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  #61  
Old 11-28-2015, 11:59 PM
Trevor B. Trevor B. is offline
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Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
I don't agree compositions and arrangements are created totally independent of the guitar's tuning, though there is a room for individual style and variation.

My dad was Irish. I like Irish and Celtic music quite a bit actually, but I am somewhat selective. The piece above was almost noodling composition wise, though the sound was lush.

Here are a couple of performances I prefer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slZueYiwcbw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJHhGXQaamg
Regardless of their different styles and tunings what both of these performances share is fully realized voice leading and integrity of internal phrasing (legato). These qualities are too often absent in the offerings of many popular acoustic guitar players today. The Comanescu video is clearly a classical guitar rendering while the Morone example is a traditional Scottish folk melody played with a more contemporary folk based technique. They are both outstanding IMHO and prove that thoughtful, coherent interpretations and great playing transcend labels, styles and tunings. That said, the Franco Morone arrangement of Da Flooers O' Edinburgh is played in Asus4/E bass tuning and I can't imagine an arrangement like his working in standard tuning.
I really enjoyed listening to both of these performances despite the sonic limitations of youtube. Thanks for the links, especially the Comanescu which is new to me.
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  #62  
Old 11-29-2015, 05:04 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Regardless of their different styles and tunings what both of these performances share is fully realized voice leading and integrity of internal phrasing (legato). These qualities are too often absent in the offerings of many popular acoustic guitar players today.
This highlights what may be an important point in this topic.
"Integrity of internal phrasing" is one thing, but "voice-leading" is not something that necessarily applies to folk music.
There's a reason why DADGAD is often called "modal D", in that it lends itself well to the modal sounds of folk music (of many non-classical cultures), which is not much interested in classical harmonic concepts such as voice-leading. In general, in this kind of music, one has a melody and a key (or more likely a mode), and "chords" can be almost incidental. The guitar can be used to set the mood - the harmony of the mode - rather than outline recognisable triadic chords, let alone construct functional voice-leading between them.
There are many ways of harmonising folk tunes, and they don't actually need to be harmonised at all.

Of course, it's a nice game to apply classical practices to folk tunes (as in the Comanescu), but it's by no means superior to the modal sounds generally applied by players in alternative or open tunings, which are arguably more faithful to the tradition, and just as entertaining. It's simply a matter of taste which one prefers (at any time). I like both the above videos, but I heartily dislike the assumption some people make that classical functional harmony is in some way automatically superior to the many folk traditions around the world (including those that managed to survive in classical Europe); that adding chords (and their attendant functional moves) is by definition improving a piece of music.

In fact, it was Davy Graham's Arabic-inspired invention of DADGAD, and his use of it in his treatment of Celtic folk music, that persuaded traditional folk singers Shirley Collins and Anne Briggs (at least) that here was a sympathetic way to treat traditional music, to provide interesting accompaniments without clothing it in classical chordal practices. Martin Carthy did much the same with his own alternative tunings; and Bert Jansch expanded on it by adding blues and jazz influences, but still largely avoiding functional harmonic structures.

Of course, that's not to say that every player noodling around in alternative tunings is producing great music! One wouldn't say that about those noodling around in EADGBE either...
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  #63  
Old 11-29-2015, 06:07 AM
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I don't think the PLAY section of this forum has seen so much action. I am enjoying the conversation a great deal.
I must apologize for leaving Steve Baughman out of this topic. I play a couple of tunes off his "drop of the pure" cd. I do think that there can be a tendency to look for "cliche" licks and riffs when playing in alternate tunings. Looking for things that sou.d good and then " gluing" them together. But the same can be said about standard tuning as well.
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  #64  
Old 11-29-2015, 07:30 AM
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The fact that DADGAD is so strongly associated with modal music versus music using more modern harmonization structure helps make my point that the tuning has a strong influence on what type of music is composed and/or existing compositions it is used for. What a difference a G instead of a F# makes.

I like Celtic music in general for example, but the more simple harmonizations and linearity of it quickly makes much of it begin to sound the same. I was interested in hearing examples of the tuning taking in other directions than what is generally thought of as DADGAD music.
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  #65  
Old 11-29-2015, 08:57 AM
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Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
The fact that DADGAD is so strongly associated with modal music versus music using more modern harmonization structure helps make my point that the tuning has a strong influence on what type of music is composed and/or existing compositions it is used for. What a difference a G instead of a F# makes.

I like Celtic music in general for example, but the more simple harmonizations and linearity of it quickly makes much of it begin to sound the same. I was interested in hearing examples of the tuning taking in other directions than what is generally thought of as DADGAD music.
Sure. I guess I was referring back to its "home" sound.
I've seen arguments (from DADGAD fans) that it's as versatile as EADGBE, but they're not totally convincing, IMO. More versatile than commonly thought, maybe, but still....
It's a little like having a nylon-string classical guitar and saying "but hey, I can play rock music on it too!" Sure you can, but it's kind of missing the point.
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  #66  
Old 11-29-2015, 01:05 PM
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Here's a lovely DADGAD tune by Herman I'm woking on. Pretty simple fingerings and lots of open strings but its beautiful...isn't that what matters?


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  #67  
Old 11-29-2015, 01:31 PM
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Here's a lovely DADGAD tune by Herman I'm woking on. Pretty simple fingerings and lots of open strings but its beautiful...isn't that what matters?


Sounds fine - more modern harmony than pure modal.
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  #68  
Old 11-29-2015, 02:48 PM
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Perhaps this discussion is making things more complex than they need to be. One of the unique characteristics of guitar is that there are geometric limitations - our hands can only reach certain note configurations. People try to get around this with open strings, harmonics, partial capos, and so on, but fundamentally, we're limited in the available voicings. So naturally, if you alter the available notes by changing the tuning, you get a certain "sound", by virtual of new notes available, and some other notes less available. So every tuning, of course has a certain sound to it. This is true of standard as well, we just don't think of it as being a "sound" because we've heard it for so long, it sounds "normal". Change to another tuning, and our ears go "hmm, there's something unusual going on here". Maybe we like it, maybe we don't, but it perks up the ears to some change. If we're dead-set on hearing the sounds we're used to, then we may find it disconcerting. But within that set of limitations, the artist also can make choices. They can choose to do droning, or play modally, or use voicing leadings. It's just that each tuning will offer some different choices of available notes with which to do that.

An interesting case is a tuning I like to use: EBEGAD, which happens to have all the same named notes as standard tuning, just in a different string sequence and different octaves. So what you get is sort of like "standard", but the tuning tends to encourage different inversions and voicings, so it ends up having a very different "sound".

I view this all as good, different tools one can choose. Thinking about it from the perspective or art and artistic choice, it's maybe a bit like painters, who can choose to use watercolor, or oil, or different types of brushes, or canvases, or ... Indeed if they always use watercolor, then someone might say "no matter what you paint, it always comes out like watercolor", and no surprise, right? But they made that choice, and the choice itself is part of their art, and we decide if we like the choices they made or not. I'm sure the artist hopes people look at the painting, and appreciate what they're trying to "say", not "oh, crap, there he goes using watercolor again" Or for an artist who uses multiple mediums, again, I imagine (I'm no artist), they hope someone will enjoy the painting, and maybe someone more knowledgeable will say "I love how your choice of oil introduced strong textures", and not "hmm, I'm used to watercolor, and when you use oil, everything looks like an oil painting."

Music ends up being the sum of everything, what you choose to compose, how you play it, what guitar you choose, what tuning you use, how you record it, what name you give the piece, on and on. The tuning's just one element of the artistic choices being made. We could complain that everything sounds the same on a 12-string. My wife claims everything on guitar just sounds like "guitar music" :-), which is certainly true when you consider the broader selection of music instruments one might choose to fulfill a musical vision. But it's all choices, and tunings are one of the easiest to change. If DADGAD doesn't work for you, twist a few tuning keys until you have a tuning that might.
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  #69  
Old 11-29-2015, 03:11 PM
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Well, not like piano, that's for sure, where with different keys you just have to remember how many sharps or flats there are.
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  #70  
Old 11-29-2015, 04:02 PM
Trevor B. Trevor B. is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JonPR View Post
This highlights what may be an important point in this topic.
"Integrity of internal phrasing" is one thing, but "voice-leading" is not something that necessarily applies to folk music.
There's a reason why DADGAD is often called "modal D", in that it lends itself well to the modal sounds of folk music (of many non-classical cultures), which is not much interested in classical harmonic concepts such as voice-leading. In general, in this kind of music, one has a melody and a key (or more likely a mode), and "chords" can be almost incidental. The guitar can be used to set the mood - the harmony of the mode - rather than outline recognisable triadic chords, let alone construct functional voice-leading between them.
There are many ways of harmonising folk tunes, and they don't actually need to be harmonised at all.
Modal harmonies can make coherent linear connections. Benjamin Britten and Bela Bartok are just two prominent examples of composers who arranged songs with non-diatonic chord progressions that make perfect linear sense while supporting traditional folk melodies. There are few things more unsettling than accompaniment voices that just randomly disappear or make no rhythmic sense. Far better in my view to go the drone route and focus on the tune (as in the first iteration of the melody in Franco Morone's arrangement of Da Flooers O' Edinburgh).
I do, however; acknowledge that this is a personal perspective and most people could care less about voice leading. Nevertheless, "It's my hang-up and I'll cry if I want to" (lol).
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  #71  
Old 11-29-2015, 05:13 PM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Modal harmonies can make coherent linear connections.
Absolutely. I guess it's a question of how deep you want to go.
I can follow linear connections in Wayne Shorter's modal jazz, but Britten and Bartok are way above my head. You're right it's a matter of taste. I like my folk relatively unadorned.
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  #72  
Old 11-29-2015, 09:58 PM
Trevor B. Trevor B. is offline
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Absolutely. I guess it's a question of how deep you want to go.
I can follow linear connections in Wayne Shorter's modal jazz, but Britten and Bartok are way above my head. You're right it's a matter of taste. I like my folk relatively unadorned.
Here's the irony; despite all I've said in this thread I also like my folk relatively unadorned.
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  #73  
Old 11-30-2015, 04:29 AM
wcap wcap is offline
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I've been away from the forum for a while, and just now stumbled on to this thread, and I've quickly read/skimmed through it.

A few thoughts:

First of all, regarding 12 string guitars...
I have my 12 string in DADGAD pretty much permanently. I LOVE this tuning on a 12 string!

Regarding the more fundamental issues here:

Every tuning presents certain opportunities. Certain things just sound really good (and/or are easy to play) in certain tunings (and being easy to play sometimes helps them to sound better too, due to efficient fingerings, use of open strings, etc).

But given the nature of the instrument (which as already discussed is quite different from, say, piano), the same can be said for different keys in a given tuning. There are certain things that come really natural to me, say, in the key of C or A minor in standard tuning, which are different from what comes natural in, say the key of G or D. And certain things tend to simply sound really good (because of opportunities presented by open strings, etc). And my arrangements of the same pieces in different keys tend to be quite different in different keys.

And I might add, that this magic often works differently on different guitars, depending on their tone, the way they resonate, their sustain, how they sound up and down the neck, etc. Indeed, there are certain pieces of mine that were created on a given guitar that I never would have come up with on certain other guitars - the magic of that piece or arrangement is just not always there in the same way on a different instrument.

And this also is related to the reasons why it is not uncommon to see solo fingerstyle guitar players using capos. I use capos frequently in my solo music just to alter the tonal and resonant qualities of my guitar. Certain pieces just don't sound right on a given instrument unless capoed (and interestingly, in some cases the same arrangement might sound better uncapoed on a different guitar).

I think one of the keys to really developing some of the most wonderful sounds on an instrument like guitar is to get good at discovering and recognizing these different opportunities and exploiting them. Sure, one ought to be able to play anything in any key in any tuning if one is a great musician, but even a great musician will likely not get comparable sounds playing a given piece in just any key or tuning.

In this context, a tuning such as DADGAD is basically just another tool that can be exploited to get more different wonderful sounds.
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Regarding cliches: As already noted, there are cliches in any key in any tuning.

And we are all both empowered and hindered by the particular cliches we happen to have mastered. These cliches are part of our collection of preprogrammed subroutines (using computer programming talk) that we can pull out and use on the fly as we improvise or come up with new arrangements. Indeed, having a good collection of these preprogrammed bits of music to call up on a moment's notice is integral to becoming a really competent player.

But these "subroutines" or cliches can also be limiting, because they tend to restrict our imaginations in terms of how we might approach playing something new.

This is where Doug's suggestions about being able to hear or sing the music (independent of the instrument) become really critical in the process of composing or arranging music. Though my new pieces of music are often inspired by stumbling on to something that I think is particularly beautiful or interesting on a given guitar (often because it makes use of some of the instrument's unique characteristics) I find there is a limit to how far I can take the development of that idea with the guitar in my hands. I have to take the idea away from the instrument, and do some development of the melody and harmony lines through singing the music to myself, etc. Then once I have those ideas firmly in my head I go back to the instrument and try to figure out how to make those sounds on the guitar.

OK, I'm overstating the extent to which I have done this well, but in all of my compositions that I am most proud of, some really significant development happened this way.
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Regarding everything in DADGAD sounding the same:

Well, we all tend to fall into ruts, regardless of our tuning. I do find it easier to play in any key in standard tuning (especially if I am accompanying others), but even in standard tuning there are certain things I know how to do well, and I tend to do those things over and over again unless I actively try to do things differently.

I don't get out much, but for a while was able to get out to a major local music venue a few times a year and heard some of the big name people talked about here, including Bensusan, Juber, Martin Simpson, Jake (I never remember how to spell his last name) the ukulele guy, a well known Hawaiian slack key player, and some others.

I am often frustrated by the ruts I have fallen into, and by my frequent use of various cliches in my playing, and generally by how limited I feel in my playing. But the revelation for me was that most of these well known musicians have their own ruts as well. Each has his or her own particular bag of tricks (usually a bigger or more filled bag than I have!), and though they are all great musicians, some of them seem to not stray too much from a very particular sort of sound. I found this to be the case for much of what Bensusan played - it was lovely music, and he is an amazing player, but after the first 4 pieces or so it all started to sound the same to me (this is just a personal taste thing on my part), and I found myself craving a much stronger, clearer focus on melody. Jake sort of had his own bag of tricks that he did really well, but much of it started to sound the same too. I thought Martin Simpson was more interesting and more varied (and he used a variety of cool tunings, which mixed things up quite a bit).

But the person who kept me most interested from start to finish was Laurence Juber. And part of this, I suspect, came from the fact that he plays a lot of popular melodies. The important thing here is not that they were popular, but that the melodies (good melodies) were in the driving seat, and his arrangements were created to best bring out the different melodies. This resulted in a much greater variety of sounds, I thought.
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Back to DADGAD: I really do think one can get quite a variety of sounds out of this tuning, particularly if one lets the melodies drive things.

That being said, some music, such as some Irish pieces, just work out magically in DADGAD (yes, making use of some of the various cliches in some cases). A piece that comes to mind is Banish Misfortune. Oh my, DADGAD is such a wonderful tuning for playing this piece!

And it seems I read that one of the early pioneers/developers of DADGAD tuning was trying to come up with a tuning to facilitate the playing of music from the Middle East!

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It seems I had more things to say, but I'll stop now, particularly seeing as this is a pretty long post already!
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Last edited by wcap; 12-01-2015 at 04:54 AM.
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  #74  
Old 11-30-2015, 08:37 AM
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This has been a great thread so far and I can say I've learned a lot, so thanks folks.
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  #75  
Old 11-30-2015, 09:14 AM
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This has been a great thread so far and I can say I've learned a lot, so thanks folks.
Ditto!!! Some great thoughts from those who are well schooled in both theory and playing.....thank you! (If it fits, keep it going!)
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