for its excellence in information on this subject for its excellence in information on this subject The music is derived from the British Isles countries of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England and Brittany in France.
The music often was for dancing and includes jigs, hornpipes, reels,as well as airs and frequently today the harp music of Irish harper Turlough Carolan and I have recently published a biography of this important figure in Irish music.
Guitarist Pat Kirtley has recently published an article "Celtic Music For Fingerstyle Guitar" which I highly recommend you read.
What may have seemed one of the least suited instruments for playing Irish music, the guitar, is currently enjoying a surge of interest among musicians who have discovered the airs, jigs and reels of Ireland and other Celtic lands.
That Celtic guitar is now a growing cottage industry may seem strange to Irish music purists. The guitar was never taken very seriously in Irish music before the late 1960s, and then primarily as a rhythm instrument backing the fiddle, whistle, box, flute, pipes or banjo.
Acoustic guitars aren't very loud, and their sustain when compared to the fiddle is nil. Then there's the problem of drone notes. The guitar tuned to standard tuning, (EADGBE) just doesn't work well for a body of music that is primarily played in the keys of D, G and A.
But leave it to the English to make the guitar more Celtic-oriented. When Davey Graham "invented" DADGAD tuning sometime in the 1960s he gave guitarists a shot in the arm. This tuning worked well with Celtic music. Irish guitarists Daithe Sproule and Michael O'Domnhail adopted it as their preferred tuning and stylistically changed rhythm playing with in their work in Skara Brae, the Bothy Band and later Altan. But they, like many other current traditional music guitarists playing Irish music, are primarily rhythm players.
In recent years, the guitar as back-up instrument in Celtic music is rapidly changing. Top American players including El McMeen from New Jersey, Steve Baughman and Tom Long from California, along with Pat Kirtley from Kentucky, David Surrette from Maine, and John Sherman in Ohio have joined with England's John Renbourn and Martin Simpson, France's Pierre Bensusan, and Italy's Franco Morone, in growing the body of recorded work that includes Irish music.
Scotland's Tony McManus has become well known in this style as well. John Feeley is one of few Irishmen playing this melodic style. He is classically trained however, and this is reflected in guitar approach the nylon strung concert guitar he records with. All the other guitarists I have mentioned play steel string guitars exclusively.
What sets these guitarists apart from their rhythm counterparts is that they play fingerstyle. They use their fingers rather than a flat pick to pluck notes from their instrument. In the course of developing the growing body of fingerstyle Celtic music, they have produced an almost bewildering number of guitar tunings and stretched the instrument's repertoire and use far beyond that of a rhythm instrument in a band, or accompaniment for singing.
It's in the variety of newly invented tunings that Celtic fingerstyle guitar shines. As guitarist Pat Kirtley writes, "Many of today's crop of guitarists playing Celtic Fingerstyle Guitar use a variety of alternate tunings. This is done for several reasons. Primarily, by using "open" or "alternate" tunings a player can achieve the drone effect of the pipes and approximate the sound of the harp with arpeggios. Open tunings allow for interesting cross string patterns not available in standard guitar tuning."
Several years ago, I began listening to this style of guitar playing. Since then I've collected a list of alternate guitar tunings used in the music. They include: DADGBE or "Dropped-D", DADGBD "Double-Dropped D", DADGAD, and DGDGBD also known as "Taro Patch tuning." There are many others. I've found selected guitar tracks with the following, DGDGBbD (Gm) tuning DADF#AD (a Blues-related tuning), DADEAD used by Franco Morone and others, which helps in playing in key of A. There's also, CGDGAD "Low C tuning" used exclusively by El McMeen, and CGCGCD played by Ged Foley of the House Band and Patrick Street. Martin Simpson also uses this tuning as does Steve Baughman. There's more! CGCGCE tuning is played by Tony Cuffe formerly with Ossian as well as Scotland's Dougie Mclean. EADEAE is rare but good for the key of A. I've seen DGDDAE tuning and EGDGBE which I am told some Scottish guitarists use to get a G drone in the bass to imitate the sound of the bagpipes. FGDGCD tuning has been used to play pipe tunes in F.
You might ask why bother? Why Use Alternate Tunings and have to learn new fingering positions and chord shapes? Simply stated, Celtic music lends itself well to alternate or "open" tunings. The music often contains few chord changes. Unlike other musical styles like jazz, blues, and even rock n' roll, the chord patterns in Celtic music are generally very regular.
While Celtic fingerstyle guitar began with Graham, Renbourn, Duck Baker and Stefan Grossman in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was very a very select and selective style of playing until the late 1980s. But, as the general interest in Irish and Scottish music grew into a very popular music form in the 1990s, Celtic fingerstyle guitar playing followed. This growth was recently documented with the release of a two volume CD and video production by Grossman's Vestapol Videos and Rounder Records. These two video/album selections Ramble To Cashel (Vestapol 13029/ Rounder 3156) (from an O'Carolan title) and The Blarney Pilgrim (Vestapol 13063/Rounder 3157), are a must for any player or listener as they showcase eight of the best players. The videos also include the guitar arrangements.
While Grossman has delivered an excellent video product he isn't the only producer working with Celtic fingerstyle guitarists. Homespun Video has produced several video lessons on the subject. You can learn Martin Simpson's style on three teaching videos Sim-GT01, 02. 03. Al Petteway, a Maryland guitarist also presents lessons on Homespun, they are ALPGT01, 02. John Renbourn teaches his style on Celtic Melodies & Open Tunings, GW 908 (Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop). Mel Bay has two performance videos in this style. Steve Baughman (MB97259VX) and Robin Bullock (MB97258VX).
Just out of curiosity, I ran some quick statistics on the Henrik Norbeck ABC collection of 1700 (mostly) Irish tunes. Here's what I came up with:
Grouped by tonic note:All in all, this captures my intuition that the D tunes predominate in at least the Irish dance repertoire, and the A tunes are an important part, with D/G/A percentages of roughly
G and D clearly predominate. But from the tonic point of view, "A" tunes are more than 20% of the repertoire -- nothing to sneeze at. These include some popular tunes: Mason's Apron, High Reel, Reconciliation, Frank's Reel, Peter Street, etc. And in the Donegal fiddle tradition there's a strong tendency to transpose G tunes up to A.