If you don’t know the tune, don’t play.
The end.
NB: I am posting this as an individual and not in my capacity as Moderator. My views as expressed in this thread are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Board, its staff or its vast retinue of subservient minions.
Och, Ben, all you need to know is the keys are D, D and G…
(Not!) 
NB: I am posting this as an individual and not in my capacity as Moderator.
Hopefully a statement of the unnecessary when:
Yes you’re right Peter that my last statement may have been unnecessary. However, even though I wrote it in a slightly jokey way, I did think it was worth putting something along those lines, just to be clear.
And yes, I’ve had a bad guitar experience. (In case you were wondering. ) But it applies equally to players of the bodhrán and other accompanying instruments.
Of course you can take this further when you have two or more accompanists (or even just one!)…
Whose chords are you using and have you both/all got the same ones? What kind of chords are they (i.e. standard ‘beginner’ guitar shapes in standard tuning or, for want of a tidier description, the sort of pedal-pointy, added-/subtracted-note, open-tuning-style stuff you can also expect to encounter to at least some degree in idiomatic keyboard playing)? What kind of rhythm styles and how do these complement/interact with the melody? Is this accompaniment acceptable to the melody player(s)? (Unlikely when you don’t know the tune, but not a given when you do!)
For what it’s worth, I play guitar, but don’t accompany reels, jigs etc. with it (haven’t got the right feel). I own a bodhran, but haven’t played it for years and am not sure I ever really could. I do use (and like playing) piano for trad, but have to think hard about what I do with it when the first things to come to me are rarely what I aspire to but can still achieve quite nicely with appropriate work on the tunes.
It’s OK to play if you treat the tune sort of like jazz. I find that really adds something to a session!
I don’t know whether this is satire or not. On the assumption that it’s not, I would find that sort of behaviour just rude.
What can I say. I got a great deadpan. This board would be a lot easier if Dale would install that irony font I keep asking for.
Why just restrict it to “guitarists and other accompanists” ? Doesn’t it also hold true for players of “melody” instruments ?
I think Ben must’ve had a traumatic experience.
Maybe we should leave him alone. Ben, you’ve been trolled, but you reacted badly.
The thing is, melody players may, on occasion, be guilty of noodling, usually very quietly, through an unfamiliar tune. That can be irritating. But they never thrash away at full volume on the wrong chords in the wrong key and the wrong rhythm. Noodling from melody players detracts; but the habitual actions of seemingly the majority of accompanists destroys.
Absolutely. When I’m not teasing Ben, I firmly agree.
The thing is, melody players may, on occasion, be guilty of noodling, usually very quietly, through an unfamiliar tune. That can be irritating.
I think Kenny means that your problem is with poor playing, not so much with a particular group of instruments.
There are plenty of melody players who have all the tunes but are somehow off in their internal rhythms, the ones that constantly push and pull as you try to keep things together. They are the really frustrating ones as far as I am concerned, they’re the ones who appear unable to listen to what is going on and tear on regardless.
It’s not the instrument, it’s who is driving it.
Poor playing for sure, but I think Ben’s point is that there are some instruments in particular in which loud bad play seems endemic. Ignorant guitar players is where it’s coming from. I doubt that Ben has anything but ample reason for his recent rant. Even if I found the chance to troll the OP irresistible.
Bad playing is one thing. And it can be frustrating and require far too much effort on the part of the decent players in order to control the excesses of the poor players. But still, accompanists are unique in playing not only badly, but when they don’t even know the tune. And I just wish they’d stop. You never know, maybe if they listened every now and then instead of blindly thrashing, they might even learn a few tunes and be appreciated for the ones they’ve learned.
Yup. I know plenty of guitar, bodhran, and bouzouki players who can hear a tune once or twice through and do great things with it. Quite frankly, a lot of the harmonic and rhythmic stuff isn’t rocket science if you know the idiom.
The issue is that most people aren’t at that skill level, yet many think they are. I remember one session I used to go to that had a guitar player for every melody player, and a couple bodhrans in there for good measure. None of them could play worth a damn, and you’d get four or five different chords at any given time. Hence the reason I used to go to the session but no longer do.
That being said, I’ve been to just as many sessions where polkas congeal into sludgy march-like things, and reels either whiz by with no lift or feel (and many missed notes) or lurch along like a jammed-up machine gun. I can ignore the bodhran bopping away or a thrashing guitar if the tunes are going well, but if they aren’t, that’s what really kills it.
The issue is that most people aren’t at that skill level, yet many think they are.
I can only re-iterate that the Dunning-Kruger syndrome isn’t limited to players of one group of instruments.
Bad guitar players can be very destructive and annoying, especially if there’s more than one having a go. My experiences, and I am sure I am not the only one in this, with players of melody instruments without the ability to listen to what’s going on around them and adapt their playing accordingly more than equal my experiences with bad backers. Take that for what it’s worth (possibly not a lot).
Playing well with other people is a skill that needs to be learned and it’s a skill that requires flexibility and experience.
Oh, absolutely, that was the point I was trying to make. It’s not the instruments, it’s the player, and I get more frustrated with bad melody players than bad backers (I think the latter are easier to work around).
I know from personal experience of players of banjos, piano-accordions [ especially in Scotland ], and to a lesser extent, flutes, whistles and fiddles who are a damn site more than a mere “distraction” in a session, at least to me. I actually pointed out to a guitar player to his face in our session one night, the flute players, the fiddlers, etc all knew the tunes, so why shouldn’t the guitar player ? Utter waste of breath. I’m not disagreeing with the OP at all, would-be accompanists are by far the worst offenders, but some melody players can be every bit as bad.
“I know plenty of guitar, bodhran, and bouzouki players who can hear a tune once or twice through and do great things with it”. A very small minority, in my experience. I envy you.
It’s an utter waste of breath because routinely offending accompanists get it into their heads that there’s a “formula” they can plug in, so they don’t need to learn the tunes. Trust me, I’ve had more than one say as much to my face. Tell them otherwise and they nod and smile while their eyes glaze over, and yet they’re confounded when they can’t back up the likes of Humors of Kiltyclogher. Goodness knows how they justify their preconceptions after such hard evidence to the contrary.
It must be said that there’s a degree of foundation for the misconception, as many tunes do indeed share certain chord progressions. The mistake is in thinking (gambling, really) that all the music can be pigeonholed so. If they actually listened (fat chance of that) they could correct their error, but that means work, Heaven forfend. The last band I was in had a bass player who was brilliant at what he did so long as it wasn’t Trad. This was another guy who thought he could find the Magic Formula. He got away with it was because we were a loud bangy Western-Scottish-cèilidh-style band that most of the time muffled his wrongs well enough, I suppose, but if he hadn’t internalized a tune he made my hair stand on end. I strongly suggested (pleaded, actually) that he listen to recordings of how the pros do it, but he wasn’t interested; he had paid his dues and and was accomplished in the wider world, and that was all the authority he needed. Needless to say his disinterest was a big part of the reason I eventually left. How did the leader put up with it? They were buds, and he didn’t have the heart to put his foot down.