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mikeyes
Dec-22-2004, 2:43pm
How many of you use chop chords to accompany Irish music in sessions and how many of you regret it? I was watching one of Butch Baldissari's DVDs today and he advocates the use of power chords as an alternative for fiddle tunes in BG. I started to use power chords instead of the chop chords after I realized that the back beat was not only antithetical to Irish music but very loud and a little out of place. Since then I either play the melody or use open power chords and/or counterpoint as if I were a minature zouk.

Are there any other ideas out there as far as using the mandolin in a session?

John Flynn
Dec-22-2004, 3:09pm
I agree with you about the chop chords.IMHO, they are mainly for bluegrass, but should not even be used exclusively there. They can be used sparingly for occasional empahsis/variation on fiddle and other kinds of tunes. My recommendation is to experiment with harmonies, counter-melodies, double-stops, tremelos, triplets and cross-picking.

Chris "Bucket" Thomas
Dec-22-2004, 3:16pm
What is a "power chord" and how do you use it?

CST

mandofiddle
Dec-22-2004, 3:28pm
My guess is that a "power chord" in this sense is to mean a double stop? #I'll commonly use double stops in fiddle tunes for rhythm parts. #I have a recording of Doc and Dawg, and Grisman (in this duet setting) uses them quite a bit for rhythm... #Sounds great and helps fill out the sound.

Dagger Gordon
Dec-22-2004, 3:56pm
There was a thread on this a while ago.

Check out the Celtic section, last entry 28 October, 'Mandolin as the only rhythm'

dwc
Dec-22-2004, 4:01pm
A power Chord is not actually a chord. It is a doublestop, a root and 5th. They can be effective if used sparringly, but used in excess you set up parallel 5ths so, if you use them, try to avoid using them consecutively or you may end up sounding like a heavy metal guitarist.

mikeyes
Dec-22-2004, 5:43pm
Power chords are the root and the fifth but not the third. As a result they can be used in modal tunes and an A power chord can be used with A or Am with no problems (Baldisarri calls them "no gender chords") A D chord can be a 2 0 0 x (ADAx)or a 2 0 0 5 (ADAA) or a 7005 (ADAD) giving a drone effect while the A chord can be 2200 (AEAE) and an E chord 4220 (BEBE) with similar sounds. This is what a zouk player might do with GDAD tuning. also you can mix single string notes, double stops and full chords for different effects.
In my experince with then they don't sound like rock chords (although that is where the idea has been used the most) and they (plus partial chords) are used in BG and other genera.

danb
Dec-22-2004, 6:32pm
I do it frequently, usually I stick to the bottom 2 strings..

dwc
Dec-23-2004, 12:53am
I was a bit heavy handed by implying that power cords have limited usefulness beyond rock and roll. I was just trying to think of a genre where they are overused and strung together to create a series of parallel fiths. You are right in that since they lack (major/minor) "color," specificly the third, they can be useful and substituted in certain instances where a full 1-3-5 chord just would not fit. It makes sense, but could someone perhaps point me in the direction of a tune where such a substitution would be valid?

s1m0n
Dec-23-2004, 1:13am
You might fond some useful info in Chris Smith's Celtic Back-up (http://www.melbay.com/product.asp?ProductID=97205BCD) book.

mancmando
Dec-23-2004, 5:39am
I think that the chop only works if there is a bass playing the on beat, and as there is often no bass in celtic music then I agree that a more driving power chord approach works better.

Most bouzouki players seem to use a lot of low droning notes, but it is probably easier to do this with the extra range which that instrument has.

jc2
Dec-23-2004, 11:15am
Last St. Pat's day we were sessioning at the bar and in came a pipe and drum band to play four or five tunes, and they had a bass drummer who was driving that band like the Fourth of July. It was fascinating: he was on the beat and then off, back and forth, but always shaping the phrases and pushing all the time, not rushing, but surely pushing. Since that revelation I have been consciously patterning my rythym playing on that drummer, with the additions of the occasional scrub for effect. The chord shape seems unimportant,( bar, power, etc.) and is secondary to what I happen to be doing with it, but it works.

jmcgann
Dec-25-2004, 4:20pm
I talk a good bit about this style of accompaniment in my Octave Mando book- the concepts are all applicable to "soprano mando" :cool:

mikeyes
Dec-28-2004, 3:58pm
Jim,

Thanks for the tip. I dug your book out and have been stealing ideas like crazy <G>

halfdeadhippie
Dec-29-2004, 5:00am
I actually kind of intend sounding like a heavy metal guitarist when using double stops (or power chords) on the octave or mandocello.

And I have used this in some Celtic Music - true it doesn't always fit, but it can be effective , and that is what an instrumentalist does - uses techniques he/she has mastered where they are effective within an ensemble or solo.

I think it would be cool to hear some heavy metal bands work up some genuine driving reels - or jigs-
I'm sure it's been done - maybe Ingve or John Paul Jones or somebody has experimented

Martin Jonas
Dec-29-2004, 7:27am
Power chords are also very useful when you can't remember a chord shape and need to wing it: because of the tuning of the mandolin, finding the fifth above the root is trivial. If you're in an awkward key and can't for the life of you think how to construct that V chord, just play the root of the chord and the same fret on the string above. More often than not, mixing a few incomplete chords or arpeggios into a strummed accompaniment suits Celtic music pretty well anyway.

Incidentally, Arthur Alexander (who's written two very good tune books of mediaval music for mandolin) recommends that one should leave out the third as a matter of course when accompanying medieval music.

As for heavy metal-influenced playing driving reels or jigs, there have been a few crossover attempts (with more or less prog/rock thrown in). Horslips did a few power chords-driven arrangements (King of the Faeries springs to mind), as did Tempest and Boiled in Lead more recently.

Martin

mikeyes
Dec-30-2004, 2:31pm
Whoops, I meant John (That's John, not Jim, you idiot!!)

Ok, all better.

Mike Keyes http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/blues.gif