"The Siege of Delhi"

Friends:

This month we're exploring more wonderful British finger-style. I can't believe this is the first time we're having a look at Martin Carthy, and I'm excited to share my work on documenting this incredible musician with you.

This arrangement is based off a traditional bagpipe melody from the late 1800s. It features the tuning that Carthy uses as one of his main tunings, CGCDGA (Hedges fans might want to note that Carthy was a major early influence and this tuning is analogous to DADEAB, the tuning used for "The Naked Stalk" and "Jealous Tunnel/About Face"). There is a clip in my lesson video of Martin Carthy explaining how he adapted this tuning from DADGAD, which he picked up from Davey Graham. Carthy did use heavier gauge strings to accommodate this low tuning, I used Daddario heavy gauge for my take. 

Carthy's earliest recording of the piece was released somewhat recently, a really nice live recording from 1978, a year before it was included on the commercial release Because It's There.

It's important to note my work here is transcribed from the 1993 recording made for the instructional video titled Martin Carthy: British Fingerstyle Guitar.This version is great too, but being a little over 10 years later there are some differences from the original. He's using the 2nd string a lot in the early recording as a feature of the alternating bass. I would love to dive into the early version too some day but thought it made the most sense to work from video for my first ever Martin Carthy transcription. I did normalize one aspect of the melody, a note he usually glosses over as he restarts the sections in the newest recording, but the melody should always go from G to A to B on the second string as he plays it in the original.

Carthy's right-hand work is very unique, and I suspect it would be in one's best interest to learn the piece with his fingerings that are included in the score. He keeps a monotonic bass on the two low strings, muting the 6th completely and allowing a subdued 5th to ring through. This may be the most challenging aspect of the piece and I recommend spending a lot of time refining the right hand position so you can execute this with a good deal of consistency. I briefly demonstrate how I achieve the effect in the lesson video, but everyone's hands will be a little different and may require some adjustment. I do feel a thumb pick makes this easier, but Big Bill Broonzy uses his bare thumb the exact same way with great effect.

What's great about Carthy's thumb work here is it is used on every single beat of the tune, but he also mixes it in on higher strings when needed on the "and" portion of beats. Sometimes it serves to add some alternation to the bass, sometimes it is being used to add some punch to select notes in the melody line.

The form is easy to understand, AABBCCDD, then everything repeated with an extra D at the end. Each section is only 8 bars of music, so this may be a first for us here, you only need to know 32 bars of music to play this piece! Easier said than done, I know.

To summarize, spend time getting the sound of the bass thunk just right. Use the fingerings for the right hand that are in the score. That's it. It's a really fun piece. There are a few other important things pointed out in the lesson video so give it a watch if you're feeling stuck.

Here is the lesson video: https://youtu.be/efZAsiXcnrw

The score is attached below. Have fun!