How to play interesting backup?

[shiloh]

Hi everyone,
I gave up playing the OM a few years ago as I've had upper back issues (I won't bore you with the details, again!)
Here's the question - and I'm not even sure how to clearly ask this - if I can eventually get back to playing the OM, or maybe yet a mandola (either voicing I would prefer in our particular Scottish band over the mandolin - I currently alternate between a Weber Aspen and a Pomeroy, both of which are mandolins), how do you teach yourself to play interesting backup/rhythm? Currently I play open chords and double stops on the mandolin, but I hear folks on CDs, YouTube, etc. play sort of single-notes, runs.... Shoot, I'm not sure what they're doing (that's why I ask!) but it sure is interesting. Instead of playing the open chords which is what I'm doing (and just about the same ones for each tune - but I do like to leave out the third), I'm assuming that each tune needs its own, tailor-made arpeggios, notes, runs.... I just haven't figured out how to do that. (Gee, I feel like an idiot.) Is there something obvious I've overlooked? I don't like what I'm doing but don't know how to "fix" it. Do you listen to your favorite musicians on CD then just figure it out?
I'd really like to get back to an OM or mandola - but unless I can discern how to play interesting backup (you know, to some extent a John Doyle style on the mandolin-family), I may just give up and play a whistle ;)

Thanks for the advice. (See, I told you I didn't know how to ask the question!) Oh, btw, I do own John McGann's OM book - I just haven't figured out how to incorporate that into our band's tunes.

***sigh*** Hope this makes some sense.

Thanks.

Jill

[JEStanek]

While I can't offer specific advice on this, Tom O'Brien and Sam Bush talk about this very issue in the new issue of the Fretboard Journal. There's a lengthy article of a conversation between the two of them.

Jamie

[Gerard Dick]

Not necessarily each tune but each chord. An arpeggio is basically a chord played one note at a time. Also check out pentatonic scales. This may be what you are hearing. A pentatonic scale consists of only the notes found in all 3 of the main chords of the song. For example, and assuming a major mode, Key of G: the chords are G C & D, the G major pentatonic scale is the 5 notes that exist in the G major scale as well as the C major and D major scale. Starting with the G major scale you lose the C because C is sharp in the D scale and you lose the F sharp because the F is natural in the C scale. The beauty of it is that it is almost impossible to play a "sour" note if you stick to the pentatonic scale.

[rjb]

For backup on octave mandolin I try a variety of ideas largely nicked from the list of resources below, basically a mix of open chords, often two finger chords played up the bass strings including the other open strings as and when along with some arpeggios and runs/bits of the tune that happen to fall under my fingers.

Celtic Backup for all instrumentalists - Chris Smith (Mel Bay book + CD)
Zoukfest DVD Vol1 2001 - includes Chris Smith's Improvising Counterpoint Accompaniment lesson
Zan McLeod - Irish Bouzouki DVD
Gerry McKee - Mad for Trad Bouzouki CD ROM
Johm McGann's Octave Mandolin book has some advice on backup also his Rhythm Mandolin DVD has some ideas.

Richard

[Spruce]

Playing good tasty backup is one of the things I admire most in a player who knows how to do it...

When backing up a singer, I like to make it a conversation between the singer and the backup instrument, using the melody almost as if you're playing a solo, but much more understated and off-mic....

But--most of all--lay off the vocal....

Fill the holes, compliment the vocal, but the vocal is sacred and shouldn't be competed with....

It's hard to do, really.
Harder than chopping or soloing, IMHO....

[JEStanek]

Tim O and Sam Bush agreed "sparse" was the term when playing back up or in larger ensembles. They said along the lines of what Spruce said.

Jamie

[Eddie Sheehy]

Cross-picking chords. Playing counterpoint - a descending Arpeggio when the tune is playing an ascending Arpeggio for instance. Listen to the way Dervish - and other groups - weave accompaniment. The Zan McLeod Irish Bouzouki tutor DVD is pretty good too.

[Jock]

Here's my tuppence worth;

Firstly it's important to realize that accompaniment isn't an essential ingredient for trad (celtic) music of any hue to work and sound good. The music has it's own rhythm and pulse. This is rather unlike many other types of music where the rhythm or more particularly the chord progression is a vital part of the music, as Tony Rice once said on an instructional video; "I'd need the rhythm section playing to demonstrate that type of improvisation man, but hopefully this will give you an idea". It's the total opposite with traditional "celtic" music. There is a great description that I could quote from this very board (if I could find it) which describes the accompaniment in traditional music as "the improvised element" and the melody as more fixed. A very good analogy.

The weird thing about the accompaniment not being essential is that this fact is actually the root (& route) to making accompaniment interesting, by realizing this I think you'll find the key to opening out your approach. You're not tied to playing a certain chord at a certain time to make the whole thing stand up, within the context of the tune your free(er) to mix and match.

So if there are no chords/accompaniment required how dose one approach accompaniment?

My approach has always been to try to create a complete whole around the structure of the tune(s), an arrangement, keeping in mind where we're likely to be going with the next tune in the set (not always a known in this equation, in a session thats cooking where anything could happen) and it's best if the treatment of the next tunes sound a part of the whole arrangement. You need to be reasonably familiar with the music and be prepared to forgo your favorite progressions over a familiar tune if it appears in a set where you've building up the vibe/texture/etc to merit a different treatment. So you need an approach thats flexible.

Things you could try;

Listen to as much music as you can.

I'd think about changing the tuning, eg; GDAD or ADAD, and a capo for OM accompaniment.

Play along to solo instrument recordings, better if you don't know the tunes before hand (Kevin Burke has a couple of largely solo or accompaniment free combos on CD).

Try trying something different each time through a tune; droning, busy progressions, not so busy progressions, strumming it, picking it, breaking it down to arpeggios, playing counter melody, playing chords up the neck, playing the same chords down the neck etc and mixing it all up whilst trying to create a whole arrangement without putting the melody under pressure, introducing tones that shouldn't be there or drowning the tune.

Practice dynamic control, keeping it intense or fast etc but quiet slowly building it up and down the volume whilst maintaining the rhythm, works best doing this with pals and can be quite good fun.

Learning basic tricks for IDing the modal structures within a tune and therefore learning which chords work with which tunes and why. I'm thinking III and VII in particular, maj or min etc (ears)

Learn all the inversions to the basic chords on the neck in your given tuning.

Don't be scared to experiment or make a mistake.

Learn to trust your ears and judgement (takes time to develop both).

[steve V. johnson]

Hey, Jill!

Welcome back to the music, I hope things are well and wonderful with y'all.

In my experience there are are two "interestings"... One is what's interesting to me, the other is what is interesting to the folks with whom I'm playing. Satisfying both, to some extent in practice, is necessary. I think Dennis Cahill said that in a course at the St. Louis Tionól, and Ged Foley has talked about it, too.

I use the term -chordal- for plectrum instruments (guitar, bouzouki, octave mandolin, mandola, etc.) capable of playing chords, not necessarily the playing of chords (whole or partial), and as opposed to fiddles, flutes, whistles, and even free reed instruments (which are also capable of chording, but aren't considered accompaniment instruments).

When I began playing again I aspired to figure out how to be the ideal chordal accompanist, and I had no aspirations to play the melodies that are the heart and soul, the essence of Irish music. When I would ask folks how to achieve my goal an almost universal reply was 'you must know the melody'. A decade or so later now I hear recordings of my playing and I'm still shocked to hear myself playing more of the melodies than I ever expected. So it seems, one can start at the core or start at the edge and all paths lead to the core, the melodic essence.

My first great schooling was what the local session players would tolerate from me. The strongest players might make a gesture or give a look of pain or pleasure, and when I did things that caused confusion for the newer players (fiddler loses concentration, gets a tad lost, or the tempo hitches and catches for just a second, etc.), I made note not to do that again. There were a lot of new melodists back then, so I had a lot of feedback in action in the session about what would encourage them or what might distract them.

It's been occurring to me lately that almost everything I know about playing has come from the people with whom I've played. Stolen, suggested or just via osmosis. The best and most productive experiences for me have been those in which I could play with just a few players (melodists) with some regularity; the very best were when playing with one or two melodists very regularly (e.g., gigging).

In those instances I could consider both the tune (structure, melody, key, low part/high part) and the way the melodists approached it in tempo, emphases and ornaments, and emotions, relative to what I could do with it; and then mess around with how I'd respond to those two aspects.

All the materials folks mention here are good and have a lot to do with how I think about it all, but working with static materials, no matter how profoundly it's affected my thinking, pales in comparison to just playing a lot with others.

I really like what Bruce said about the singer. In Irish music the melody is the king, queen, and court, and I think the primary question for a chordal player is what serves that best. There can't be one answer...

Finally, session playing and ensemble playing are enormously different and both provide rich opportunity for playing interesting chordal stuff. Sessions are somewhat more restrictive (IMO) because multiple melodists responding to one another take up a lot of space, so the chordal player may have a more narrowly defined role (snare drum! ;-D) or can be pushed more toward the melody or counterpoints, as Eddie mentioned. In ensemble playing one can (theoretically! XD) rehearse or work out parts, and there can be a lot more opportunity to find the place(s) where the picker can best complement the other stuff going on, but the wonderful surprises that happen in sessions are far more subtle and sometimes occur less often.

A long Sunday ramble... I hope some of this is useful!

stv

[mandocrucian]

Long how-to instructional article in Mandocrucian's Digest #24. CD of the notated/tabbed examples plus more, with play-along tracks for this also available. see link below:

NH

[harihari]

Some simple rules--

a) one, not more, backers at a time.

b) learn your modal scales (mixolydian, ionian, dorian and aeolian, for Irish trad). Without this, you are going nowhere.

c) DO NOT back a tune you don't know. If you can't whistle/hum the tune, you don't know it. Any decent backer would rather sit out a tune than throw in their best guess.

d) Get some solo recordings of tunes, and try backing them at home. Also get Dervish's SPIRIT-- superb backing there on zouk and OM.

Have fun! You can go from tune to backign and back on zouk-- very cool!


chris

[Rob Gerety]

This takes a long time. Its difficult. In my view it is much more difficult than melody - in some ways anyway. I agree that you need to know the melody in you head to do this well and you need to work at it - by ear - for years and years. You do improve as time goes on, if you work at it - by ear. You get the tunes quicker too. So after a while you can put together a decent back up after listening to a new tune a time or two through. It makes you a much more versatile player if you work at this. I'm trying - but I don't stick with it consistently so my improvement is slow.

[harihari]

This takes a long time. Its difficult. In my view it is much more difficult than melody - in some ways anyway. I agree that you need to know the melody in you head to do this well and you need to work at it - by ear - for years and years. You do improve as time goes on, if you work at it - by ear. You get the tunes quicker too. So after a while you can put together a decent back up after listening to a new tune a time or two through. It makes you a much more versatile player if you work at this. I'm trying - but I don't stick with it consistently so my improvement is slow.

Our local hero, Dave Marshall, who backs on piano, zouk and DAGAD (as well as being a superb melody player in his own right), says two things abotu backup:

a) the single most importnat thing is rhythm in right hand.

b) good accompaniment is SPARSE (for Irish trad). One well-thought-out chord is infinitely better than a clutter of clicheed runs. Less is more.

The first time I heard Dave back "Jenny's Welcome to Charlie" he did more or less the whole thing in some kind of odd G (a mixo minus 3rds). Weird...and very cool. You might take a listen to Arty McGlynn's CD which has that tune, and a few others...McGlynn backs himself on guitar and it's fascinating. On Jenny's, the backing-- for the entire tune-- is a drone in D. On the Crowbar/Munster set, he does it with two chords.

[Jock]

I agree with you there Rob, IMO, trad accompaniment needs to be approached by Ear as this enables the discerning accompanist to develop an approach which isn't confined to an absolute repertoire. Whilst "knowing" the melody is important, it is more important to develop the ear so it can quickly recognize tonal centers and tonal qualities/characteristics that may alternate Maj to min between the phrasing thereby enabling you to categorize melodies on the fly. By doing this you end up being able to recognize tune types and develop an arsenal of different tools that you can draw on, as required, to create accompaniment that is adaptable to the tune of the moment.

Of course, this takes time to develop and can only really be "practiced" in the moment, so playing with and listening to others is key. Great things are created from small steps and the wonderful thing about accompaniment is you can get a basic arrangement or approach sorted out adding to it incrementally as your ideas develop. People get self conscious regarding mistakes, blowing it etc but IMO you only really learn from mistakes (and I've made loads:)

Check out this link (that I originally posted in the Iain MacLeod thread a few days ago) as Russel Hunter's piano accompaniment is both solid and interesting, a fine musician and example;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7QC88RSoOk


harihari, your local hero makes good points, it's all in the right hand and leaving the tune room to breath is the best policy, IMO as melody driven music should be melody driven in arrangement. Arty is a master at this, his ability to build an exciting and intense backing from a couple of chords is fantastic (his accompaniment on the "The Dancers Delight" set from the album "Irelande" being a case in point).

Jenny's Welcome to Charlie, fantastic tune (which I love to accompany and play) and a good one for the ear to get around, the first two parts are minor in character, the third Major and the fourth, mainly minor but depending who's playing it can have Major elements in the phrasing also. Defining the Maj 3rd on the first beat of the third part gives the tune so much lift it never fails to get the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. Class tune which contains many of the tonal subtleties anyone interested in irish trad accompaniment needs to understand to navigate round the countless minory modal tunes found in the irish repertoire.

[harihari]

I don't like that Russell Hunter accompaniment. It sounds oom-pa-pa to me. Almost a bluegrassy feel and far too busy. The guy is good, but I don't feel his backing is appropriate for that tune.

Interesting idea, playing part 3 of Jenny's Welcome in A mixolydian...the tune is skeletal enough (part 3 if I recall has no 3rds) that you can push it either way. One of the cool things about that tune, that it is so distinctive, yet also malleable.

We played it 2 nights ago at our local session, and sure enogh, all 3 backng guitarists jumped in, turning the tune to mud. If I could tell backers anything (other than what Dave says about left hand and sparse) it would be, learn to play tunes, not just back.

[Jock]

We'll have to agree to disagree regarding the backing in that link, as I quite like Russell's backing of these tunes.

I play Jenny's Welcome To Charlie in D, close to the version found on the album "Doublin" by the Paddies, Glackin and Keenan, as thats the version played in my wider circle.

The third part in this version has the F natural on the top string sharpened to F# so a maj 3rd giving the part a more Major feel than the others, D mix maybe and, to my mind, the melody if being accompanied would benefit from a less ambiguous home chord by defining the 3rd in this part, perhaps just on the first beat of the part each time through or maybe exclusively throughout with the exception of the resolving phrase. Just sounds better and dare I say more interesting.

Bunker hill is another tune that shares both minor/modal and major characteristics over the parts and therefore a similar class of tune that begs for the accompanist to define the color the major 3rd when the melody asks for it, in the case of this tune the final part.

It's possible to be very sparse whilst still being inventive with these tunes, just using 2 or 3 chords, the added color and focus of adding a maj 3rd (or perfect 4th, admittedly fewer possible uses) in the right place can be profound whilst keeping things very simple.

Accompaniment is very subjective though and we can't please all the people all the time. But for me when playing with a backer I'll actually ask for a major rather than a modal chord in certain places in the tunes. I'm not the perfect melody player or accompanist but to my mind the idea that the accompanist should just avoid 3rds altogether is an over simplistic approach, especially when your ears are telling you otherwise.

I disagree that accompanists need to be able to play the tunes as I don't think that it necessarily helps with making things more interesting. Familiarity with the tunes and knowing them is important but this is not necessarily the same as being able to play the tunes.

I can play only a small percentage of the tunes that I would feel happy accompanying and I've never thought that I need to learn a tune to enable me to back it, I learn only the tunes I want to actually play. I actually think they're quite different skill sets and agree with Rob's points above in this regard. Being a good melody player it doesn't automatically follow that it will also make one a good backer.

We don't need accompaniment in this type of music, but I like it and think in most situations it adds something. Still, too many cooks and all that, sounds like someone needs to take control in the kitchen at your local session.
Cheers
Jock

[DougC]

Hmmm. Jock's video brings up an important aspect here and that is STYLE or ethnic type of music. There are protocols if you will, in accompanying music of different types. Tunes are played by different folks and they put their own 'spin' on them. So what is good for the Cape Breton folks, or the BG guys, drives an Irishman (me) nuts. This topic has been beaten to death and though, it' my pet peeve, I hope not to inflame anything. That video is a great example of Cape Breton piano accompaniment also popular in Canadian fiddle bands. That point should be made to avoid confusion. A great piano player could shift to another style like Scottish or Texas swing if accompanying another group. ~o)

[harihari]

Good points all. You can play a bluegrass guitar alogn to any irish tune...and ruin it! context really matters.

i went and looked at jenny's and yes, there is in fact a mix scale (including f#) in part 3. that's what makes this tune so hard to back: the hack guitarist will just hear "D" and miss out on the subtleties. another tune liek this is the Paddy Fahy reel in D dorian (A part) and a mix of mxilydian and dorian in the B part. Check this out:

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/463

Brilliant tune...but unelss the backer KNOWS it, they'll screw it up, cos that final f# totally changes the tune's flavour.