Standard-tuned guitar backup?

[jerball]

Last night I was playing in drop-D *gasp* at a session. I overheard a visiting musician turn to someone and say, "He's playing in standard but it sounds like DADGAD." Just goes to show, ya' never can tell. Standard gets a bad name from the three chord wonders. Drop-D gets a bad name from John Doyle wannabees (he's SO much fun to play with and to listen to, but all the pretenders should get a life). And DADGAD gets a bad rep from the modal swamp muckers. Point is, learn the tunes, concentrate on rhythm and find your own style. And remember what Felix Dolan says about backers, "You are second bananna!"

[Guest]

Do it your own way. Standard tuning does allow Modal Chords ya know.

[Wombat]

There is a myth that it's easier to play melodies in DADGAD than it is in DADGBE or EADGBE. I think that depends player to player, it's all what your used to.

If you mean flat-picking melodies strictly one note at a time then I can't see how DADGAD would make *that* easier. But I also haven't noticed anybody suggest on this thread that it would. What has been suggested (by me) is that playing melodies in unisons and octaves is easier. You call that a myth? :roll:

Thanks for the

Come off it Brad. No offence intended, but you announce that the views I've just expressed on the advantages of DADGAD for melody playing are a 'myth' without even addressing the reasons I explicitly presented for endorsing that view. What were you expecting: roses and a free lunch? Obviously I'm going to be taking a close critical look at what you have to say in defense of your view.

Standard tuning didn't stop Django or Jimi from playing octaves all over the neck.

So can I and lots of other people. To be relevant to our disagreement you'd need to present evidence that Django and Jimi would have found it no easier in DADGAD.

If you find DADGAD easier than god bless you, use it - but remember it's your opinion not a fact.

There is an element of opinion in questions of technical difficulty. But if there weren't overwhelming consensus about how to grade skills, nobody could develop graded lessons and teaching manuals, nobody would have any idea how to sort people into beginners, intermediate and advanced and systematic teaching would be impossible.

With octaves the differences are not all that great but, if I understand you, you hold the 'opinion' that a two or three fret stretch is technically easier than a no fret stretch. I've got to admit to finding that surprising, especially in view of your later admission that an extra stretch in DADGAD is what you don't like about it.

I find lowering the e to a d makes the stretch to the high b go from the 7th fret to the 9th. I find that's a lot more work than it's worth. I also find the interval of a 2nd (G-A) a waste of strings. Might as well cut out the extra string & play a cittern.

OK so finger stretches are correlated with technical difficulty after all. Good. Now why don't you address the question of playing melody on guitar in unisons? Might it have something to do with the fact that it can be done to some extent in DADGAD with a two fret stretch but requires a four or five fret stretch in standard? The idea that the latter might be easier is what really earned you the eyeroll. Now you can choose not to make make unisons a feature of your melody playing on guitar, but it is common enough on other instruments used in ITM—zouks and dry-tuned accordions, not to mention two instrument duets—so deserves to be addressed in any discussion of the relative suitability of different guitar tunings for melody playing.

Some people like apples, but that doesn't make them better than pears.

True, and the same goes for guitar tunings, but I wasn't saying that DADGAD was better for melody playing; I was only saying it was, on balance, technically easier.

[brad maloney]

Well I have to admit the :roll: icon got me a little upset. I took it stride & I knew you weren't out to just get me mad. You do have great points esp in the octave/fifth area for playing & doubling melodies.

I find DADGAD makes playing melodies on the 4 bass strings really easy & the unisons between the G & A strings can add some real nice touches. I like standard because if someone changes to a weird key I don't have do the "capo rhumba". DADGAD is limited in key, but that doesn't metter for 90% of Irish/Scottish etc stuff is in G D A or some modal variant.

They BOTH have advatages, that's all I'm trying to say. I don't find one is technically easier than the other, it's hard to do either nicely.

Maybe you can give us more DADGAD pointers?
Buddies?[/u]

[Baglady]

Point is, learn the tunes, concentrate on rhythm and find your own style. And remember what Felix Dolan says about backers, "You are second bananna!"

EXACTOMUNDO DUDE!!!!! KABOOOM!!!! THERE IT IS!!!!!

IMHO and that of many I have conversed with the best way to learn ITM backup is to play a melody instrument.

Which is the quickest one to learn and very close to the tradition?

Wait for it.....The whistle

And if you want to play melody try playing a melody instrument like the.......

Whistle

Learn the tradition THEN start banging about on the guitar.

BL

[Nanohedron]

Yes.

[Wombat]

Maybe you can give us more DADGAD pointers?
Buddies?[/u]

I don't know about pointers, but buddies, of course Brad. Sorry I was a bit of a grump. Must have been all those hours spent playing unisons in standard tuning.

Actually, I'm a bit bothered that a disagreement that really is much smaller than it was made to look might obscure some of the good points you made (and hinted at) so I'll just say, in my own words, what struck me as being absolutely right.

First, I think that different tunings are more friendly to different ways of playing melody. I think we clearly agree that standard has an edge for single note picking and DADGAD for unisons. This means that whatever tuning you choose for routine work will involve a trade off. Fairly obviously, two people might prefer different trade offs because of a difference in their approach to melody. Now that's got to be based on a difference in taste or personal approach.

At home and in the studio, there is no need for trade offs at all. Just pick up another guitar or retune the one you have if a different tuning is called for. On stage, or at a session, this might not be convenient, so it might be necessary to settle on one tuning as preferred. The days when guitarists can retune their guitars between each number are long gone.

I also agree that playing in DADGAD in keys away from D and G should be done with a capo to ensure that the right strings resonate and are available for drones. This goes against what I recall from Sarah McQuaid and Pierre Bensusan who both recommend learning to play in DADGAD in all keys and without a capo. I personally think that, without the drones, standard tuning is a better compromise than DADGAD, but there is certainly no harm in knowing where all the chords are. I think McQuaid and Bensusan are getting carried away, although it's hard to be confidentally critical of anyone who plays as well as Bensusan. (He obviously knows plenty I don't know.)

Just a little observation on playing unisons in standard. I can't think off hand of anyone who plays melody in straight unisons in standard tuning except for a few fragments by Eric Clapton in Catsquirrel on the first Cream album. (I'm probably missing lots of cases.) Jimi Hendrix does play in unisons on the B and G strings, but (to my ears) he frets the G string three frets up from the B and bends up to a unison. This is a variation on a standard lick Chuck Berry played bending a flattened fifth (or a fourth) on the G string up to a fifth and following up with a fifth on the B string. Berry borrowed the lick from T-Bone Walker.

[Ro3b]

And remember what Felix Dolan says about backers, "You are second bananna!"

All honor to Felix, but as (primarily) a melody player, I find that attitude absolutely bogus. (Interesting that he didn't say "I am second banana.") When I play with a piano player or a guitarist, I want him/her to work with me to create a complete piece of music. Not dink around on I-IV-V chords hoping not to be noticed. Otherwise, why have an accompanist around at all?

FWIW, the last couple of years I've been using DADGBD tuning a lot on guitar -- it gives me a lot of chordal flexibility while still retaining DADGAD's magic jangle factor.

[coyotebanjo]

Over the years I've found DADGAD nice for playing the melodies of certain tunes, but in fact the close relationship between 3rd (G) and 2nd (A) strings is actually awkward: makes for nice ringing overlap in scale passages, but does not help much with the typical range of many Irtrad tunes. Given the fiddle-istic orientation of string playing in this music, and the fiddle's relatively wide intervallic spacing b/w strings, one tends to need more range than G-A-D as top strings provides.

Nice alternative: DADEAE. This matches the crucial top 5th interval of fiddle at the same pitches: many fiddle tunes thus lie very well, and having the interval of the second b/w 4th and 3rd, instead of 3rd and 2nd, is considerably less awkward.

I can't think off hand of anyone who plays melody in straight unisons in standard tuning except for a few fragments by Eric Clapton in Catsquirrel on the first Cream album. (I'm probably missing lots of cases.)

This is a standard strategy and very commonly employed by many jazz guitarists. The avatar was Wes Montgomery, who would often play whole improvised choruses in octaves--or even double octaves.

[Wombat]

I can't think off hand of anyone who plays melody in straight unisons in standard tuning except for a few fragments by Eric Clapton in Catsquirrel on the first Cream album. (I'm probably missing lots of cases.)

This is a standard strategy and very commonly employed by many jazz guitarists. The avatar was Wes Montgomery, who would often play whole improvised choruses in octaves--or even double octaves.

I know the technique and the source. I learnt to play octaves from trying to copy Montgomery although I later discovered he played them slightly differently. What I'm talking about here are unisons in the same octave as you would get in standard tuning by fretting the G string four frets above the B and moving around with that shape. The proximity you and Brad don't like is an advantage if you like playing fragments of melody this way. Richard Thompson has an instructional book and CD with a version of Banish Misfortune in DADGAD in which he uses this technique very effectively, at least to my ears.

[coyotebanjo]

What I'm talking about here are unisons in the same octave as you would get in standard tuning by fretting the G string four frets above the B and moving around with that shape.

Sorry, yes of course. I should read more precisely!

[jerball]

Not dink around on I-IV-V chords hoping not to be noticed. Otherwise, why have an accompanist around at all?

That wasn't the point he was trying to make. Obviously, Felix doesn't just play I-IV-V chords or encourage others to do so. The point he was making was that, as Ro3b said, you're working together to create something. But, in his opinion and in mine, the melody instrument is in charge most of the time. That is in reference to volume and respect for the style of the melody player. Also, tempo. Let the melody player set the tempo and then you help keep them steady. They're the ones that have to play all the notes that fast anyway.

Felix was also referring to backers who decide that every tune should have x-y-z chords in them and who don't even listen to the melodies.

He was also giving out about Cape Breton style accompaniment for Irish music, but I won't go into that. You'd have to talk to him.

He has a lot of opinions about the music and I for one respect them. Maybe you guys have recorded with Joe Burke, Andy McGann, Catherine McEvoy, and helped to define the sound of what we call trad music, but I haven't.

(And he did say, "I am second banana" as well. Sorry, I forgot to mention that.)

There are situations where the backer has to kick things up a notch, obviously. It's just a recognition that we play melody centric music that also happens to have a long tradition of unaccompanied playing.