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I’m working on a little project I’ll think you’ll enjoy, looking forward to getting some of the sounds down so you can have a listen.  In the meantime, we were talking about guitar parts, so here is that second experience from that same series.

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Messing around with mics, we were.  When we were done, I asked if they’d mind just one more for me.  These were the reels, never did have a chance to ask what they’re called.

First the tunes –>Reel Set

Two tunes, one firmly G-major, the other’s just as firmly in something else.  I think of this second kind of tune as a modal D.  The melody forces the chords to drop down one (yup, that’d be a C), then back up, to give it that particular feel.  Sometimes I keep the D-chord and move only the bass note.  I’m funny that way.  The ‘other’ chord in that tune is based around an A.  Neither major nor minor, I think of it as an A5.  Probably worth pointing out that I’m not playing the bass D-string on that chord, and I might not play the treble D-string, either.

Okay, let’s be honest here, I never really know what’s going to happen in a set like this.  The sum total of planning at a session is often overhearing one player to another ‘three each?’.  Apparently the traditional response is ‘yeah, we’ll see’, which allows a player to either play the tune a number of times, or not.  That number might be three.  Or not.  Took me years to figure it out–don’t count, just play.

If I’m very lucky, a melody player will lean over and clue me in to a tune change, some nice people even supply a suggested key.  The fact that the letters b,c,d,e and g all sound exactly the same when spoken with a fiddle under one’s chin takes little away from the kindness of the thought, also makes for some very interesting arrangements du jour.  To tell the truth, I’m always happiest when I get a catch of eyes and a nod to tell me to pay attention, something’s coming up.

The rhythm of a set of reels is what it’s about.  Whatever you play, don’t get in the way of what’s being played.  After a time through I feel like we’re laying back into a groove rather than driving ahead.  In a reel I’d normally be tempted to start playing the off beats (one-AND-two-AND-three-AND-four-AND), setting up the drive in the same way as a mandolin in a bluegrass tune.  But on this tune I hear a different kind of thing going on in the second half of each musical phrase.  So I fall into the first off-beat, then I wait to hear what’s going on.  After a few phrases I can match the rhythm, and it translates well to the guitar.  Let’s stay here for a while.  At this point I start paying attention to the line of the melody so I can help accent or swell.  A little goes a long way, no need to overplay.

A nod confirms that we’re coming into a new tune.  I’ve been warned beforehand where we’re likely to go.  The question is always whether the rhythm I’ve set up is going to work in the new tune.  One way to find out.  The tune stops, I know it’s coming, so I’m ready.  Hit the G to finish off the first tune, leave a space, then firmly on the downbeat with the new chord.  And I’m playing basically the same groove as before.  Hey, it works.

By this point my head’s down and I’m grooving, listening closely to what Pat and Kelly are laying down.  When you’re playing a tune like this one, no matter how long you play it, it never seems quite enough times through.  I understand why people put together medleys for concerts and such, but sometimes you barely get to know one tune before it’s gone.  I’m all for keeping people’s attention, but sometimes I just wanna hear the thing roll for a while.  Guess I played too many dances.

(Many thanks to Kelly Hood and Pat Simmonds for the tunes.)

I was talking about this the other day, how it feels to be inside a traditional set while it unfolds, and you’re playing the guitar.  I remembered I had this version recorded and had sketched out the experience pretty much right away so it was still fresh.  I’ll likely do this again sometime soonish, but I still think this gives you an idea of what’s going on.

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It’s always a treat to sit in and play behind a set of traditional tunes. I’m often asked by fellow guitar players how I do what I do when the jigs and reels are flowing by. As luck would have it, piper Kelly Hood and multi-instrumentalist Pat Simmonds (from the band Spraoi) were on hand the other day and agreed to toss off a set. I played along, and this is the result, along with a few notes on what’s happening from the guitarist’s point of view.

Two jigs, one in E-minor, the other in G-major (if you’re the kind of player who follows that sort of thing).

First the tunes –> Killavel Jigs

You’ll notice that the guitar part has a skipping feel to it.  I set it up in the first section, then play the complete version once we get going.  There’s a technical reason for that skipping feeling.  Many guitarists (and mandolin players for that matter) approach jigs with a steady down-up-down, down-up-down rhythm in the picking hand.  It gives them an easy evenness that can’t be beat.  I didn’t know any better when I started to play jigs, so I fell into an opposite rhythm–the same down-up-down for the first three beats, but a reversed up-down-up for the next three beats.  It took a while to get it even, the key seemed to be making the upstroke which starts the second triplet as firm as the downstroke which begins the first triplet.  Once that happened the bonus was that all of the syncopations fell into place without even trying.  It’s those upstrokes which give the skipping rhythm.  It’s easy to get carried away, and you can lose the essential nature of the jig if you’re not careful.  But I’ve always managed to play with the melody firmly in my mind’s ear.  And I think that keeps me grounded enough that my groove becomes a counterpoint, highlighting the rhythm of the melody rather than obscuring it.

For me, part of the fun in a traditional tune session is helping shape the ‘arrangement’ as we go.  In a longer set (the length you’d play for dances or in a pub session, as opposed to the usually more focussed length of a concert set) I would probably take a little more time to set up the basic components before rolling into the full rhythm.  Somehow in my mind that gives the melody more time to present itself, which is nice for the listener.  It also gives me a chance to hear exactly what’s going on in the tune, which is nice for the other musicians.  Just because I know the tune (and I didn’t know these tunes before I played them) doesn’t mean it’s going to be played the same way I know it.

At a session I feel that it’s my job to compliment the melody players, rather than drawing attention to what I’m doing.  In this particular set I could have played more chords, but I was enjoying the feel of the rhythm so much that it didn’t seem to need much more.  In the first of the two tunes I move to a B-minor every once in a while, but mostly I’m rolling between E-minor and D.  Fancy chords just for their own sake has never really been to my taste.  I’m perfectly capable of making unusual chord choices, but the rhythm is my first love–probably comes from playing for so many dances.  Marshall Barron (that fine player of Playford dance tunes) once pointed out to me that if you didn’t actually play the downbeat the dancers would lift themselves up and supply the downbeat themselves.  She also cheerfully accused me of not being able to play a downbeat if my life depended on it.  Perhaps not completely true, but you get the point.

The second tune is in G, I fell into a fairly normal change to a D chord at the mid-point of the musical phrases (it’s probably worth pointing out that I didn’t want to rehearse a guitar part for the sake of the recording, I was looking for the same kind of looseness we get at a really good session).  The other chordal phrase is a C to A-minor change.  I was tempted to play what I call a ‘walking chord’ rhythm for this second tune, but the tempo was a little slower than I like things to be for that approach.  So I contented myself with making a little more rhythm on the bass notes, and gave a firm four downbeat chord progression at the end of sections.