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Jet Propelled— Celtic Guitar Whiz John Doyle Flies Solo (2 of 4)

You’ve taken Brady’s and Carthy’s rhythmic freedom and made it part of your style. How do you decide when to add or drop beats and when to stick to the straight rhythms?

     DOYLE: It’s very much by feel. I’ve always had a tendency to do that, because a song can move around and have an extra beat or two here and there. In English and Irish folk it’s pretty common for singers to do that. And when you’re singing, where the song goes, that’s where you want to go.

You seem to be equally at home flat-picking and finger-picking, though there seems to be more finger-picking on the new CD. Do you have a preference?

     DOYLE: I love doing both styles and was involved in both when I was with Solas, though there was a lot of "backing up the lads"—the high-energy stuff. I got a name for that kind of early on and I’m still doing it a lot with Eileen Ivers. But then there’s the other style of playing, that I find more modally-based, that’s better suited for the ballads.

Yes, there’s a plaintive quality to the ballads on the new CD. And it seems like you’re looking to American versions of some of the trans-Atlantic ballads.

     DOYLE: I think it’s half from living in Asheville. I just love the music down here. The more I hear it, the more it has in common with the Irish stuff, though the tunes and the songs are crooked and they often have their own slant. You take a song like "Pretty Saro" and it’s just another version of "Bunclody," that I remember from my father’s singing.

What’s your tuning preference?

     DOYLE: I stick with Drop-D mostly for playing tunes. If you’re backing up tunes, it’s the handiest for varying sound. You can play with it and get fuller chords than DADGAD, I think.

How do you decide what chords to use in a tune?

     DOYLE: Well, just take a simple D tune that has the same chords in the A part and the B part—"The Mountain Road" is a classic example. You can drone on D for the whole tune if you want. From there you just fill in what you might think would sound good. Like in a D-major scale, you think about all the chords you have in that scale, D, E minor, F#, G, A, B minor, and just try them all. If you want to distinguish the B part from the A part, you just throw a B minor in there in place of the D. It darkens it up a bit. But basically what I try to do is make each tune sound like a song, because I don’t think people understand each tune’s identity as well as they do a song’s. Every tune has an underlying melody in it—an underlying structure and implied chords. It has a kind of lovely half-time musical texture like a song, that I seek out and look for. I don’t know if that makes sense...

You mean there are lyrics lurking there in the tune?

     DOYLE: No, not so much lyrics, but another level of music underneath. That’s what I do with the chords. I try to make it sound like there’s a song underneath there, so people can identify with it better. They hear a more "western" chord structure and they say, "Oh, that’s a nice tune."

You encourage that with your use of walking bass lines.

     DOYLE: Right. On something like "The Mountain Road," I’ll walk the bass to match the shape of the melody and suggest the song underneath it.

You’ve got some original tunes on the new CD. Do you write differently for guitar than you would for traditional Irish ensemble instruments like fiddle or accordion?

     DOYLE: I try not to. I try to make my tunes sound as authentic, as old as I can, though some differences come out in the guitar style. Like the first of the tunes in the "Guitar Reels" medley on the CD, "The Hungry Rock," goes up to a high A, that you would never do in a regular tune. It’s very cruel to the fiddles [laughs]. But in general, I try to keep it in the regular range.

On your "Guitar Reels," your use of triplets remind me of Gerry O’Connor’s banjo style. Is it different trying to get those fast banjo triplets on the guitar?

     DOYLE: Not too much. The difference is you don’t have to do them all the time. In banjo you tend to have to do the triplets because you don’t have the sustain. You can get a little more moody on the guitar. As far as the triplets, Seamus taught me those and it’s just a matter of practice. But on the guitar the thing is to try to do most of those triplets on a run-up—three ascending notes—not so much on one note. And you damp with the finger a little bit. Try to emulate the pipes—the rolls and ornaments that the old instruments are doing.