"Geff Crawford" wrote
> Is guitar backup just the slightest bit behind the beat in a dance tune
> with a fiddle lead? Here's why I ask: A few times I've overdubbed over
my
> own fiddle part with a guitar backup on a multi-track recorder. It
feels
> sort of artificial, compared with playing simultaneously with another
live
> person in a jam, or when recording live with someone else. My perception
> is that I've noticed that if the guitar isn't just slightly behind the
> fiddle, it makes the fiddle sound uncertain, or not swingy, or somehow
out
> of sync. It's all very slight, so it could just be my ear or sense of
> rhythm. I'd be curious if anyone else has this same perception.
Turning this on its head, if the fiddle doesn't stay out in front of the
backup, it will not only "...sound uncertain, or not swingy, or somehow
out
of sync..." but it will likely drag the tempo down in a live session as
the
backup "adjusts". Good backup, whether it is banjo, guitar or (gasp) bass,
is less about the placement of notes in each measure and more about
resisting this general tendency to drag by holding up the tempo, or "being
the wave".
Even a great fiddler with rock solid bowing can't fight mediocre backup.
But
solid backup can make a less accomplished fiddler sound much better. Great
music happens when everyone is in the same groove. I've been in many
informal sessions where the fiddle(s) start tunes at some tempo and before
the end it is down at least 25% (e.g. from ~125 bpm to ~100 bpm). This is
not because the fiddler can't keep up. S/he picked the tempo with
potatoes,
after all, and their next tune starts snappy again. It is inevitably
because
the backup (guitar/banjo/bass) allows the tempo to drag. Thinking "behind
the beat" aggravates the problem since there is no click track in a live
session.
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