Celtic / Traditional Acoustic Playing

blobb

Re: Meic Stevens, my welsh teacher at school had a poster of him on his door. When the whole Welsh Nationalist thing was big (burning holiday cottages etc...) my teacher was sent to prison for bending TV aerials (!), it was to do with whether we got a Welsh version of the then soon to be launched Channel 4 tv station. When he got out of jail he was welcomed straight back into his old job and treated like a hero. We ended up with S4C instead of Ch4. So we got SuperTed in Welsh and Sam Tan instead of Fireman Sam. Who says terrorism doesn't pay? I think Meic was big amongst the Nationalists, sort of like their protest singer. 

Ar Log were more a Welsh folk revival thing, lot's of harp tunes brought up to date.

thermionic

Yes, Ar Lôg are the typical jig & reel tradition with guitar just as a rhythmic background to harp & fiddle etc. There's a few bands playing that kind of stuff now, most notably the supergroup Pendevig.

Where did you go to school by the way?

MagicPigDetective

This discussion has had me thinking deeply all day about Welsh music and history., of which I’m no expert but have read a lot on and interests me greatly. I do think there’s a Welsh style of folk/trad, it has survived. But it’s in many different forms. Going back to medieval times, Wales had a very sophisticated musical tradition based on the bardic tradition and the harp. Check out this video about the Robert ap Huw manuscript from the 1600’s which records late medieval music. Paul Dooley has brought it back to life, it sounds other wordly. Also note the links with Ireland in setting musical rules etc. Check out these two tunes, the second one sounds, dare I say it, modal? This tradition where the upper class sponsored the bards died out in the 17C as the gentry became anglicised. The common folk carried on... folk songs and ballads were popular in the 18/19 century, all over the UK. Cerys Matthews made a very interesting programme on S4C on these; at the time songs were a way of spreading news, songsheets sold like crazy and spread around the country . In Wales they were given new words in a different language. Also many original songs, who knows where they came from. I sense a melancholic Welshness in these ballads, eg, Dafydd y Garreg Wen. Of no doubt the folk had their own tunes, reels and songs, played dance and sang, to be drunk and merry, use of harps and fiddles. But, I do think that religion plays it’s part. In the late 18C and 19C there was a non conformist boom with chapels appearing everywhere. People became extremely religious , turning away from, drinking and having a damn good time. Of course this brought in a new musical tradition, hymns, which probably led to the male voice choir tradition. In the industrial valleys male voice choirs and brass bands became popular. In rural areas older traditions held on in some areas. But it was disappearing in the 19C, coupled with land clearances of common land, people leaving rural areas for the coal mines etc. This is when songs and dances began to be recored. This era ties in with the wider romanticisation of celtica, it’s reinvention and interpretation, as happened in Scotland. A lot of folk traditions survive due to the Eisteddfod tradition of competing, though I do think they are sanitized versions of the original folk styles. Since the 60’s Wales has been re interpreting its traditions , just like Ireland and Scotland, brining in new influences, mixing with rock etc. There were many similarities with folk traditions in the British Isle. But as to what makes Wales’s music different, the following link gets all theoretical and discusses it’s use of major, minor, lydian and dorian scales, and less of pentatonic used in Ireland/scotland. Perhaps this gives it a different flavour. https://edcox.co.uk/about-me/research/welsh-traditional-music/ Welsh trad music is not as widely know as Irish and Scottish, perhaps because it is strongly connected to our language. Perhaps it’s due to Welsh folk’s tendency to assimilate when migrating to another country... I think the main tradition remains singing over playing instruments. As recorded by Gerald of Wales in the 12th century, when a choir sang they all did in different harmonies ie it was polyphonic. Welsh people still love to sing (not me though!) Kind of rambled on here.....

blobb

thermionic said:

Where did you go to school by the way?

Mid Wales - but closer to North Wales and not all that far from Aberystwyth. Think teach was more to do with Cymdeithas yr Iaith than Meibion Glyndwr.

@MagicPigDetective nice ramble. Have to say it was all a bit force fed to us in school, sort of took away some of the natural beauty if you ask me. They were hell bent on promoting the survival of the culture and language and to some extent I think this worked against the whole movement. Later on in life, I'm finding the whole thing a lot more interesting. Just wish they had let it take it's natural course, Eisteddfod became a bit of a running joke. My first band was an entry in our School Eisteddfod 'Open' Category. We swore a lot (and got the biggest cheer of the day). Compare that to my primary school headmistress who was a full on Welsh harpist, her daughter (who must only have been 10 at most) was amazing. Probably the biggest music influence on my life seeing her play in morning assembly. I loved traditional Welsh music until The Urdd spoiled it.

But we digress.....

thermionic

Great analysis @MagicPigDetective - diolch! I was going to mention the role of the religious revivals in surpressing folk traditions, but never thought about hymns replacing folk songs so directly.

The thing with Welsh music for me is that it’s not a genre. There are just so many great bands and artists around that just do their own thing, but just naturally do it in their first language.

VimFuego

thanks for that @MagicPigDetective ; I must confess my knowledge of Welsh music is poor, it still doesn't seem to the attention it deserves. What little I've heard I really like, much more melodic than listening to yet another sub riverdance jig played at 200BPM band.

thermionic

Well, Meic Stevens is cancelled.

He made some ill-judged Islamophobic "joke" at the weekend and he's been pulled from 2 if not 3 high-profile gigs in the next month or so.

Kittyfrisk

Rocker said:

Horslips did something similar way back in the 1970s.  Worth checking out...

Bloody hell. Thought for a while I was the only other person to have heard of Horslips 
The Tain was brilliant, I was always surprised at their lack of success.

Stuckfast

I play traditional music (mostly English and Scottish, and mostly songs rather than tunes) and accompany it on guitar in a third-rate Martin Carthy / Nic Jones-esque way. But it should be remembered that the guitar is not a traditional folk instrument in any way, shape or form on this side of the Atlantic. It's only since the 1950s that it's become ubiquitous.

TheBigDipper

Kittyfrisk said:

Rocker said:

Horslips did something similar way back in the 1970s.  Worth checking out...

Bloody hell. Thought for a while I was the only other person to have heard of Horslips 
The Tain was brilliant, I was always surprised at their lack of success.

They did Roundhouse Sunday’s a few times in the 70s and were always good.

blobb

Just found this and thought it was nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HBzeW_rlNg

blobb

...and another one

Dave Curley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZJEUMW7fqs

VimFuego

not sure how this popped up in my youtube feed, but it's an interesting insight on how to arrange a tune for fingerstyle playing

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

TimmyO

VimFuego said:

not sure how this popped up in my youtube feed, but it's an interesting insight on how to arrange a tune for fingerstyle playing

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

he has a couple of courses on Truefire 

thomasross20

Definitely want to find a course on YouTube/ DVD / online for this sort of thing proper. 

stuartryanmusic

I used to cover these styles a lot in my Guitar Techniques acoustic columns - there are quite a few idiosyncratic techniques to get to grips with when you start playing music that would have originally been played on fiddles, pipes etc. One of the main ones is an adapted 'tremolo' technique to mimic the bow strokes of the fiddle, try the following to get you started as you'll find it all over the place in Celtic guitar these days!

thomasross20

Look forward to watching that at home!
I saw you play once at an IGF, Stuart - amazing!
And Clive Carroll, too!

BTW Stephen Wake who did the vid in the first post plays a Larrivee OM-02!
https://www.larrivee.com/artists/stephen-wake

stuartryanmusic

I used to love IGF, thanks for the kind words! Seems like such a long time ago now though! If that was the one I did with Clive it was 2004 or 2005...yikes!! Stephen Wake is a great player, I only came across him myself fairly recently 

thomasross20

I was there twice and yeah, it was some time ago - around about those dates. I was very impressed !
I've got a new guitar incoming but the I will always love my OM-02. Listen to the sounds Stephen is getting out of that thing. I need to hear more artists like you guys!

stuartryanmusic

They are great guitars, always a mystery to me why more people aren't playing them but then branding/marketing is half the battle!