Back Again! Guitar 'n bouzouki : in sessions together!
Back Again! Guitar 'n bouzouki : in sessions together!
Hi, Pancillotto's here again with another question.
In the past week i joined to some sessions that featured a guitarist and a bouzouki player both backin' up a couple of boxes, a fiddle and a whistle (that was just me). I noticed that guitar started playing in regular triplet rythm patterns (instead of usual syncopated - bass run full -style) just everytime bouzouki made accented quarter (or eight ) strums or free rythmic counterpoints. It happened every time and through different players. I thought that regularizing the rythm part of guitar gived more freedom to improvised rythm dislocation of bouzouki but, as every time, i need some more opinion.
Have you ever played with both instrument comping? What do you think about a kind of "session etiquette" through accompainists?
Re: Back Again! Guitar 'n bouzouki : in sessions together!
With a really GOOD guitar accompanist, I never have any idea where the song is going. My favorites play all sorts of modal and complementary ascending and descending chords patterns, switch from major to minor in certain songs, and consistently set a shifting moody backdrop for the tunes. Taking that into consideration, I think two stringed rhythm players who haven't got a history of working together might end up in a battle royale for rhythmic domination or end up playing a very boring, simplified and consistent straight accompaniment (which has it's uses of course...)
I do think two stringed rhythm players who have worked together enough to be on the same page can be effective, though. At the sessions I go to, though, we don't usually know each other well enough to risk it. The only session I have been to with more than one bouzouki / guitar was so bloody enormous they were all too far apart to bleed into each other, ergo may have been playing three completely different chord progressions and no-one would have been the wiser.
Re: Back Again! Guitar 'n bouzouki : in sessions together!
For the most part, I've found that(at least, depending on the guitarist's style) the guitar often drowns the 'zouk out in a session.Case in point, I was in a session not long ago which featured(among others) John Doyle(of Solas) on guitar and a great bouzouki player named Vincent from Cork. Vincent has a lovely back-pick style of playing, but you can't hear him unless you are right next to him! John is probably my favorite guitar-player but his very rythmic style completely covered the zouk. Sometimes it's nice to have either one or the other and it seems that some players may have to sacrifice their normal style of playing in order to be heard in a noisey session(the same thing happens with the flute, in fact).
Back Again! Guitar 'n bouzouki : in sessions together!
Back Again! Guitar 'n bouzouki : in sessions together!
Hi, Pancillotto's here again with another question.
In the past week i joined to some sessions that featured a guitarist and a bouzouki player both backin' up a couple of boxes, a fiddle and a whistle (that was just me). I noticed that guitar started playing in regular triplet rythm patterns (instead of usual syncopated - bass run full -style) just everytime bouzouki made accented quarter (or eight ) strums or free rythmic counterpoints. It happened every time and through different players. I thought that regularizing the rythm part of guitar gived more freedom to improvised rythm dislocation of bouzouki but, as every time, i need some more opinion.
Have you ever played with both instrument comping? What do you think about a kind of "session etiquette" through accompainists?
# Posted on August 23rd 2001 by pancillotto
Re: Back Again! Guitar 'n bouzouki : in sessions together!
With a really GOOD guitar accompanist, I never have any idea where the song is going. My favorites play all sorts of modal and complementary ascending and descending chords patterns, switch from major to minor in certain songs, and consistently set a shifting moody backdrop for the tunes. Taking that into consideration, I think two stringed rhythm players who haven't got a history of working together might end up in a battle royale for rhythmic domination or end up playing a very boring, simplified and consistent straight accompaniment (which has it's uses of course...)
I do think two stringed rhythm players who have worked together enough to be on the same page can be effective, though. At the sessions I go to, though, we don't usually know each other well enough to risk it. The only session I have been to with more than one bouzouki / guitar was so bloody enormous they were all too far apart to bleed into each other, ergo may have been playing three completely different chord progressions and no-one would have been the wiser.
# Posted on August 24th 2001 by Kerri Brown
Re: Back Again! Guitar 'n bouzouki : in sessions together!
For the most part, I've found that(at least, depending on the guitarist's style) the guitar often drowns the 'zouk out in a session.Case in point, I was in a session not long ago which featured(among others) John Doyle(of Solas) on guitar and a great bouzouki player named Vincent from Cork. Vincent has a lovely back-pick style of playing, but you can't hear him unless you are right next to him! John is probably my favorite guitar-player but his very rythmic style completely covered the zouk. Sometimes it's nice to have either one or the other and it seems that some players may have to sacrifice their normal style of playing in order to be heard in a noisey session(the same thing happens with the flute, in fact).
# Posted on August 31st 2001 by Flute_boy