A buddy of mine and I are thinking about working up a number of ITM tunes to play as duets and/or as back-up to other melody instruments (fiddle/whistle) in sessions. We're very new to ITM music and yet we both can handle different styles of fingerstyle music at the intermediate (me) level and advanced level (him). Each of us can handle a flatpick fairly well, chord changes in standard tuning and would be open to different styles of playing. We want to work toward 20-30 tunes that we could play as a guitar duet and as back-up to other melody players. Does anyone online have suggested repetoire for two guitar players -- fingertsyle or otherwise? Either tunes or books or CD's or links where we could cull some good ideas? We live about 3 hours apart and family obligations keep us from playing togerther very often -- thus we're using this site to develop a list of jointly agreed upon repetoire to work on and to occasionally get together to rehearse. Any assistance is appreciated. Thank you. /tca/
There is some lovely double guitar work, although not all Irish, on a CD by Robin Bullock and Steve Baughman. They too, live far apart, but get together to play and perform. If you ever get a chance to see these players definitely go for it.
You can't go past having a listen to Tony McManus. He is an excellent celtic guitarist. Check out www.tonymcmanus.com I've got his solo album 'Pourquoi Quebec' and one he did with scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser. I'm sure you'll get plenty of ideas from them. TCA, if you want copies send me an e-mail.
Good guitar tunes? Red-Haired Boy, Star of Munster, Mulqueen's Reel, Kitty's Rambles, Donnybrook Fair, Jig of Slurs, Blackberry Blossom (the Irish one, it's in O'Neill's, the American Blackberry Blossom is a different tune and also a good picking tune), The Flowing Bowl, Boys of Ballycastle, Rights of Man (but try to keep from turning it into a swing tune, although the temptation is deadly), the Musical Priest, Sporting Paddy, Wind That Shakes the Barley, Drunken Landlady, Last Night's Fun, Scotch Mary, Silver Spear, Nine Pints of Roguery.
All of 'em tried and tested in standard/drop D, and guaranteed fun picking tunes, or double your money back.
Picking tip of the day: always pick your C natural on the third string. Trust me.
Tim, You are welcome to check the samples from my web site: http://www.ceciltguitar.com I am not at all "steeped in the tradition", but do love the music, and managed to learn enough of it from 2 years of ceili classes (I never progressed beyond bing a fun-hearted stumbler, but was usually able to be in the right place at the right time) to put together a cd of mostly over-dubbed guitars (some solo work as well). Best wishes with your project!
"bing" should be "being". My fingers stumble a lot on the computer keyboard, too (especially when interrupted)....they also stumble on the guitar quite a bit.....
Sandy and I met at the Swannanoa gathering and we have interacted as students with Robin Bullock and Steve Baughman. Neither of us have delusions of matching their musicianship, we're just looking for ways to play ITM music together. Incidentally, we are both seeing Robin and Steve at a concert on March 11th in baltimore.
As many of you know, some of this music is not really well suited for guitars. Guitars don't sustain notes at full volume for long and it takes a creative arrangement to create the illusion of sustaining notes within a guitar arrangement. Guitars can however, mimmick harps to some extent but then again, a guitar is limited to six strings ringing at any one time. The faster fiddle tunes can be adpated but the ornamentation takes some work and the volume of a guitar is again not nearly as robust as a fiddle.
Both Sandy and I have been introduced to the CGDGCD tuning -- a tuning Steve Baughman uses almost exclusively and calls "Orkney." Neither of us use it enough to be fully comfortable arranging. Although, if you look closely at the intervals, DADGAD players will find a lot of similarities between tunes play in the key of D in DADGAD and the key of G in CGDGCD. This is because the first five string intervals (V,I,IV,V) of DADGAD match the second 5 string interervals in CGDGCD (V,I,IV,V). Anything played in DADGAD on the first 5 strings can be moved easily to the final 5 strings of CGDGCD.
I play occasionally in CGDGAD, a close relative to CGDGCD so who knows maybe we'll combine some tunings. That in fact is a very good idea -- otherwise we might be tempted to play unison a bit too often.
Thank you all for your ideas and thoughts -- keep them coming.
I have come to realize that a guitar is very close to an Irish wire strung harp. The tone and tembre are very close. And I will make the heretical statement that the guitar is replaceing the harp in ITM. To back this up you might notice that tunes made for the harp go very well on the guitar. O'Carolans show this quite well since they are known to be harp tunes and end up as favorites for guitar i.e. Planxty Hewlett, Planxty Fanny Power, etc.
Sooo, I'm saying: listen to some wire strung harp stuff for inspiration and see what you think.
I have often wondered whether Nashville tuning would work for to mimic the harp while playing ITM -- Nashville tuning is generally known as technique in which when unwound strings are substituted for wound strings on a standard guitar. Often time, it's a simple as using only the octave strings only of a 12 string set, and tuned to standard pitch at the octave or two higher than the standard strings would ahve been tuned. This would result in a very harp-like effect I bet. I'll have to experiment one day with an extra guitar.
John Renbourn has a book of arrangements for two guitars. Some might be slightly challenging but good for ideas.
Try arranging a tune in G with one guitar playing without capo and the other playing with capo on the 5th fret where the D shape chord becomes G. The Set Dance "Three Sea Captains" is one worth trying for this.
Otherwise try and arrange the two guitars at least in different tunings so that they complement rather than merge. Another possibility is to pick two guitars that have very different sound characterstics.
Hey there's only one thing that sounds better than a guitar and that's two of them (well played).
Cheers
Another technique that works well is to capo up on one guitar only, to put the guitars in different registers. When we do this, we usually capo up to at least the 5th fret, sometimes as high as the 12th fret. The guitar without a capo can also tune the 6th and or 5th strings down to whatever suits the key. I have never dropped the 6th below "A" (an octave below the standard 5th string tuning).
Hmmm .. guitar very close to a wire-strung harp. Not sure I'd go along with that, Fern, at least based on any of the guitarists (or wire-strung harpists) I've heard. Not to say that the guitar can't be beautiful in it's own right, but to my ear the harp sounds completely different.
ITM Guitar Duets
ITM Guitar Duets
A buddy of mine and I are thinking about working up a number of ITM tunes to play as duets and/or as back-up to other melody instruments (fiddle/whistle) in sessions. We're very new to ITM music and yet we both can handle different styles of fingerstyle music at the intermediate (me) level and advanced level (him). Each of us can handle a flatpick fairly well, chord changes in standard tuning and would be open to different styles of playing. We want to work toward 20-30 tunes that we could play as a guitar duet and as back-up to other melody players. Does anyone online have suggested repetoire for two guitar players -- fingertsyle or otherwise? Either tunes or books or CD's or links where we could cull some good ideas? We live about 3 hours apart and family obligations keep us from playing togerther very often -- thus we're using this site to develop a list of jointly agreed upon repetoire to work on and to occasionally get together to rehearse. Any assistance is appreciated. Thank you. /tca/
# Posted on December 20th 2004 by TCA_ASS
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
i'd love to hear 'open c' tuneing on one of your instruments _try it
(low) C, G, C, G, C & (high) D
_where the 'G' string is the only one unchanged from standard
it's great for playing tunes too . . .
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by lisaniska
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
Hey Paul H - someone's trying to steal our idea...You take the big fella..
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by ian clark
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
I believe there is a nice guitar duet on the new CD by Daithi Sproule and Randall Bays.
http://home.earthlink.net/~randalbays/bays-sproule.html
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by Jode
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
There is some lovely double guitar work, although not all Irish, on a CD by Robin Bullock and Steve Baughman. They too, live far apart, but get together to play and perform. If you ever get a chance to see these players definitely go for it.
http://www.flatpicker.com/bullock/celtic_guitar_summit.htm
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by adam b
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
You can't go past having a listen to Tony McManus. He is an excellent celtic guitarist. Check out www.tonymcmanus.com I've got his solo album 'Pourquoi Quebec' and one he did with scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser. I'm sure you'll get plenty of ideas from them. TCA, if you want copies send me an e-mail.
Gerry
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by GerryTh
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
Good guitar tunes? Red-Haired Boy, Star of Munster, Mulqueen's Reel, Kitty's Rambles, Donnybrook Fair, Jig of Slurs, Blackberry Blossom (the Irish one, it's in O'Neill's, the American Blackberry Blossom is a different tune and also a good picking tune), The Flowing Bowl, Boys of Ballycastle, Rights of Man (but try to keep from turning it into a swing tune, although the temptation is deadly), the Musical Priest, Sporting Paddy, Wind That Shakes the Barley, Drunken Landlady, Last Night's Fun, Scotch Mary, Silver Spear, Nine Pints of Roguery.
All of 'em tried and tested in standard/drop D, and guaranteed fun picking tunes, or double your money back.
Picking tip of the day: always pick your C natural on the third string. Trust me.
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
Tim, You are welcome to check the samples from my web site: http://www.ceciltguitar.com I am not at all "steeped in the tradition", but do love the music, and managed to learn enough of it from 2 years of ceili classes (I never progressed beyond bing a fun-hearted stumbler, but was usually able to be in the right place at the right time) to put together a cd of mostly over-dubbed guitars (some solo work as well). Best wishes with your project!
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by ceciltguitar
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
"The New Custom House"! That's probably the best tune on banjo or guitar while most of simple, classic tunes sounds nice on two guitars.
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by slainte
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
"bing" should be "being". My fingers stumble a lot on the computer keyboard, too (especially when interrupted)....they also stumble on the guitar quite a bit.....
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by ceciltguitar
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
Sandy and I met at the Swannanoa gathering and we have interacted as students with Robin Bullock and Steve Baughman. Neither of us have delusions of matching their musicianship, we're just looking for ways to play ITM music together. Incidentally, we are both seeing Robin and Steve at a concert on March 11th in baltimore.
As many of you know, some of this music is not really well suited for guitars. Guitars don't sustain notes at full volume for long and it takes a creative arrangement to create the illusion of sustaining notes within a guitar arrangement. Guitars can however, mimmick harps to some extent but then again, a guitar is limited to six strings ringing at any one time. The faster fiddle tunes can be adpated but the ornamentation takes some work and the volume of a guitar is again not nearly as robust as a fiddle.
Both Sandy and I have been introduced to the CGDGCD tuning -- a tuning Steve Baughman uses almost exclusively and calls "Orkney." Neither of us use it enough to be fully comfortable arranging. Although, if you look closely at the intervals, DADGAD players will find a lot of similarities between tunes play in the key of D in DADGAD and the key of G in CGDGCD. This is because the first five string intervals (V,I,IV,V) of DADGAD match the second 5 string interervals in CGDGCD (V,I,IV,V). Anything played in DADGAD on the first 5 strings can be moved easily to the final 5 strings of CGDGCD.
I play occasionally in CGDGAD, a close relative to CGDGCD so who knows maybe we'll combine some tunings. That in fact is a very good idea -- otherwise we might be tempted to play unison a bit too often.
Thank you all for your ideas and thoughts -- keep them coming.
/tim alexander/
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by TCA_ASS
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
I have come to realize that a guitar is very close to an Irish wire strung harp. The tone and tembre are very close. And I will make the heretical statement that the guitar is replaceing the harp in ITM. To back this up you might notice that tunes made for the harp go very well on the guitar. O'Carolans show this quite well since they are known to be harp tunes and end up as favorites for guitar i.e. Planxty Hewlett, Planxty Fanny Power, etc.
Sooo, I'm saying: listen to some wire strung harp stuff for inspiration and see what you think.
Ceciltguitar,
Very nice stuff there on your site.
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by baglady
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
I have often wondered whether Nashville tuning would work for to mimic the harp while playing ITM -- Nashville tuning is generally known as technique in which when unwound strings are substituted for wound strings on a standard guitar. Often time, it's a simple as using only the octave strings only of a 12 string set, and tuned to standard pitch at the octave or two higher than the standard strings would ahve been tuned. This would result in a very harp-like effect I bet. I'll have to experiment one day with an extra guitar.
# Posted on December 21st 2004 by TCA_ASS
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
Fern, thanks, glad you enjoyed it.
# Posted on December 22nd 2004 by ceciltguitar
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
John Renbourn has a book of arrangements for two guitars. Some might be slightly challenging but good for ideas.
Try arranging a tune in G with one guitar playing without capo and the other playing with capo on the 5th fret where the D shape chord becomes G. The Set Dance "Three Sea Captains" is one worth trying for this.
Otherwise try and arrange the two guitars at least in different tunings so that they complement rather than merge. Another possibility is to pick two guitars that have very different sound characterstics.
Hey there's only one thing that sounds better than a guitar and that's two of them (well played).
Cheers
# Posted on December 22nd 2004 by Donough
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
Another technique that works well is to capo up on one guitar only, to put the guitars in different registers. When we do this, we usually capo up to at least the 5th fret, sometimes as high as the 12th fret. The guitar without a capo can also tune the 6th and or 5th strings down to whatever suits the key. I have never dropped the 6th below "A" (an octave below the standard 5th string tuning).
# Posted on December 22nd 2004 by ceciltguitar
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
Thank you all for the ideas - Keep them coming. The capo ideas are very interesting. The contrasting registers would sound great.
# Posted on December 22nd 2004 by TCA_ASS
Re: ITM Guitar Duets
Hmmm .. guitar very close to a wire-strung harp. Not sure I'd go along with that, Fern, at least based on any of the guitarists (or wire-strung harpists) I've heard. Not to say that the guitar can't be beautiful in it's own right, but to my ear the harp sounds completely different.
# Posted on December 22nd 2004 by grego