Guitar for Celtic?

[sharpdressedscot]

OK, I am a guitar player and I have a few bands of mine. I would like to incorporate some Celtic stuff into the music. Any suggestions? Is it possible?
Or is the guitar not suitable for Celtic music? I play metal/rock mind you, so no soft stuff. Thanks!

[Andrew Breecher]

Most traditional Scottish and Irish music incorporates the acoustic guitar (you could use either steel string or classical). If you want an idea of traditional music with an electric guitar, give a listen to The Corrs - they do renditions of many traditional Irish tunes.

Andrew.

[Archangel]

I went over this in another thread so you might want to do a search.

Basically most Celtic music is done in a myxolydian mode. It's only sounds technical, you only have to learn one shape and five notes.

You need a drone effect so here goes. The key of D is a common Celtic key. The lower A is the drone. So here's your pattern, D on the A string, right beside is the A on the E string. You'll go one note (two frets) on the E string (A to B). You'll go two notes on the A string (two plus two frets) which is E to F#.

Amazing Grace: A-B-D, F#-E-D-F#, E-D, B-A

There's your shape, it repeats on the D string 7th fret and the B string 10th fret. Use the A string as a guide, key of C, third fret, same pattern.

Play around with it. Always finish on the D but try to keep the A note fairly constant.

Then you have to learn to play broken triplets. It's not a four count and it's not the blues triplets. Think Riverdance.

[TheKiltedWonder]

I'd say most of the time in celtic music guitar is in the background. basic rythm guitar kinda stuff while the whistles, flutes and fiddles play the melody. I dunno what the make-up of your band is, but I think you should be able to arrange something, so that lead guitar or some other instrument has the melody. Although, I would personally prefer to hear a punk band with an electric fiddle. good luck either way!

[beloitpiper]

Just like banjo and mandolin can play lead, so can guitar. It's just that so many guitar players are used to being rhythm instrumentalists that they never take to learning any tunes. I was in that rut for awhile until I took up pipes.

So nothing is stopping you. There's a recording by Ryan J. MacNeil (out of Nova Scotia). He is primarily a piper, but one of the tracks is him playing lead guitar. I can e-mail it to you if you want to listen. It's pretty amazing stuff.

[McFarkus]

My nephew James (sometime poster here under Seamus) was the lead singer (and played the bodhran) in a Celtic punk band, Shilleleagh Law. They had acoustic and electric guitar a bass (fiddle not guitar) and a fiddle as well as other instruments. And the sound was amazing.

I think BeloitPiper has their CD - he still plays their stuff sometimes on his radio show.

[canawler]

I play metal/rock mind you, so no soft stuff. Thanks!

Note: I am not a musician nor do I play one on TV

I often look around on Myspace searching for new bands and just last night I stumbled into a whole subculture of folk/celtic metal bands. All of the ones I had time to listen to were European and while many had good music, few had good vocals. They were all definitely metal but incorporated celtic instruments, themes, or melodies into their music. I think I started by finding a band named Cruachan then just jumped from band to band by checking out each one's friends list. One thing's for sure, you can burn up a lot of time surfing music on Myspace.

[highlander_Daz]

You need to listen to the late great Stuart Adamson of "big country" and the "skids" and also listen to Gary moore's album "wild frontier" for some fantastic "celtic" sounding guitar playing.

[thatcelticband]

check out my band myspace.com/thatcelticband then check out some of the other bands on my page. Some rockin stuff. Enjoy

[beowulf67]

I've been trying to learn some of the lead stuff on guitar, but I've never been much of a lead player. But it's fun.