On Celtic guitar, creative constraints, and the pleasure of finding elegant solutions.
I’ve always enjoyed listening to sophisticated Celtic fingerstyle guitar arrangements. Beautiful harmonies, intricate bass lines, unexpected chord changes, and melodies woven into rich textures can make a familiar traditional tune sound entirely new.
But when I pick up my own guitar, my approach is usually much simpler.
I tend to play chord melody by ear. I find the melody, add a few chords and bass notes that seem to fit, and see where it takes me.
Most of the time, the result is what I like to call a bread-and-butter arrangement: familiar harmonies, relatively simple fingerings, nothing particularly spectacular.
And that’s perfectly fine with me.
Still, there’s something that keeps me experimenting.
What if I change just one chord? What if I let a bass note move in a different direction? What happens if I keep an open string ringing against a harmony where it doesn’t quite seem to belong?
Sometimes a tiny change makes a surprising difference.
And finding those little possibilities has become one of my favorite aspects of arranging music.
Musical Richness Doesn’t Have to Mean Technical Difficulty
There seems to be a natural tendency to associate elaborate musical results with elaborate playing techniques.
If an arrangement sounds rich and sophisticated, we might assume that it must be difficult to play.
But I find it particularly satisfying when the opposite is true.
A carefully chosen chord voicing can produce a beautiful harmonic effect with very little physical effort. An open string can add resonance or create an interesting tension. A simple bass movement can give an otherwise straightforward melody a completely different character.
The interesting part is finding these possibilities.
Of course, not every complicated passage can be simplified without losing something valuable. Sometimes musical ideas genuinely require technical effort, and there is nothing wrong with that.
But technical difficulty isn’t a musical quality in itself.
For my own arrangements, I prefer to ask a different question:
How much musical interest can I create with relatively simple means?
It’s a question that invites experimentation rather than virtuosity.
And it turns arranging into a kind of puzzle that I thoroughly enjoy.
The Guitar as a Puzzle
A guitar is a fascinating instrument because the same musical idea can often be realized in several different ways.
You can play the same note on different strings. You can construct a chord in multiple positions. You can move a melody to another register, change the bass, or distribute the notes differently across the strings.
But every choice comes with consequences.
A voicing might sound beautiful but require an uncomfortable stretch. A melody note might be easy to reach, but leave no fingers available for the bass. A chord might contain exactly the notes I want, yet interrupt the flow of the melody.
Finding a solution means balancing several considerations at once.
How does it sound?
How does it feel under the fingers?
Can I move naturally into the next phrase?
And perhaps most importantly: Does the result still feel like music rather than a technical exercise?
I often find that an arrangement improves when I remove something rather than add another note.
A simpler voicing may allow a melody to sing more clearly. Leaving out a chord tone might make a transition easier without sacrificing the essential harmonic character.
The challenge is not simply to reduce complexity.
It’s to discover which elements really matter.
Why Guitar Tunings Fascinate Me
Guitar tunings add another dimension to this puzzle.
In standard tuning, certain chord shapes, bass movements, and melodic combinations come naturally. Other ideas require awkward fingerings or seem almost impossible.
Change the tuning, and the entire landscape changes.
Suddenly, familiar finger movements produce unfamiliar harmonies. Open strings offer new combinations. Some previously difficult passages become remarkably easy.
Other things become more complicated.
This is one of the reasons I find DADGAD so interesting.
With the strings tuned D–A–D–G–A–D, the open strings create a characteristic combination of resonance and harmonic ambiguity. They can support melodies, provide drones, and contribute color to chords without requiring elaborate fingerings.
A relatively simple arrangement can sound surprisingly full.
But DADGAD isn’t a magical solution to every arranging problem.
Some harmonies fit beautifully. Others require considerable ingenuity. Certain keys are more accommodating than others, and some familiar techniques from standard tuning become less practical.
To me, these limitations are part of the attraction.
They encourage me to look for different solutions.
Instead of automatically reaching for a familiar chord shape, I have to think about which notes I actually need, which strings I can leave open, and how the melody and accompaniment can share the available space.
Sometimes that leads to ideas I wouldn’t have considered in standard tuning.
The Creative Value of Constraints
This brings me to something that may seem slightly contradictory.
I enjoy exploring alternative guitar tunings, but I don’t particularly enjoy constantly retuning my guitar.
Many collections of Celtic fingerstyle arrangements use a remarkable variety of tunings. I understand why. A particular tuning can make a particular arrangement work beautifully.
But from a practical perspective, changing the tuning for almost every piece can become frustrating.
I would much rather pick up my guitar and play several tunes without repeatedly adjusting the strings.
So I’ve developed a preference for working with a small number of familiar tunings: standard tuning, Drop D, and DADGAD.
At first glance, that might seem unnecessarily restrictive.
Why limit myself when so many other tunings are available?
But I’ve found that a constraint can also encourage creativity.
When I decide to remain in one tuning, I have to explore its possibilities more thoroughly. I can’t always solve a difficult passage simply by choosing a different tuning.
Instead, I might change the key, rethink a chord, rearrange the bass line, or simplify a passage.
Sometimes the result is a compromise.
Sometimes it’s better than the solution I originally imagined.
There’s something satisfying about discovering how much variety can be found within a relatively small set of possibilities.
Two Projects, One Underlying Interest
This combination of musical curiosity and practical considerations eventually led me to create two guitar projects.
CelticPicking.com focuses primarily on arrangements in standard tuning and Drop D. These tunings allow me to explore traditional Irish and Scottish melodies using familiar guitar techniques, while still looking for interesting harmonies and comfortable ways to combine melody, chords, and bass.
DADGADTabs.com takes a different approach. Here, I can concentrate on the distinctive possibilities of DADGAD and explore the tuning in greater depth.
The projects are different, but the underlying idea is very similar.
I want to create arrangements that are enjoyable to listen to and enjoyable to play.
That sometimes means using straightforward harmonies. Sometimes it means experimenting with unexpected chords or interesting bass movements.
And sometimes it means finding a surprisingly simple way to achieve a sound that initially seemed complicated.
I originally create these arrangements for my own enjoyment. Sharing them with other guitarists is a natural extension of that process.
Simplicity as a Creative Choice
I don’t think simplicity is automatically better than complexity.
A sophisticated arrangement can be deeply rewarding, both to play and to hear. Technical challenges can be enjoyable, and mastering a difficult piece can be a valuable musical experience.
But complexity should serve a musical purpose.
What interests me is the relationship between the musical result and the means required to achieve it.
Can a simple melody sound beautiful with just a few well-chosen notes?
Can an interesting harmonic effect be created without an awkward chord shape?
Can I make an arrangement more comfortable to play without making it less interesting to hear?
These are the kinds of questions I enjoy exploring.
And perhaps that’s why arranging traditional melodies appeals to me so much.
The melodies already exist. Many have been played and passed on for generations, often in numerous variations. They offer a familiar starting point, but leave considerable room for personal interpretation.
I don’t need to make them more complicated to find them interesting.
I can experiment with how they are presented, supported, and colored by harmony.
Sometimes that means adding something unexpected.
Sometimes it means leaving something out.
And sometimes the most satisfying discovery is that a few notes, placed in just the right way, can be more than enough.
For me, the art of arranging isn’t about making simple music complicated. It’s about discovering how much music can be found in simplicity.