The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

I'm maybe guilty of borderline plagiarism.

Not as bad as it sounds. We are talking about an old tune from the world of traditional folk - "Star of the County Down". The tune is similar to that of several other works, including the almost identical English tune "Kingsfold", well known from several popular hymns, such as "Led By the Spirit". The folk tune was the basis for Ralph Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus. The melody was also used in an old Irish folk song called "My Love Nell". So it's been well-raided a load of times already!

I got a book last Friday - "Celtic Guitar Solos" by Jim Tozier. 25 melodies arranged for solo guitar - in various tunings - DADGAD, CGDGAD, and CGCGCD.

Started playing around with three of the DADGAD ones on Saturday. One of which was that "Star of the County Down" I've mentioned - described as moderate speed (which is fast for me) and with the capo at fret 4.

I'm not used to playing 3 beats to the bar, and after a while wondered what the piece would be like if it was in 4 beats to the bar - I tried a bar or two out, adding some notes to get the right number of beats. I then wondered what's it sound like with no capo? Then wondered what if I slowed it down to let the notes sustain? Then what would it sound like with added melancholy?

The result of this experiment rapidly meant I was working on two different pieces of music. I suppose my version is not so much plagiarised as adapted.

It feels a bit odd, but quite liberating reading a piece of music and at the same time deliberately adding notes, changing the timing, bringing in different phrasing. It's sort of more satisfying than playing just the written notes.

So to give an idea in sound here is a version of "Star of the County Down" that still needs a fair bit of work on it. I have since listened to teh Jim Tozier version on teh CD and at least I'm in the right ballpark.
https://app.box.com/s/hf2svi139b5mhu8qq1kb
and here is the heavily adapted much slower piece "Don't Feel Down"
https://app.box.com/s/5m0z7dne0jkgi6dbjfs5

EDIT : "Don't Feel Down 2" - improved version - on Soundclick - http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13026916

The guitar on both is the Lowden. The recording has no reverb or fx or eq adjustment and is in a heavily furnished room and not near a wall - so the resonance and reverb on the recordings is all from the guitar itself. I've put Newtone Heritage strings on it - they're 12s, but lower tension. Much easier for my creaking, twinging fingers.

I'm loving the way it sounds.

I'm not English so I'm not versed in English folk music. What I can say is that both songs sound good.

I too love the way it sounds. In my head I see a movie of the Scottish Highlands...
Somewhere I have an old record from Pentangle, maybe I should play it again! You could easily play with them.

Very good pieces and the guitar sounds great!
Both are very good and indeed I too can see a movie of the Scottish Highlands.
Congrats!

I think I've been playing so much Scots based music in recent months that I can't stop the influence coming through - particularly in the phrasing probably.

Thanks for the positive comments guys!

LOL I once encountered the same issue! I started off playing most country and Irish/English folk. I stumbled up on a very old folk song 'casey'. the guitarist I worked with at that time played it exactly as from the songbook, then I extended it a little and sang a whole choir behind it and also made the phrases line up faster.
it worked for me and the guitar guy! afterwards only a few Irish folk recognized the track, most people aren't really 'home' in the old Irish/Scottish/English folk music, but since it was found in a copyrighted songbook we didn't take any chances with rights and stuff, and.. it simply felt better just like it did with you!

The original has that typical beat and feel ( at the conservatory I had to play LOADS of that kind of music even going back to the middle ages.. when music notation as we know it now did not exist, so I had to learn to read that middle age notation as well.. next tot hat difficult timing. on the other hand, playing flute over the original tune works fine.. just the guitar part is mighty tough to get in your fingers)
I like your rendition, at first difficult to let go of the old folk feel and flow from the original, if you are hung up on that yours sound 'odd', but once you listen to it as a totally new different track it is a mighty fine piece!

I think you experimented with the music you are curious where it leads and it is not wrong.
As I said earlier in the thread, I like both songs and the sound of your Lovden.
Can imagine that you are largely absorbed by folk music now.
Keep on your studies. It seams be something you realy is interested in.

MichaelRobinson wrote:I think you experimented with the music you are curious where it leads and it is not wrong.
As I said earlier in the thread, I like both songs and the sound of your Lovden.
Can imagine that you are largely absorbed by folk music now.
Keep on your studies. It seams be something you realy is interested in.

Thanks Michael - certainly no signs of my interest in this sort of music flagging. I feel like I've been playing the Lowden for a long time now, but it's only just over 5 weeks. I'm still finding myself suddenly stopping in the middle of something just to listen to how extraordinarily good a note or phrase sounds. I wish I could capture the sound properly in a recording. I did play my Tanglewood Parlour TW73 for 20 minutes yesterday and still enjoyed it but it does have a less solid feel to it and the way it colours the sound and the way it sounds in the lower register make it a very different guitar.

BigmamaDee wrote: LOL I once encountered the same issue! I started off playing most country and Irish/English folk. I stumbled up on a very old folk song 'casey'. the guitarist I worked with at that time played it exactly as from the songbook, then I extended it a little and sang a whole choir behind it and also made the phrases line up faster.
it worked for me and the guitar guy! afterwards only a few Irish folk recognized the track, most people aren't really 'home' in the old Irish/Scottish/English folk music, but since it was found in a copyrighted songbook we didn't take any chances with rights and stuff, and.. it simply felt better just like it did with you!

The original has that typical beat and feel ( at the conservatory I had to play LOADS of that kind of music even going back to the middle ages.. when music notation as we know it now did not exist, so I had to learn to read that middle age notation as well.. next tot hat difficult timing. on the other hand, playing flute over the original tune works fine.. just the guitar part is mighty tough to get in your fingers)
I like your rendition, at first difficult to let go of the old folk feel and flow from the original, if you are hung up on that yours sound 'odd', but once you listen to it as a totally new different track it is a mighty fine piece!

Many thanks for your thoughts and story BigmamaDee. What you say fits in very well with how I'm feeling about this way of "adapting" a piece of music to suit me as the player and, just as important, to suit the strengths of a particular instrument.

I've never been that keen on doing straight "covers" of existing songs / tunes. Possibly due to wanting to express myself and quite possibly to avoid the hard work of playing in a style that is alien to me. The one exception to that in my exploring acoustic playing this last year and a bit has been Scots celtic tunes, where I feel an affinity with the timing and the chords used. I don't seem to get the same connection with Irish celtic style. Which is quite possibly why I felt the urge to change the tune around a bit - I think what I have ended up with has more of a Scots edge to it than Irish.

I've continued to alternate between playing the "correct" version and my alternative version and my one has fine tuned itself a bit and lost some of the hesitations of my first recording that started this thread. I think it's closer now to expressing my mood better. Not yet perfect by any means ....
.... but good enough for me to put "Don't Feel Down 2" on Soundclick. http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13026916

It still seems strange to be reading a piece of sheet music / TAB while at the same time not playing what is on it and just using it as a guide. I do like it though - it gives me some elements of improv, which is my first love in music. But it hasn't yet happened on any other pieces that I've looked at since - I'm hoping it will happen again soon.

Improvisation on a sheet music - great idea and mastered well. So lovely tones, seems like your favorite tuning!

Yes. You make it damn good. Not that I have anything Scottish in my veins and tradition and can not keep up with your deep roots which I think speaks to you through the hidden experience. I can be wrong and it is not hidden.
If I take myself as an example, I played in a guitar course many years ago. It was acoustically. There came the vein up now and then in a minor key song. The music brings out the pages of people you never thought existed. Get the right brainhalf big enough place in a structured world of lefthalves of the brain so arise arts and other creative. At the beginning of something hidden from the starting unleash the secret.

Now I let well as any scholar professor or something, but I'm not and does not seek to structure the arts.

download/file.php?id=3025download/file.php?id=3024since I replied and mentioned casey... let's go off topic and show two of my folky stuff from when I was about 26 y.o ( 44 now.. errr.... ) LOL that one is casey and the other one me on guitar on an original of mine, little girl.
it's recorded not too long ago, a few months.. mind you, my playing became very limited, due to the muscle disease i have to find alternative settings and odd chords since I cannot use all fingers on the left hand anymore. in this one I think it didn't bother in the end
if I am toooooo off topic let me know.. newbie here remember

12bar wrote:Improvisation on a sheet music - great idea and mastered well. So lovely tones, seems like your favorite tuning!

Thank you - appreciate it. I've been playing a lot of DADGAD the last few months which helps, but also a lot of DADF#AD and open G. For spontaneous off the cuff improv I'll go to open G. A good thing about using these altered tunings, apart from how good they sound, is that when other members of the family pick up the Lowden they swiftly put it down again as they only play in standard tuning!

MichaelRobinson wrote:Yes. You make it damn good. Not that I have anything Scottish in my veins and tradition and can not keep up with your deep roots which I think speaks to you through the hidden experience. I can be wrong and it is not hidden.

Thanks Michael. I don't know how much it's deep roots and how much it's just that something about the phasing and sounds of the scales used appeals to my nature. There is a lot of underlying melancholy to the sound of a lot of Scots music and I think that fits in with the type of feeling I naturally want to get in my playing whether it's folk, blues, melodic rock or whatever. All my favourite characters in books when I was a child were gloomy ones. As to what part of my brain is being utilised I'll not begin to wonder - I'm just grateful that it works at some level.

BigmamaDee wrote:since I replied and mentioned casey... let's go off topic and show two of my folky stuff from when I was about 26 y.o ( 44 now.. errr.... ) LOL that one is casey and the other one me on guitar on an original of mine, little girl.
it's recorded not too long ago, a few months.. mind you, my playing became very limited, due to the muscle disease i have to find alternative settings and odd chords since I cannot use all fingers on the left hand anymore. in this one I think it didn't bother in the end
if I am toooooo off topic let me know.. newbie here remember

Not too off topic at all. How could something with singing of that quality be off topic!
"Liitle Girl" must be a good example of how physical limitations on playing don't stop a very musical result. Harmonies on the vocal work well and the melody is very catchy. I'm impressed with the recording quality back from 1996 by the way - I have recollections of using a multi-track cassette machine at the end of the 1990s and the sound quality was awful - I still have the evidence if I ever doubt that. Your rendition of "Casey" is beautiful - arrangement, harmonies, vocal and guitar all working so well together.

dang.. quoting went wrong.. ok, edit: Viking said:

VikingBlues wrote: Not too off topic at all. How could something with singing of that quality be off topic!
"Liitle Girl" must be a good example of how physical limitations on playing don't stop a very musical result. Harmonies on the vocal work well and the melody is very catchy. I'm impressed with the recording quality back from 1996 by the way - I have recollections of using a multi-track cassette machine at the end of the 1990s and the sound quality was awful - I still have the evidence if I ever doubt that. Your rendition of "Casey" is beautiful - arrangement, harmonies, vocal and guitar all working so well together.

thanks for the nice words about the tracks! in '96 I recorded on a Tascam portastudio ( still do but then a better version yet not the newest, I need phaders.. old school gal so I use the DP1 FX now) but.. I owned a radio studio at that time, and produced live blues shows etc, and for some extra income I produced commercials. so what we recorded at home in my bed room ( ) I mastered in the studio.Yet, the only way to store it was on Minidisk, or DAT. I didn't like DAT too much tho, so I always sent the master to a MD and a few years back I converted them to MP3. the sound quality got less after that conversion I'm afraid, - little dark, like the mid tones somehow are dimmed, but I am still happy I got some of the old recordings safe on my pc!

Mark, your acoustic playing is just above reproach!! I t is absolutely gorgeous...enough to make me want to pick up an acoustic!! Ok, not really...never had the patients for that kind of lovely finger style LOL!!!


But seriously...beautiful playing!!

Many thanks Tytl - you're very kind to say so.

I really do not know where this all came from. Late summer 2013 and I was happily playing my usual electric stuff. I got a new electric guitar and had great fun with it and hit a real burst of creativity. Then suddenly started getting a feeling I was putting the final touches to it all - an odd feeling of something coming to an end in a burst of activity.

Two months later I was pretty well just playing acoustic, and was further converted when I got a better guitar (Tanglewood Parlour TW73) and I discovered open and altered tunings. Getting the Lowden has well and truly sealed my fate - it wants to play the same sort of music as I do and sings much better than my fingers merit.

All difficult to understand - I have listened to very little steel string acoustic guitar in my life, and even now I hardly do - I have a Martin Simpson CD and a Tony McManus CD but it hardly rates as a collection! I have to admit I'm not that keen on the US sort of acoustic guitar styles which rather puts me out on a limb. Having spent years disagreeing with my better half's assertion that acoustic guitars sound sweeter than electrics I now find I'm feeling the same.

So I just need to go with the flow. There's signs in the recent collabs I can maybe still manage both acoustic and electric - hope so.