Somewhere Over The Rainbow

  1. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    I was playing around on guitar with this tune and thought I might try an arrangement with guitar and mandolin, using fingerpicking on guitar and double stops and chords on the mandolin part. I searched both Official Tunes and Other Tunes to see if this had been featured previously, but the only link I got was back in 2019 to a great jazz solo by Aaron Weinstein posted in General and Jazz/Blues parts of the forum.

    No rainbows in the video, but I reckoned the old bridges might stand in for rainbows! They are a feature of the Chinese Lakes at Castle Toward near my home.

  2. Ginny Aitchison
    Ginny Aitchison
    That is so pretty , John, love the gentle sway of the melody and the JK improvisation. I also like the photos, they do in fact look like rainbows.
  3. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Beautiful! I really enjoyed that, thanks John.
    Who’s JK?
  4. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Many thanks, Ginny and Simon. The Chinese Lakes are in such a lovely spot in the grounds of the castle.
    As for "Who's JK?" I could counter with "Who's DS?" in your signature, Simon.
    Thanks both for adding comments to my YT channel as well. Much appreciated.
  5. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Ooooooooooh la la! That JK! Ha, ha.
  6. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    You catch the spirit of that Wizzard of Oz classic very weii and your mandolin sings as sweet as Judy Garland, JK!
  7. Don Grieser
    Don Grieser
    Wonderful playing, John, and love seeing Scotland in your pics too.
  8. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    That sounds lovely, John -- great improvisation, a skill I would very much love to master. Great effect of the octave jump half way through.

    I recorded "Over The Rainbow" a few years ago as an "other tune", in a punning medley with "Somewhere" from West Side Story, played tremolo style on the Embergher. Very different from your version. The old thread is here and the video here ("Rainbow" starts at 2:00 minutes):



    Martin
  9. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Interesting pairing of the two tunes, Martin. It works well. Your Embergher has an almost banjo-like sound in this recording - possibly a result of the tremolo and the sharp attack?

    Thanks also to Christian and Don for kind comments on my version.
  10. Frankdolin
    Frankdolin
    I missed this post... But found it with my new search super-power! Thanks Jairo! Lovely versions by John and Martin. here's one with a YT backing track. Thanks for the Listen!
  11. Jairo Ramos
    Jairo Ramos
    ...less is more said the architect mies van der rohe....this is one of the few times that his phrase can be applied to music...simply beautiful!
  12. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Lovely version, arrangement and video, Frank - and played in your usual elegant style. Quite the backing you have on this one!
  13. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Great to have three beautiful versions here.
  14. Frithjof
    Frithjof
  15. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Three beautiful performances.
  16. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Lovely!
  17. Jairo Ramos
    Jairo Ramos
    They are not hidden in those links, Frithjof, the first is cataloged by Barbara and appears in the pdf as "Something Completely Different (Michael plays Somewhere Over the Rainbow on his 1925 Martin Tiple)", and the second as "Over the Rainbow" . The versions Frank found appear as "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"...

    But I certainly fear that many versions of others will be hidden in other threads, and that finding them will be a product of chance... it is a social forum, and disorder is inevitable......
  18. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    Sweet recording, Frank, and very sympathetic to the backing track! I also like the sparseness of your playing here, allows each note to breathe and leaves the gaps for the backing to come through. Also thanks for resurrecting my old recording and the kind comments on that one!

    On the indexing point, I agree with Jairo that disorder is inevitable in a social forum and I think actually the guidance of "one tune per thread, one thread per tune" has been pretty well followed over the more than a decade of SAW making the index remarkably useful to locate versions. The main exceptions are the Christmas and lullaby threads, but I like their thematic unity so I'm giving them a bye. Some duplication is inevitable and in this instance anybody posting a new recording (such as Frank in this instance) has to pick and choose which thread to resurrect. I don't think it matters much which one.

    Mixed sets are problematic for any indexing, but are also very common (and culturally integral to the style) particularly in Irish and Scottish music, and I think in those cases posting a cross-reference to the individual tune threads is probably the way to go.

    Martin
  19. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Basically if you're looking for 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' then you would do a search for 'rainbow'.
    If you search 'somewhere' the results could be from anywhere and 'over' could be all over the place.
  20. Jairo Ramos
    Jairo Ramos
    Simon, that would be the ideal search... but generally we search for "song that a girl sings in a black and white movie with an adorable puppy"...
  21. John W.
    John W.
    I agree with the general sentiment ‘less is more’ in certain circumstances…this being one of them, Frank…another lovely performance.
  22. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    After hearing John's, Martin's and Frank's scintillating interpretations of this classic, I also wanted to record it.
    I found a very basic leadsheet, transposed it to A and recorded it. It hasn't got the one-beat chord for "-bow" but who cares?
  23. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    This is very nice and fresh, Christian. I like the perky tempo, the swing, and the blue notes.
  24. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    Thanks, Christian! I agree with Richard that the uptempo interpretation gives this a more lively jazzy feel which is a nice contrast to our slower readings.

    Martin
  25. Frankdolin
    Frankdolin
    Thanks Gents! Fun version Christian!!
  26. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    One of these recordings which conjure a smile on my face because they are not only beautiful but also surprisingly different. Thanks, Christian.
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