Carolan’s Concerto with El McMeen “Carolan’s Concerto” is one of the greatest compositions of legendary Irish harper and melodicist, Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738). It was composed in honour of Mrs. Power, mother of the young lady to whom another beautiful Carolan tune, “Fanny Power,” was dedicated. It reflects Carolan’s reported immersion in the music of certain Italian composers, and the consequent development and expansion of the scope of his arrangements. My involvement with this tune has spanned over 25 years, and illustrates an arranging “odyssey” in at least three contexts. The first involves the manner (sometimes serendipitous) in which one selects a piece to be arranged. The second involves the arrangement itself (or, in this case, for me, the arrangements themselves). The third relates to the evolution of an arrangement as the thought process of the arranger, and his familiarity with a piece, mature. In the mid-1980’s, I began to delve into traditional “Celtic” music—an inaccurate, but useful, term covering Irish, Scottish and English music. The inspiration included guitar arrangements that were publicized through Stefan Grossman’s excellent Guitar Workshop series, as well as the recordings of instrumentalists, including Derek Bell, the late harper for the Chieftains, and Joemy Wilson, on hammered dulcimer. The stirring and lyrical quality of much of the repertoire with which I was becoming familiar led me to create my own guitar arrangements. At this time I became friendly with Caleb Crowell, from Montclair, NJ, an expert in the area of Irish and Scottish music. As I was working on a tune, Caleb would provide me with a recording of multiple versions of the same tune—sometimes eight or ten! This generosity on his part had at least three impacts on me. First, the multitude of versions indelibly imprinted the tune on my brain, so that I would be carrying it around with me for days.
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As a result, when I set about doing an arrangement, I usually didn’t have a problem in “finding” the melody. Secondly, the diversity of approaches taken by the various instrumentalists rendering the tune reinforced the notion that there was a significant degree of freedom of interpretation permitted in trying to capture an ancient melody. Obviously, straying from the melody too much would impair the integrity of the arrangement, but the phrasing, the pace, and to some extent the particular chords chosen—those matters could reflect the style of the particular arranger and player. Tempering this idea of freedom, however, was the third idea—that, with so many arrangements of certain tunes out there, one should undertake an arrangement only if the result would be a worthwhile addition to the repertoire. Otherwise, what was the point?
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Issue 5 2013
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WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE! Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Just $8 for all 4 full Issues in 2013 EDITORSNOTE Thank you for viewing our free article from Issue 5 of Guitarbench! Our magazine focuses on acoustic & classical guitars with the odd ukulele and lap slide.
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So, how did I hook up with “Carolan’s Concerto?” Quite simply, Caleb mentioned the tune to me, and then gave me a cassette containing about a dozen different versions! One was a live guitar rendition by the multi-talented Gordon Bok. While I wasn’t sure in what tuning or key Gordon played his version, listening to him led me to do an arrangement in “Drop D tuning” (DADGBE), in the key of D. That arrangement appears on Page 196 of “Mel Bay’s Complete Celtic Fingerstyle Guitar Book” (MB 95217BCD), co-authored by Stefan Grossman, Duck Baker and myself. I am satisfied with that arrangement as an early jump into Carolan music. It is straightforward, with nothing special going on in the bass. (Interestingly enough, the piece that appears before my version in the book—on Page 193—is Duck Baker’s excellent arrangement, in the same tuning and key— which has more moving lines in the bass and middle range. I wasn’t even aware of Duck’s arrangement when I did mine!) After experimenting with arranging Celtic pieces in different tunings in the mid- to late1980’s, I settled on the “C-GAD” tuning— CGDGAD—as the tuning in which I wanted to work exclusively, because of its sonority and the
fact that it seemed to speak to me in creating arrangements of strongly melodic music. I always give credit to Englishman Dave Evans for inventing this tuning. (It is also a somewhat obscure Hawaiian slack-key tuning. Even if the tuning pre-existed in the Hawaiian repertoire, there is absolutely no evidence that Dave knew about this, and there are plenty of seminal pieces created by Dave in this tuning.) For a more extensive discussion of the tuning and my own views in that regard, reference is made to my various books for Mel Bay, and Stephen Rekas’s Interview with me for Mel Bay: http://elmcmeen.com/El%20Mel%20Bay%20 Interview%202000.pdf As guitarists began to respond positively to my arrangements in the CGDGAD tuning, people began to ask whether I had arranged “Carolan’s Concerto” in that tuning. I hadn’t, and, in light of the growing number of excellent guitar arrangements of the tune in other tunings—including “standard,” I was somewhat reluctant to undertake an arrangement. After some prodding by friends, and a certain curiosity about whether that wonderful piece would “work” in CGDGAD, I took a shot at it.
The first issue was—what key? I usually start with the key of G, major or minor as appropriate, because of the strength of the tonic chord in this tuning—two G’s and two D’s on open strings; my familiarity with common progressions in that key; and the power of the subdominant, IV chord, in first position—the C chord, with its range of over two octaves (fingered with the middle finger on the first string, second fret; ring finger on the second string, third fret; and index finger on the fourth string, second fret). Tunes with a dramatic part in the subdominant, or that progress to the subdominant through the relative minor, VI chord, sound beautiful in the key of G in CGDGAD—whatever the genre. I was concerned, however, that I was unduly favoring the key of G in the tuning, and wasn’t adequately exploring other keys. Also, “Carolan’s Concerto” didn’t seem to have the type of movement in and out of the subdominant that exploited the potential of the key of G. So, I started to work in the key of C. That key allows for a broad range in C-GAD. It has a possible weakness, in that the root note in the mid-range of the guitar in first position is the fifth fret of the fifth string—not the most convenient position. However, the modulation in the middle strings from the first-position C chord to first-position F chord was very accessible, and this shift is present in measure 2 of “Carolan’s Concerto” in the key of C. I was reasonably pleased with the resulting arrangement, which was the predecessor to the following tab/music. I usually played it at capo II or IV. I thought it used the guitar fingerboard well, even employing some moving-chord barre positions in measures 6 through 8. The arrangement also utilized the open strings to create a harplike effect, as in measures 10 through 15, and 28 through 33. (I realize that this may be anathema to some of our classicalguitar brethren!). Finally, the arrangement employed an interesting “to me” harmonic chord at the beginning of the B part. GUITARBENCH MAGAZINE ISSUE 5 PAGE 6
So, then, what was the problem? The “problem” was my changing idea of the appropriate speed for the piece, as well as the desire to work some triplets into the B part, at the suggestion of my good friend and great guitarist Steve Baughman from San Francisco. Regarding the speed issue, I had the good fortune to have my cut of “Fanny Power” included on a wonderful compilation of Carolan tunes on the Narada (Virgin) label in 1996. The album is called “Celtic Treasure”. Following my cut is a rollicking, exuberant version of “Carolan’s Concerto” played by John Whelan on button accordion. It blew my mind. Suddenly, my playing of my own arrangement sounded sluggish to me. I felt I had to increase the speed of my performance of my own arrangement by about 50%. That view, right or wrong, required changes in the arrangement to facilitate that idea— reducing the right-hand picking (by increasing the number of hammers and pull-offs with the left hand), eliminating some passing notes and bass notes, even (gasp!) omitting some of the melody notes. In one case (measure 6), a harmonic at the twelfth fret of the third string, inserted as a textural element, was changed to a fretted note.
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On top of that, at the increased speed I wanted to incorporate the triplets (actually, 32nd notes) in the B part. Talk about putting pressure on oneself!
tune with the A part. (I find myself doing this on Celtic tunes a lot, which confounds both my musical friends and myself…) If you have any questions, drop me a note, or an e-mail.
The result is the following arrangement, which opens my 2001 album called “The Lea Rig.” It deviates in certain respects from the tab/music Enjoy! enclosed, but I think that after you become familiar with my arrangement, you’ll realize what I was doing “on the fly” in the studio. For some reason, after playing the A and B parts a couple of times, I often find myself ending the
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WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE! Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Just $8 for all 4 full Issues in 2013 EDITORSNOTE Thank you for viewing our free article from Issue 5 of Guitarbench! Our magazine focuses on acoustic & classical guitars with the odd ukulele and lap slide. We have an emphasis on gear features, and in depth interviews with luthiers and players. Our lessons section is maturing with many professionals contributing tab and articles. We’d love to keep producing content like this, and would like to appeal for your help. By subscribing, we can keep these articles coming! Just click on this link. Warmest Regards and happy reading, Terence Tan, Editor.
PREVIEW Stay tuned for Issue 6 of Guitarbench Magazine. With our usual mix of great guitars, vintage and contemporary...
and with different perspectives...
interviews with luthiers..
and lessons from professionals....
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