May's tune is "Midnight on the Water". Have we done a waltz as our tune of the month before? Time to practice that tremolo again. There are some nice videos still available from the original tune of the week thread. Some notation here to get you started: http://www.mandolintab.net/tabs.php?...Water&id=05541
Here's a tef file from mandozine: http://www.mandozine.com/music/table...-Thomasson.tef. Funny thing about waltzes. I just got back from a big road trip around AZ and NM and decided to learn some cowboy songs. Those cowboys must have really loved to waltz. Kinda hard to picture.
Interesting. Here's a video from Mike Marshall I found earlier today when I was looking for some tremolo tips for anther piece I'm working on.
I am still having fun with the March tune. May already???
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Here's my attempt. There are some little slides, which I saw on one of the other videos that don't really show up on this.
Quick go, Gareth! Kudos on that. Posting some choice vids by other cafe goers that show this tune ...
I see that Gareth has given us an early benchmark. Sounds good! I think it might be harder to play a slow tune well than a fast one. Those tune-a-week folks played some sweet music.
Great job, Gareth! Very clear and smooth notes. Thanks for getting us started this month!
I learned this tune, Under Paris Skies (Sous le Ciel de Paris) which was a recent song-a-week choice -- I just got captured by the Parisian flavor of it. So I'm posting it here as well. I hope to get the tune of the month done as well, hoping to work with Bruce Calder on it. (bbcee)
Nice recording, Mark. It has a certain "je ne sais quoi". Good video production, too.
Ditto Henry's comments, Mark. That's a long tune to have played it with no blips. Or maybe I'm the only one who has those.
Sherry, I don't have blips. Oops. Dang it. Huh. Again? Oh what the h*ll. Yep. Got all that and more. No blips yet. Probably need to practice more.
It was rainy yesterday afternoon - a good time to work on this month's tune. This is the first video I recorded. The others were pretty much identical, so I guess this is how I play Midnight on the Water.
Good work, Sleet. Nice use of tremolo too. I find that relatively short tremolos are more difficult to bring off cleanly. You done good.
Very nice, Sleet! I agree with Henry on the difficulty of throwing tremolos in spaces like that, I often try it in practice but usually have to abandon them when I record something. I like your version of that tune. Well done!
Nice work, Gareth and Sleet! My first time posting on this forum - I've been playing for about three weeks and you're both inspiring me to give the song a try.
Thanks, Henry and Mark and welcome Liadan-glad you found us The version I used was from the Bill Mathiessen's first Waltz Book. There is a point when too much tremelo overpowers the melody and it's hard to know when it's just enough.
Here's mine. I saw this tenor guitar and it reminded me of a friend from high school days. He had one almost exactly like it. Might have even been the identical twin. Harmony sold about a zillion of these things after ole whats-his-name (Mike Shane?) with the Kingston Trio played a tenor in Hand Down Your Head Tom Dooley. My buddy and I and a few other buddies thought they were really cool. So Ron bought a tenor guitar and I bought an an even cheaper banjo and, as they say, the rest was history. edit (5/24): There was a Bob Shane in the Kingston Trio, but he played standard guitar. Nick Reynolds was the short guy with the tenor guitar. So anyway, I bought the guitar and spent some time fixing it up. Basically, just replacing the tuners; it was in pretty good shape, all things considered. I have it tuned like a mandola. The scale length is 23" (mandolins are 13 to 14 inches), so left hand technique is quite different from mandolin - it is awfully difficult to stretch up past the fifth fret without shifting. Hence the capo. The tune is in D, the lowest string on the TG is a C, so using a capo at the second fret allows me to use the same fingerings as on the mandolin except they are shifted down one string. I know that's a cheat, but heck I'm just a Newbie, right?
Welcome, Liadan! I haven't seen that name before. How do you pronounce it?
Nice job, Henry. I enjoyed the transition between the two instruments. Isn't it nice to live long enough too revisit our youth? Great t-shirt!
Thank you for the welcome! Hank, it's pronounced Lee-uh-din, with the emphasis on the first syllable (Irish name). Most folks just call me Lia (lee-uh) though. Either one is ok with me! I get a lot of fun manglings of my name too, especially from telemarketers.
Henry, another home run. Your musical progress and prowess is an inspiration, and your videos are always fun to watch. I especially liked the look that tenor Henry threw toward mandolin Henry as tenor Henry receded behind mandolin Henry. By the way, that tenor guitar looks and sounds terrific, what a treat to hear it. And congrats on the corporate sponsorship! Nice hammer-ons with mandolin, and very nice tremolo at the end. Liadan, welcome to the group!
Hey Sleet, very nice! I like the melody variation you're playing a lot - very sweet sounding. Henry, I have that same tenor (albeit in GDAE). I think they get unfairly knocked, 'cause they sound great, nice & warm. So fun to play. The intonation's a bit ... interesting up the neck, but what the heck. Have we seen that mandolin before? Wonderful sound, and excellent playing. I want your t-shirt! Welcome, Lay-Dan (my American marketing attempt)! You'll enjoy being here. Look forward to your contributions!
bbcee, that was (still is, as a matter of fact) a Don Dryer mandolin. Greg Boyd had a few of them a while back; I sampled them and picked out this one - #06, dated 03/16. This may have been its debut on MC. It really has a nice sound. Non-Webery, but yet another flavor that I like. It chops great but my chopping skills are limited at best.
Here's our submission, it features a two song medley: 1. While We're Here (©2016, Ashley Broder) 2. Midnight On The Water (Thomasson) at about 1:03 bbcee (Bruce Calder) arranged this medley. Bruce plays mandola throughout, and I add mandolin.
Bruce and Mark, that was very sweet. I don't usually use the word "sweet" in this context, but that was the first word that came to mind. The thing that is hard to grasp is how you manage to stay together when you are separated by several thousand football fields. Your conductor must be standing on a REALLY tall stepladder. Well executed. Very pleasant sound. And are those arrangements original? The accompaniment is quite nice. I tend to overlook that, yet it is so important and contributes so much to the mood.
Bruce and Mark, outstanding and beautifully produced. How on earth do you play in sync? First time I've heard the While We're Here - a nice little gem. Applause!
I want to say that I visit Bruce in Spain each Wednesday, and he visits me in Texas each Saturday, but the truth is, it's just magic. Actually, this one was easy because Bruce pre-recorded the entire mandola part and sent it to me, and all I had to do was play along and record my part. That made it an easy one-day process for me, I learned Midnight on the Water yesterday morning and recorded it last night. Believe me, it's not always that easy, but Bruce sent some masterful playing, it was inspiring to play along with. Last time we did something like this, we both worked a lot harder for over a month.
Good work, one and all. I was trying to figure out how to dress up this tune. You folks figured out to 1) add tremolo, 2) play it with two people, or 3) add a tenor guitar and a T-shirt from Taos. Henry, I hope you availed yourself of some good green chile breakfast burritos while you were in my neighborhood. What bands did you hear?
Didn’t Bring a mandolin, didn’t hear any bands, didn’t even play golf. Got our kicks on Route 66. 2000 miles in 10 days plus sightseeing. Did get a green Chile breakfast burrito at one bnb though.
"And are those arrangements original? The accompaniment is quite nice. I tend to overlook that, yet it is so important and contributes so much to the mood." Henry, I missed this question earlier about the arrangements, and I want to toot Bruce's horn again in answer to that. The first tune is one that he found off a recent album published in 2016 by Ashley Broder, titled Two Trees. Bruce learned that by ear, making his own mandola arrangement (Ashley wrote that for fiddle, and plays it slower, sample can be heard on this page, if you scroll down and find sample for track #8: https://www.amazon.com/Two-Trees-Ash.../dp/B01DAE4ILO). Midnight On The Water, Bruce found a lovely version by The Harmonic Tone Revealers (Scott Nygaard, John Reischman & Sharon Gilchrist). He worked out the mandola backing very similar to what John Reischman played. I just played the melody for midnight pretty much as I learned from the mandozine sheet, and on the first song I was at a loss so I improvised a bit of mandolin in spots, which IMO is the weakest part of the fabric there. Bruce came up with an original medley arrangement of blending two songs, using versions he liked as a guide. I just listened to Reischman/Gilchrist again (see below) and it seems that John drops the mandola out and uses guitar for the B part, so Bruce pretty much had to write that mandola B part backing. He put way more work into this than I did.
From the master of modesty: "all I had to do was play along and record my part." I think we can all agree that Mark played the heck out of the tunes. He's got great instincts, and despite what he says, his tremolo is excellent. His counterpoint on the Ashley Broder piece & his treatment of the melody on Midnight on the Water are impeccable. I'll bypass the perfectionist nitpicking of how it could have been better - the idea is to do 'em in the short span of time available to us & get 'em out the door. Mark & I are good at reality checking each other in that way. I'm finding the mandola is opening up a lot of fascinating harmonic & chordal possibilities without having to have deep music theory knowledge - what I played on the second piece are basically one & two-finger open string chords. Less is definitely more on the mandola! With a couple of inversions on each chord, you can create interesting & rich-sounding rhythm parts. And Henry, I'm totally in agreement that the underpinning of the tune is what makes great moments possible. I'd like to be known as is the guy who accompanies well. Good epitaph. The Harmonic Tone Revealers record is really inspirational if you're intrigued by what's possible with a mandolin, mandola & acoustic guitar (and done by masterful players). Thanks for the nice comments, everyone!
Wonderful arrangements and execution, Mark and Bruce. Thanks for sharing.
Mark, Bruce, Hank - beautiful playing, all! I gave the song a try last night. It was pretty awkward, but maybe if I keep practicing it'll sound halfway decent some day!
I wasn't going to do this one—as I said before, I haven't been quite sure what to do with it to dress it up a bit. But, I've had a day off and the house to myself, so here it is. No duet, no tremolo, not even a good T-shirt. (Where is that "New Mexico: Land of the Flea, Home of the Plague" one??) Just a simple little waltz tune.
Can't see the video, Louise. "This video is unavailable."
Try it now. It had a little padlock picture by it, and I made it go away.
can see it now. Gorgeous tone out of your chosen instrument
That's the Kentucky 272. Figured it had a more "singing" tone, which this piece needs.
Nicely done Louise. Good clean notes. And I agree with lots of folks - Kentucky makes some rich-sounding mandolins.
Beautiful playing, and it was wonderful to hear that oval hole 272!
Well done, Louise! I really like your tempo and arrangement and the confidence in your playing. That's a heck of a mandolin!
Saga hit one out of the park with the 270 line. I'm curious whether the 250 series---same thing but with ff holes---are as nice. Are oval holes just more forgiving, or can Saga/Kentucky deliver across the board in this price range? For $499, including a case, set-up, and shipping, it's hard to beat!
Nice job, Louise. I liked the pace and precision of your version, as well as the oval hole sound.
That was beautiful, Louise! I love the sound on that mandolin.
Very nice all, I’m still working on learning this one and hope to post something soon....
Better late than never, right? Struggling with timing, and have a couple rough notes, but limited myself to just a couple of takes
Good job, Ironscott. Nice use of slides and I like the tone you're getting from your mandolin.
