My buddy John Devens band uses guitars constantly. The "lead" guitarist, Jim White, can play the daylights out of any Irish tune. Between John and Jim, they switch off between guitar, mandolin and tenor banjo (the four string one).

I've seen fiddler Liz Carroll a whole lot and she's invariably accompanied by a guitarist. I've also seen plenty of Octave Mandolins and Bouzooki's used.

Before you freak out about these exotic instruments, remember the story of Tommy Tedesco.

Tedesco was one of, if not THE, best session players (by which I mean studio musician not like as in sessuin) in LA. The guy would show up and they'd say, "Tommy, we need a bouzooki on this track. Can you play it?" To which Tommy would reply, "Certainly." He'd get a bouzooki, go over the part and play the track for the recording like the pro he was. They'd throw all kinds of stringed instruments at the guy and he'd always come through. All of the other musicians would be amazed at all of the different fingerings that he must have known to be able to play all of these different instruments.

One day one of the other musicians actually broke down and asked him how he learned to play all of those different instruments. Tommy replied that he never learned all of the different fingerings...he knew how to play guitar so he'd take the bouzooki or mandolin or whatever and tune it LIKE A GUITAR and then play the part...even though it was tuned like a guitar, it still SOUNDED like a mando or an oud or an bouzooki or whatever.

Clever Tommy.

Best

AA