new to trad

charloman

Hi all,

Been playing guitar for about 8 years now and have been playing mainly rock and mainstream music till now. I'm dying to get into some trad music and dont know where to start.

I've been brought up in a house filled with rock and pop, no trad at all.

But I'm fascinated by the musicians in traditional irish music, they're so so talented. The craic had during the songs, u can see the emotions during songs unlike any rock or pop concert.

Has anyone any recommendations as to where i should begin?

I'm already a big fan of the Waterboys, and have recently got into John Spillane and a bit of Paul Brady, though I'm not sure if you'll call these trad musicians... Some Christy Moore too I'd be familiar with....

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Custom22

Do you want to play along with jigs and reels as an accompaniment or do you want to play solo? Playing solo would probably require a little more time to be put into practise as you'd have to be playing melody and rhythm parts at the same time, essentially. If you want to get playing more "celtic" stuff, for want of a better word, there are many transcriptions of old harp music for guitar. This sort of stuff is generally not the type of thing you'd hear in pub sessions and is more for the solo performer. A lot of the time in trad music guitarists use alternate tunings, DADGAD being the most famous I suppose. This opens up the possibility of new chord voicings etc. Either experiment yourself or google for a book on the topic of trad guitar, there are many. Just listening to trad music should really be enough if you want to learn yourself. If you've got a good sense of rhythm you'll gave something to add to any session really.