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My boyfriend plays a little guitar and I want to start him on Irish music. Can anyone suggest a good beginner's irish music for guitar book? He can read music.

Hi Avanutria,

I don't play guitar and I don't have a book in mind, so I'll keep this short! The guitarist I play with most often uses an alternate tuning called DADGAD (the notes correspond to the six strings, lowest to highest). He learned it at an Irish workshop, and it works really well as harmonic accompaniment. So you might want to check into that.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: thurlowe on 2002-07-22 18:25 ]</font>

There's an acousitc guitar forum. You could ask there. It's kind of like C&F except it has various categories. "Playing Guitar" or the Beginner's part might be useful. I don't belong to it any more but there are some pretty knowledgable people.

DADGAD is very popular for accompanying Irish music and has both advantages and disadvantages-like everything I guess. I can give one piece of advice about it. Don't squander your money on The DADGAD Book (or something like that) by Sarah McQuaid. Not if your friend want's to learn accompaniment at any rate. Chris Smith's book on accompaniment for all instruments is good but advanced.

http://www.acousticguitar.com/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi

Steve

I'm not qualified to recommend this book, but I've seen it mentioned here and in other places.

Thom has a pretty good section on his site that covers the contents, etc.

<a href="http://www.thewhistleshop.com/catalog/t ... tm">Celtic Back-up For All Instrumentalists</a>

Try this site:

http://perso.club-internet.fr/banwarth/engguitare.htm

(Click on the British flag if you don't read French). As much as I dislike amazon.com, they do seem to have several books on Irish guitar. I have the Paul deGrace book and like it a lot.

Good luck,
Tery

Most of the stuff recommended here is fairly advanced. If your boyfriend is a beginner at playing the guitar, the best thing he can do is just learn some basic guitar and not worry too much about Irish music. Irish music uses chords that are common in guitar playing. Getting strong rhythm and backup skills is essential to playing Irish, Bluegrass or old time music. Have a look at the free lessons at the Acoustic Guitar site. There are some good books there too. Probably Accompaniment Basics and Flatpicking Basics are most suitable. Unless he want to be a finger picker. Most Irish accompaniment is done with flatpicking. Lots of books specific to Irish backup advocate special tunings. Paul de Grae's book and John Doyle's video are good but they are both fairly advanced and
use tunings different from standard. That's fine but I think it's preferable to learn standard tuning first along with strong backup skills.

Here's the Acoustic Guitar site again. You could check out Mel Bay and Stefan Grossman's site too but I don't know the addresses.

http://www.acousticguitar.com

Steve

hi there, just stepped in from the uilleann pipe forum.
This was mentioned before, but John Doyle (formerly of Solas fame, now playing with Eileen Eivers) has a Homespun video out called "irish rythm guitar" or something similar. If you are just starting out in the world of irish guitar it is about the best thing you can buy. The tuning used is "drop D" which is no giant leap to learn if you are used to standard, plus it works better. It comes complete with a booklet full of notated tunes and chord charts. It's very easy for even beginning guitar players to pick up on.
It also features John williams (also once in Solas) playing the tunes on accordion and concertina which is very cool. Altogether a good time and a good buy.
I have to say I disagree with SteveK about just learning "backup guitar" and not worrying about the irish style particularly. If you want to learn to play irish style guitar, learn to play irish style guitar. Don't learn to play bluegrass, old time, cajun, whatever. These styles are all distinctly different from what most Irish guitar players are doing, and once learned, they seem to put you in a mindset that most people have a very hard time breaking out of.
just my two cents,
Jordan

I agree with Jordan that Doyle's video and the accompanying booklet are pretty good. He gives a good selection of chords and it's not overwhelming. You can go a long way with them. As far as strumming goes, he teaches his own style and the way it comes out when he does it is unique. The dropped D tuning is also a good one-more flexible than DADGAD. His stlye is only one style for playing Irish backup though. As a matter of fact there isn't any "Irish style". Doyle has one style and Dennis Cahill has another. Anyone focusing on Doyle's style would be poorly placed with respect to learning Cahill's style or something like it. Whatever style you choose, you will have to end up playing chords, playing rhythmically and accurately weilding a pick. These are basic backup skills. No, you wouldn't want to waste a lot of time learning all about bluegrass but bluegrass players play a lot of bass runs and bass notes. Some Irish players concentrate on bass notes too. Mick Molony, for instance, when he plays accompaniment. To me this a more basic skill than strumming across all the strings like Doyle because it is more generally applicable to guitar playing. Gavin Ralston also has a pretty good book (fairly advanced) using bass notes and bass runs in dropped D tuning. So I still think that the basics of rhythm and using the pick are the place to start.

Steve


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SteveK on 2002-07-23 13:45 ]</font>

Geez Steve, I hope he's not reading this. It'll scare him off for good!

no defined style, no exactly favored tuning, no favorite book.

But it was a great and detailed answer!!

I am really ambivalent about DADGAD. I like it but start to think that its just a weird sidepath away from IRTRAD almost. Yet, I don't much care for the piano approach, and I find myself starting to make up DADGAD-y chords for the other Weekender who is not an accomplished guitarist. Some tunes really don't want strong chords because they have an indefinite tonality. I am amazed at how a given tune will be harmonized by various pros.

Kind of hard to counsel the beginner because most of us probably started as standard tuning types and have an evolved mentality about it.

The one thing I noticed about DADGAD is that you can noodle along with tunes in D and its hard not to sound okay with all those preset drones. I think many of the individual styles are evolved noodles because there was no MEL BAY method to slavishly follow. So you end up with "styles."

The brown DADGAD book seems useless to me. It made no sense and I am pretty savvy with methods and chords etc. I found it easier to build chords for myself.

On 2002-07-22 20:18, John-N wrote:
I'm not qualified to recommend this book, but I've seen it mentioned here and in other places.

Thom has a pretty good section on his site that covers the contents, etc.

<a href="http://www.thewhistleshop.com/catalog/t ... tm">Celtic Back-up For All Instrumentalists</a>

I've recommended this book on several occasions. Check out the C&F topics.

• <a href=http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... >Chords</a>
• <a href=http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... 32&forum=1> Jigs, Reels etc....What Makes them So??</a>
• <a href=http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... rt=15>Good, Better, Best</a>

Hope this helps you ...

DADGAD tuning is great to use when playing songs with other guitars. The different intonations blend well.

http://home-l3.tiscali.nl/~gelten/pics/dadgad.pdf

http://home-l3.tiscali.nl/~gelten/info.html

http://www.geocities.com/celtictunes/chords1.htm

On 2002-07-23 17:04, The Weekenders wrote:
Geez Steve, I hope he's not reading this. It'll scare him off for good!

no defined style, no exactly favored tuning, no favorite book.

Getting into Irish backup is kind of tough. I came to it from very basic folk and old time playing. As far as I know nobody has written an Irish primer. Most of the books available presume you already know quite a bit of guitar. De Grae, Ralston and the DADGAD book. Actually, I don't really know who that DADGAD book is aimed for. Somebody needs to write a good one. Chris Smith's backup book is great but presumes a lot of theoretical knowledge and teaches nothing about the guitar. It's really hard to pinpoint an entry point for Irish guitar backup. Standard tuning, DADGAD, DADADE (or CGCGCD), Dropped D, Orkney tuning....where to start? I don't know. Learn skills..rhythm, picking. Listen to people play in all these tunings..Doyle, McCleod, Domhnaill (I surely didn't spell that right), Daithi Sproule (excellent)...all of them.

Steve

Amen, Steve. Easy to agree with.

Nobody has gotten around to it, so maybe you better!! At least you have a handle on the different approaches. I'm still mucking about, wanting to take up Irish banjo or zouk rather than mess with it, thereby putting my fluency to work somehow after years of cl. guitar playing.

But the potential market is not exactly a music publishers dream! I'm sure that is part of the reason it hasn't been done well, while the afore-mentioned lack of a dominant style might be another.

When I was in the guitar business, i always wished that some real deep pockets would build an indestructible guitar case with space-age technology that weighed little. But the return, though decent, would never pay for the R & D, I'm afraid for such a thing and their indestructibility would further lessen their value as a product.. But it was tantalizing to think that the possibility was there. Guitar strings themselves got better finally because they still wear out.

In your SPARE time, write the book! More likely it will end up on the Internet, if not already.

On 2002-07-23 18:32, The Weekenders wrote:
In your SPARE time, write the book! More likely it will end up on the Internet, if not already.

Hmmm. I don't think so. I think it needs a person a lot more experienced than I in both playing backup and teaching. I filled my head with all this stuff (it didn't necessarily get as far as my fingers) when I played with a band but now that the band is defunct, I play the bouzouki at sessions or any time I get together with another player. To be honest, it's a lot easier and much more fun. But I'm just a beginner on it. One person who I think could do the job is Paul Kotapish. He's played various kinds of music and played with Kevin Burke's Open House band. He has a good basic chapter on Irish backup in one of those Acoustic Guitar books. It's for standard tuning. I would guess he's an experienced teacher. That book is a pretty good book although it pretty diverse and has chapters by authors of various backgrounds and persuasions. It's the one on basic flatpicking.

Steve

I recently took a workshop on guitar backup for celtic tunes, and the tuning reccommended was drop D, which I prefer to DADGAD. With some alternate fingerings, you can still achieve the open chord, indeterminate effect (no third) that DADGAD gives, but you can also use standard chord shapes. I find it easier and more flexible.
I've also seen the Mel Bay book on Celtic Backup, and am planning to buy it. It has lots of information, and a good collection of tunes at the back, with suggested chords.