Chiff and Fipple Forums

I gather this tune is one that confuses a lot of backers . I play the first part in G maj and the 2nd in D as a backer on guitar or tenor guitar .
what other tunes do the tunesmiths have issues with their backer?
Guitar players have a bad reputation IMO because many are not familiar with the tunes and genre.
I recomend the fiddlers fake book for good chord settings and it even includes substitutions in brackets (though I never use them myself.)what's your recomendation?
I also suggest guitar players listen to box players for accurate chord patters. , likes of Jackie Daly, Seamus Bugler, Bobby Gardiner.
Any other recommendations?

fiddlerwill wrote:what other tunes do the tunesmiths have issues with their backer?

Not 100% sure what you mean by this. A tunesmith (as I understand the word) is the composer of the tune and who doubtless already had firm ideas as to basically how the tune is to be backed. But once the tune is out there and making the rounds, the composer isn't going to be a perpetual witness to how backers succeed or fail at accompanying it.

But I'm going to make a leap here and assume you meant to ask, "What are further examples of tunes that often prove challenging to backup players?". One that immediately comes to mind is The Humours of Kilty Clogher. I like how Danú treated it; a very sensible job, I thought.

I use tunesmith as analogous to blacksmith, or goldsmith, someone who brings a tune to life ie a player.the tune you mention is a Charlie Lennon tune Is it not? Charlie wrote very clever and well thought out chords to his tunes. So it's no surprise if those chords catch out the backers! Anymore ?

fiddlerwill wrote:the tune you mention is a Charlie Lennon tune Is it not?

You might be thinking of Kilty Town, which he did indeed compose. That's a reel, but The Humours of Kilty Clogher (also Kilclogher, Kill Clogher, and Kiltyclogher) is a slide, and to me kind of marchy. Just on the basis of my ignorance and how the tune feels, I always assumed it to be well older than Lennon's time; everywhere I look, so far it comes up as "Traditional", with no composer cited.

Ah ok, cheers. My mistake. Well it's not a tune I play but at a guess as a backer I'd say it's in D mix not Am. Just tried it and I think that's pretty straight forwards. It probably confuses people because of all the A's. I note it's out of the ordinary because it uses the minor V chord, Am in the 2nd part . Play it next to a D drone and see how it feels.

The Sunset Reel I hear is hard to accompany. Perhaps that's why it's alternate name is Accompanist Nightmare.

sbfluter wrote:The Sunset Reel I hear is hard to accompany. Perhaps that's why it's alternate name is Accompanist Nightmare.

Never did know the name of that one. Also called The Space Shuttle, apparently.

And it is hard to accompany if you haven't worked it out ahead of time and nailed it down. There's this local fluter who drags it out when we have house sessions, and each time I'm ill prepared, because I forget to practice it.