Are there any good books or DVDs on Irish rhythms for accompaniment?
I’ve heard that this is good:
Celtic Back-Up For All Instrumentalists
by Chris Smith
Hello, and thanks for your reply.
I should have mentioned that I already have that book. I haven’t used it because it’s intimidatingly theoretical. I think you’d already have to be a very good musician to benefit from it.
Even the organization of the content is very abstract. For example, there are no sections dealing with jigs, reels, hornpipes, etc. It’d be hard for me find a toe hold in the book.
Since posting my question I’ve been considering John Doyle’s DVD, Irish Rhythm Guitar: Accompanying Celtic Tunes (1998). Of course, that only deals with guitar. I have no idea whether it’s worthwhile.
There doesn’t seem to be anything like a general intro to the rhythms and chord patterns used in accompanying Irish music.
I don’t know whether this would be helpful to you, but it looks intriguing:
http://www.geraldinecotter.com/publications.html
Looks like it focuses on piano accompaniment, but since it comes with a CD, you might be able to glean something by comparing the played versions to the notated versions with chord symbols, etc.
That’s interesting. I’ve not seen that one before. I’ll write Geraldine Cotter an email to see what she says about it. Thanks!
Doyle’s video material is pretty good. He gets a lot of mileage out of not very many chords. He uses dropped D tuning-which means the bass E string is dropped to D.
Thanks, Steve, I’ll pick up a copy of Doyle’s DVD!
Hello - Who is this ‘Doyle’?
Do you have a link or other contact, I’d be interested in seeing this also.
Thanks,
LEE
John Doyle is a well-known guitarist who played with Solas and has accompanied various Irish musicians. The one who comes to mind right now is Liz Carroll. You can buy the DVD and see a sample of it at Homespun Tapes.
http://www.homespuntapes.com/staticsite/artistpage416.asp
Look him up on Google too.
Thanks Steve 
I shall!
Lalit mentioned Geraldine Cotter’s book and CD combo, “Rogha.” She was very helpful in answering my questions. I hope she won’t mind if I quote her here.
Here’s the thing about all these instruction DVDs, tapes, books, etc. You get a very specific set of chords, bass lines and so on from them but you get no instruction on extrapolating this material to a session or band situation where you will be called on to provide backup for new tunes. I don’t know if the authors just expect that you will be able to generalize after having learned their material or what. The great value of Chris Smith’s material, both in the book and at his website, is that he is interested in providing the tools for you to be able to fly on your own. It’s worth the time and effort to go through the theoretical material to be able to do so.
Chris’s online instructional material is here:
Michael Eskin’s new http://www.tradlessons.com/ site has some good Dropped D video tutorials as well. 
I also bought a nice little chord book from Annie (the whistle roll lady) that has a lot of tunes in it (just the chords).
http://www.sassafrassgrove.com/ChordBook/NEMOFOTMADChordBook.html
Doc
This is a bit off-subject, but if you are looking for accompaniment resources, have you ever heard of the music program Band in a Box? You can check it out a http://www.band-in-a-box.com/
It is, at first blush, a bit cheesy, but I’ve found the more that I use it the more I like it. The variables and options are just outstanding (for almost all genres of music, including Irish and “Celtic”). It’s worth a look I think.
Hope this is helpful!
John also teaches at some of the Summer Irish Music Camps/Festivals.
The past two years he taught at Swannanoa Gathering, in Asheville NC. He taught both beginner and Intermediate/Advanced classes. He lives in the Ashville area. Most recently, he’s been touring with Liz Carroll.
SteveK talks about the lack of resources that help you extrapolate. By that I understand the lack of books explaining the general principles of accompaniment because what, apart from those principles, would you be extrapolating?
I would suggest and strongly recommend persevering with Chris Smith’s book, although you might want to learn some stuff you can’t extrapolate first. (Doyle’s video is fine for that and he has a rhythmic style that might serve you well.) Smith tells you the principles so, when you are ready to extrapolate, you are ready for his book. Conversely, if you aren’t ready for his book, you probably aren’t ready to extrapolate principles—being told principles is a lot easier than figuring them out for yourself from a few examples. It’s probably not as rewarding as figuring them out for yourself but not everybody can do that. And even when you’ve mastered what Smith has to teach, there’s still loads of stuff to figure out for yourself.