Chiff and Fipple Forums

What kind of a combo did you have in mind?

Unseen122 wrote:What kind of a combo did you have in mind?

I'm not sure what you mean by "combo".

If you mean it in the jazz sense of like... instruments... probably two Electric guitars, bass, vox, Keyboard; and Whistles, flutes, pipes and fiddles where approprate. Though, I don't know where I'll find a good piper or fiddler that are into black metal. Not that there aren't, it's just a matter of one being at a location near me. I can do the whistels and flutes, at least for recordings (Possibly live, though I'm much more useful on a guitar than a whistle... then again, good guitar players are a dime a dozen).

Oh yeah, and a drum set. I guess that's kinda important in rock.

If you mean what I am envisioning musically, I'm thinking of covering Irish trad tunes in a black metal style. That, to me at least, means a more melodic form of death metal, usually with some strong influences from classical music. The clip I posted in the beginning of this thread might be considered black metal by some, though it is not as aggresive as black metal generally is, and a bit more harmonically sophisticated, but that is my style anyway.

The main thing I'm thinking is totally gained-out sounding guitars, drums with double kick, fairly agressive vocals (though not screaming) you know, basic metal staples. In terms of construction: Trad tunes; mostly those in minor and dorian keys; with trad style ornamentation for melodies (more chromatic grace notes. Augmented fourths and sevenths, as prime candidates, closely followed by diminished seconds and fourths), reharmonizations to give it a metal feeling. I'm thinking music that is unquesitonably metal with primarlily metal instrumentation (though not exclusivly), but are recongizably trad melodies. But it would definately be placed in the metal section at the store, and more metal heads would probably be into it than 'trad heads'.

It's kinda an ITM gateway drug for the metal crowd. Most people into hardcore would find almost all of the stuff mentioned in this thread very tame. What I'm thinking would probably still be slightly tame, but still on familiar ground.

So, I hope somewhere in there I answered whatever question you were asking.

I meant how much metal and how much trad that is what I meant. I see where you are trying to go with this some of my friends and I have been trying to put a similar band together except with Jazz not metal.

Unseen122 wrote:I meant how much metal and how much trad that is what I meant. I see where you are trying to go with this some of my friends and I have been trying to put a similar band together except with Jazz not metal.

Yikes! Celtic Jazz sounds scary! or awesome... You mean... like reharmonized trad tunes as the head, and then the solos, probably with a lot of trad instruments, possibly an improvised cadenza to open the peice and so on, following the 'regular' jazz format (if there is such a thing). Sounds like fun, although, chromatic piping might be terrifying, I don't really know how piping works, so everything about it freaks me.

I've done some tinkinering of this sort with Jazz and Metal in the past... but never Jazz, Celtic and Metal.

Well the plan was to have Flute/Whistle/Mandolin played by myself and Trumpet by one of my friends then have the usual Bass, Drums, Guitar, Keys as rhythm the thought was to have some trad tunes with jazz backing plus some original some standards and some improve. We still need a Bass and Keys player then to actually devote time to it.

JS wrote:The Prodigals first cd is a good Irish-influenced rocker.

I don't know, on the first one, they seemed to have more Bluegrass influence than Rock... Now, the second CD, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 07846">"go on"</a>, is when they seem to focus on Rock.

Their Bassist is friggin awesome. At concerts he takes turns with the Harmonium player on the reels. I've never heard a reel played on fretless bass, it was something else!

Also, I have heard that <a href="http://www.geocities.com/avantgardenthe ... tml">Avant Garden</a> does the Celtic/Jazz Fusion thing, but I don't know if I'd call the stuff I've heard "Irish".

Judging by the sound clips I know I wouldn't.

I'll also suggest some nice Celtic Metal (or whatever one should call it): Thanateros

And Enter the Haggis are ... different. Live more interesting than from a CD, though mixing Scotland the Brave and Hava Nigila is indeed something out of the ordinary

I tried some Coltrane on my Bb whistle a few weeks ago.

I concluded that Irish rolls and cuts just don't sound right to my ears (in that flavor of jazz).

fancypiper wrote:I tried some Coltrane on my Bb whistle a few weeks ago.

I concluded that Irish rolls and cuts just don't sound right to my ears (in that flavor of jazz).

They work better in metal.

But if you did versions of the songs with trad type rhythms, it would probably be ok in Jazz too, at least I expect.

ninjaaron wrote:Yikes! Celtic Jazz sounds scary!

Well, there are those that appreciate the likes of Lúnasa, Flook, Fraser Fifield...

But for Celtic Metal you may want to explore what some of the Scandinavian bands have done. Check out Hedningarna, Garmarna, Hoven Droven and others.

Cheers,
Aaron

But for Celtic Metal you may want to explore what some of the Scandinavian bands have done. Check out Hedningarna, Garmarna, Hoven Droven and others.

The "Nordic Roots" series of samplers is a very inexpensive and interesting way into this stuff.

Jordan

Hedningarna are great, we were introduced to their music about 5 years ago, have all their albums and bought a new compilation CD last weekend and was playing Kaksi at the weekend too, excellent album.

Another couple of bands from Germany come to mind that are loud folk rockers: Fiddlers Green and Cromdale. ( www.fiddlers.de and www.cromdale.de ) Colin is sometimes a guest player with both bands live and in the studio. He is playing with Cromdale tomorrow night http://rocknacht.open4all.net/

There are some sound samples on both bands websites which are fun as long as you are not into staight pure trad, maybe worth checking out.

A couple from Cromdales site

Herr Mannelig http://www.cromdale.de/Cromdale_FT_04_Herr_Mannelig.mp3

Jacobites
http://cromdale.de/OD_Ye%20Jacobites.mp3

Follow me up to Carlow
http://cromdale.de/OD_Follow%20Me%20Up.mp3

a couple from Fiddlers site

Tarry trousers. This is a video of them playing live.
http://fiddlers.de/videos/tarry_350kbit.ram

Weavers reel
http://real1.phononet.de:8080/ramgen/in ... ZWOKHXL.rm

Queen Of Argyll
http://fiddlers.de/fpx/anothersky/ra/qu ... sample.ram

Have fun
Brigitte

Brigitte, that Cromdale band sounds like a total knock off of Subway to Sally for their sound and the fact that the name Cromdale probably came from the title of the first track on Suway's first album.