# Music by Genre > Old-Time, Roots, Early Country, Cajun, Tex-Mex >  St Annes Reel

## Mark Wilson

Does anyone know of a video or track/cut where SAR is being twinned by two mandolins?
Or the mandolin twinning the guitar   :Mandosmiley: 
Thx, Mark

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## Mark Wilson

On second thought - I'm not sure if "twinning' is the right word but here is what I had in mind.
Mandolin twinning(?) the guitar on Turkey in the straw melody at 1:34

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## Mark Wilson

Attempting my own version.  Does a harmony part have to line up note to note to work best?

Here's my first try - timing sounds a little straighter in the tef than it feels when playing
St Annes Twin in D.tef

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## Tobin

I'm not familiar with the term "twinning".  It sounds like you're just looking for a duet version with melody and harmony.  That's something I really enjoy doing.  Working up a harmony can be a challenge to make it sound good.  You can try following the melody note-for-note at a 3rd or 5th interval up, but you'll soon find that it doesn't sound quite right unless you adjust for the chord progression.  Sometimes those harmony notes have to be tweaked to different intervals to match the chord, or just to make them sound more resolved.  There's no right or wrong way to create a harmony, except that it must sound good!

Here's a tip for TablEdit.  Go to the MIDI tab and choose MIDI Options.  There's a setting there for syncopation.  Change it from 0 to 1 (Jazz Eighths).  This will make it sound more natural like you would probably be picking it, instead of being too straight and metered.

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## Mark Wilson

> It sounds like you're just looking for a *duet version with melody and harmony*.


That's' it.  Is there a one word description for that?

Hey thanks for TablEdit tip! - that does sound more natural

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## Franc Homier Lieu

Here is an arrangement of SAR with melody and harmony:

http://www.hughcan.com/music/st_anne...tation_tab.pdf

http://www.hughcan.com/music/st_anne...tation_tab.pdf

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Cindy, 

Mark Wilson

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## Mark Wilson

> Here is an arrangement of SAR with melody and harmony:


Thanks - that's helpful to go by.  His A part is an octave higher but similar.  My first attempt above was wrong chord in measure 5.  Here's my second attempt: [feel free to wiki this with better ideas]
St Annes harmony.tef

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Eddie Sheehy

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## AlanN

Thanks for the twin arrangement of SAR, Franc. Simple, direct and nice-sounding. "Twinning" is the term (mostly used in grass stylings) that pickers came up with to denote a basic tenor harmony line, usually (but not always) a 3rd above the melody line. Whiskey Before Breakfast, 8th Of January, Dixie Hoedown, Jerusalem Ridge and those types of tunes have been twinned down through the years. Some banjo number too. It's fairly simple to devise a twin line when there are regular 8th note lines or few, distinct melody notes to set the tune in motion. Dawg, of course, really advanced the twin mandolin thing - think Cedar Hill, Ricochet, Janice. In one book I have, the author (not Dawg) devised a lovely twin to Opus 57 in Gm.

I really like the sound of 2 mandolins doing this (in small doses, of course  :Wink:  )

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Mark Wilson

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## yankees1

Check with Pete Martin at pete@petimarpress.com. He has a great version of St. Annes Reel

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## Tobin

> "Twinning" is the term (mostly used in grass stylings) that pickers came up with to denote a basic tenor harmony line, usually (but not always) a 3rd above the melody line.


Not to get hung up on semantics, but is there some reason they avoid calling it harmony?

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## AlanN

> Not to get hung up on semantics, but is there some reason they avoid calling it harmony?


Too fancy  :Mandosmiley: 

I first heard either Bob Osborne or Red Rector use the term. Monroe never did, as far as I know. That thing was not part of his style, nor was crosspicking.

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## Mark Wilson

The sound of mandolin harmonizing the guitar on some fiddle tunes is a nice change from normal.  Last go around in unison with the mandolin under or over the melody. Fun stuff. 

The one on #7 is below the melody since most (for me) of the SAR B-part is on on E string.

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## foldedpath

> Not to get hung up on semantics, but is there some reason they avoid calling it harmony?


My guess is that Twinning isn't just a genre thing, but also a regional term. Maybe more common in Appalachia and with musicians raised in that area? I don't think I've heard it anywhere else.

Anyway, the term I've always used for a harmony part is a duo or duet arrangement, which usually implies harmony. But that may be too high-falutin' for Bluegrass.
 :Smile:

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## Tobin

By the way, if you're interested in doing two-part harmonies, you should get Steve Kaufman's book Blazing Mandolin Solos for One Player or More.  That was one of the first tune books I bought when I was learning, and he has some very nice sounded arrangements in there.

The title is silly, of course.  A solo for more than one player?!  What the book really contains is duet arrangements of a bunch of standard fiddle tunes, typically in 3rd-interval harmony.  Basically, this "twinning" thing y'all are talking about.  I don't recall St. Anne's Reel being in there, but it has the most common bluegrass-jam-played fiddle tunes.  Aside from learning to play those as duets with another mandolin player, it's also a good resource for seeing how a harmony part can be put together.  Study by example.

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## Franc Homier Lieu

My interpretation of the term 'twinning' is that it is a specific kind of harmony. 'Twinning' to me seems to connote those harmonies that replicate the exact rhythm of the melody so that the two lines sound like one single melody line but made of two distinct harmonizing tones.

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## Tobin

I'm still not getting how that's different than standard harmony.  Harmonizing a tune doesn't change the rhythm or anything.  It just adds intervals into a two-part, three-part, or four-part chord for every note.  This "twinning" is just a standard two-part harmony.

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## Franc Homier Lieu

I mean that when the lead is playing a quarter note, the harmony is playing a quarter note, when the lead is playing an eighth, the harmony is playing an eighth. The SAR I posted above is an example of this. The  two parts match up perfectly in terms of the note values, they are just each playing different tones. Most of the harmony parts I play don't correspond this way to the melody. For example, this harmony part (and maybe harmony is actually not the right term for this) for Twinkle Star:



The eighth notes of the harmony don't mirror the quarters and half notes of the melody. Again, maybe harmony is not the correct term for this kind of '2nd violin' part. I dunno.

EDIT: Yeah, just looked it up, and I am probably describing counterpoint in my Twinkle example.

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## Eddie Sheehy

I got a two-part of East Tennessee Blues and one of the parts is called a Tenor Part - but it's Harmony...

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## Mark Wilson

Yeah harmony was the better term for what I was doing since it does not 'twin' the melody line note for note.

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## s1m0n

> My guess is that Twinning isn't just a genre thing, but also a regional term.


In Irish circles, or at least in County Kerry, twinning refers to a fiddle duet in which the second fiddle plays the melody note-for-note an octave below the lead. Denis Murphy, his sister Julia Clifford and their teacher Padraig O'Keefe often played that way.

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## Chris Browne

Love this video.  But what the heck are they looking at off camera?

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## David L

I would say that "twinning" is a specific type of harmony. It is close harmony that parallels the contour of the melody with the same rhythm. "Harmony" can also include static third harmony parts or countermelodies. In 3 and 4 part harmony, there is no one part that parallels the melody.

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