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Mandolin Mondays #67 w/ Special Guest Marla Fibish

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Mandolin Mondays #67: Excited to have the great Marla Fibish with us this week playing a couple of favorite hop jigs on her trusty 1922 Gibson oval hole mandolin.



Based in San Fransisco, Marla Fibish is a vanguard of the modern day Irish mandolin. Over the years, she has helped establish the mandolin's place in the Irish music tradition through her innovative approach to stylistic embellishments, right hand technique, and tone production. Now, she teaches at some of the most prestigious workshops across the nation, and performs regularly with her own project entitled Noctambule. Check out their most recent recording here: https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/noctambule

Here, Marla gives us the inside scoop on the tunes: "It’s an honor to be invited to submit a video for Mandolin Mondays! To prepare for this heady assignment, I checked out some of the earlier installments to get a feel for the deal. I saw that Adam Tanner had posted an Old Time tune called ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin.’ That caught my eye, as 'The Rocky Road to Dublin' is a well-known melody in my world--the world of Irish Music--where it’s played both as a song and as a tune. I was hoping to hear the old Irish tune deep in the Old Time tune and cleverly show how it sounded before it morphed and changed after crossing the Atlantic. The truth is, I could not hear the old melody in Adam’s great playing of the Old Time tune—perhaps you can--or perhaps there is no connection between them!

A bit more about the Irish Rocky Road:

According to Wikipedia, the words to the song were written by D.K. Gavan, 'The Galway Poet', for the English music hall performer Harry Clifton (1824–1872), who popularized the song. I suspect the melody was already around and got cleverly repurposed for the song. You may recognize the chorus:

'One two three four five, hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road and all the way to Dublin, whack-fol-la-de-da!'

I love the use of the words 'one two three four five' in the song—it is the way children are taught to count when they are learning to dance the slip-jig rhythm.

Be all that as it may, I am playing it as a tune, more specifically as a hop-jig, a type of slip jig with a fun 9/8 rhythm. I follow it with another hop jig--an old favorite of mine with the title, 'Comb Your Hair and Curl It.' I hope you like them!"

For more info about Marla's music, online lessons, and performance dates, connect with her at the links below:

www.marlafibish.com
www.noctambulemusic.com
https://www.facebook.com/mfibish
https://www.facebook.com/noctambulemusic/
https://www.youtube.com/user/bvictormd
https://pegheadnation.com/string-sch...rish-mandolin/

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Comments

  1. Matt Livingston's Avatar
    Splendid! Great contribution to this cool series.
  2. Mandolin Cafe's Avatar
    Welcome, Marla! Great to have your music here again.
  3. Annette Siegel's Avatar
    Thanks Marla, you made my Monday a better day!
  4. mgap's Avatar
    Thanks Marla. I sure do like your style.