle craze - it was probably the first time lots of kids could afford a guitar; also, for that matter, imported albums. Many post-war musos started on skiffle (I think it's great!). Skiffle (in UK) was a British take on American musics such as jug band.
America continued to inspire British guitarniks through the 50s and 60s. Rock-and-roll and singer-songwriter-guitarist folk / protest song were straight American imports. So was blues - but it also morphed into British rock music that, along with the Beatles phenomenon, gave the UK scene a critical mass of its own. Anyway - by the end of the Sixties, there was no shortage of able guitarists in Britain and no doubt Ireland who had taken on board American styles as well as whatever was developing out of them in this part of the world. Davey Graham, born in the UK, was an important figure in all this, from the trad music point of view - he popularised the DADGAD tuning and experimented in the folk / trad area.
(Though I'm sure American music was far and away the main source of UK / Ir guitar styles, the Old World contributed some. There was classical guitar / lute material, taken up by, e.g., John Renbourn; forays into Arab music by, e.g., Robin Williamson; people tackling flamenco and Gypsy music; and some from the pre-war Jazz Age who were still playing, like Swing guitarist 'Peerie Willie' Johnson in Shetland who came to have an impact on trad.)
But as far as I can see, all this didn't feed through into instrumental trad backing all that quickly or easily. Guitar accompaniment for this in the Sixties (here I *am* generalising pretty widely and washily) tended to be fairly rudimentary chord-bashing - which of course can be done better or worse.There would have been far more people around who could sing and accompany themselves really well, or pick a tune of some kind ditto, than people used to accompanying trad.
This is because there was very little tradition of guitar accompaniment in Ir / UK trad. (I say "very little" just to cover my bases if I'm wrong here - and indeed, Willie Johnson was accompanying trad in Shetland.) And the trad and contemporary music worlds didn't mesh, as far as I see. The two seemed quite polarised in their tastes and outlook, as well as in the backgrounds their members were likely to come from. And in England, anyway, there just weren't many proficient melody players around to accompany.
So - I imagine the Irish guitarists who'd lived with largely the same influences as the Brits and New Worlders, and got interested in trad, began to progress past the basics of ballad-group backing and into more advanced engagement with trad tunes *once* various barriers between them and the trad world, especially its more able and adaptable players, had begun to come down. I guess this was round about 1970.
I expect a Masters from Rockall for this, delivered by registered puffin.
# Posted on November 5th 2009 by nicholas