Finally got to watch this morning with my coffee. Sounded great! What a fun looking ensemble! What were the classes like, SM?
Sue, the classes were really great. We played a lot of GD songs. I learned quite a bit about time signatures and rhythm. We met every other week for two hours, instead of once a week for an hour, which was the format for all my other classes. It was mostly guitar and the teaching was mostly guitar, so I am also working at improving my "translation" skills.
Last week I worked something like 65 hours, leaving almost no mandolin time. Hate that! Yesterday was a stare-at-the-walls day, today I got back to it a little. When I recorded something for tune-of-the-month, I was embarrassed to see that in last video I did I was wearing a short-sleeved summer shirt—it's been awhile! So, here is another piece I have been working on, written by a contemporary German composer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWyT0P-rMr0
Louise, that is very cool. It reminds me of Mike Marshall's right hand crosspicking exercise, except way more tuneful. What a lovely workout for the picking hand! Glad you are getting a break from the long work hours.
Very nice Louise! That’s a great bit of picking. I just started this week working on a new song (Chris Cornell, Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart) that has a little bit of alternate picking and it is taking my brain a few days to get used to the idea. Clearly you’ve managed without breaking your brain, well done!
Louise, that is sit by the fireplace with a cat and a cup of whatever is soothing music. I like it. How did you find it? And who is the composer?
I liked the tune and your playing as well, Louise. Great job! I need to practice more!
Thanks, folks. Nice piece, isn't it? The composer is named Marlo Strauss, or Strauß in his native Germany. I can't find much information about him—not well-known on this side of the Atlantic. He seems to write for mandolin and classical guitar. His pieces remind me of some of Arvo Pärt's music. (If you're not familiar with Pärt, he's an Estonian minimalist composer, now in his late 80s. Worth listening to: here's an example.) Sue, there's a good reason Mike Marshall uses something similar: his wife, Caterina Lichtenberg, includes several of Strauss's pieces in her ArtistWorks course. The basic picking technique runs through her course, Pettine, Calace, and those folks. Strauss provides a contemporary example.
My first video - very much a beginner but feel like I’ve made progress in the five months I’ve been studying. Thanks to all for the encouragement and fellowship!
Good job, that sounds good, especially for five months in!
That is great TTT!
Hey, TTT, that is pretty darn good. Nice sounding mandolin, too.
I decided to learn a reeeeaaaally long song Too many words and chords to make it all the way through without a few mistakes when running the camera but at least my mistakes are in different places every time I try it. It’s a fun one to learn and should be good at a campfire https://youtu.be/TNUM7nRfd6Y
I don't post very often, but this seems like a good thread to share a little tale of progress. I really fell in love with the sound of the octave mandolin via Sarah Jarosz and Sierra Hull's work, so I was very excited when Peghead Nation announced last spring that they'd be adding an octave course, taught by Joe K. Walsh. In early summer I signed up for the course, bought an octave mandolin (and it was almost immediately stolen by the cops, but that's another story. By midsummer I could afford to buy another one) and started the course. The third song that Joe teaches is Old Dangerfield, as played on the octave by Sierra Hull and it's pretty athletic in spots. And I just. Couldn't. Do it. There are some stretches in the B and C parts that you really really have to do with your pinky, no cheating out with the ring finger and I had neither the strength nor agility in my little finger to make it. Plus the C part has a couple of rhythmic hitches in the phrasing which, again, defeated me. So regretfully I skipped on to the next lesson. Now we're six months down the road and yesterday on New Year's Day, I thought I'd take another shot at Old Dangerfield. And not only can I do those pinky stretches now but as I went through the C part I kept waiting for the bit that confused me that I couldn't get past and before I knew it I was at the end! Mind you, I'm still playing it at walking speed but I can play the whole thing. And the speed will come, I just need to do about a zillion more repetitions.* So the moral of the story is, even if you don't feel like you're getting better, you are getting better. Keep at it. *This, by the way, is why playing an instrument is better exercise than lifting weights. If you do fifty reps of a song, you have music. If you do fifty reps with the bar, all you have is sweat.
Congratulations BadExample! You have me curious with the OM-stealing police tale. Progress is so gratifying!
NDO: You are a real showman. Good work! Bad...: Congrats on passing another milestone! Sorry it had to involve two OM's. Any chance of getting the first one back?
TTT, nice work on Soldier's Joy. You're doing great for five months in. You are pulling a rich tone out of that Eastman—always good for a beginner to have an instrument with a rewarding sound. NDO, love the comments from the peanut gallery at about four minutes in! Not a Don McLean fan? There are a bunch of songs on that album you could work up while you're at it. BadExampleMan, now you have everyone's curiosity up. Unless you can't legally tell, we want to hear the saga of the cops and the octave! Everyone's musical journey is different, and we all have some stories, but police are an uncommon element.
From Wikipedia: The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. As I recall, they didn't have a mandolin so maybe they needed one! Seriouosly, though, good point, BadExample. Keep on keeping on!
Here is a lullaby sort of tune I wrote last year, it’s one of many things I’ve written just to explore mandolin sounds and to use as personal practice pieces, etudes if you will. I’ve been dusting it off again the past couple days and this is the first time anyone else has heard it, it’s in YouTube land now. https://youtu.be/NvIlowyL7Pk
Thanks for sharing that Mark! I have huge admiration for anyone that can compose their own music in a meaningful and beautiful way. Well done.
Nice, Mark. You have captured love and admiration in the tune and its execution.
Thanks for posting your tune, Mark. Nice job and a really pretty melody.
Thanks, I’m glad y’all enjoyed it
That's a sweet piece, Mark.
Thanks LNM
This is the first video I'm posting to the group. It's an exercise I made up based around Lonesome Moonlight Waltz, where I wanted to use as many chord tone double stops as I possibly could.
That sounds really good.
Quite good! I have a lot of trouble with tremolo'd double stops - you get yours to sound nice.
Good job!
Nice bluesy waltz and gorgeous two-string tremolo! I'm envious: it's something I'm getting nowhere with.
Well done! I’m envious.
Thank y'all, but it's funny, the first question I had when I showed this to my online teacher was, why does my tremolo sound so jangly and rough while yours is so smooth and flowing. The answer, my friends, is <strike>blowing in the wind</strike> tension. A somewhat softer grip on the pick is indicated for tremolo so it will more glide over the strings. An exercise I learned to practice tremolo is to work on having only the very tip of the pick contact the strings so you're more sliding across them than plucking. You wouldn't actually play like that but done consistently I guess you get better control. Especially when you're doing more than one string, it's natural to have the path of the pick swing a little closer in so you have to really pay attention to the position of the tip vs the strings.
Love it, well played! I’ve always loved the lonesome moonlight waltz.
I'm working on my tremolo today but I have an obstacle …
I've had that same problem >^..^<
This was a rare instance of Jojo actually hanging around while I played.
I also recognize that problem. Tough one to solve, particularly on a cold January day when a warm kitty in the lap feels so nice.
I followed Louise’s recommendation to take a look at additional songs on the American Pie album. So I’m almost ready to make a video of Vincent. I was playing it pretty well last night… until I started the video and then of course had mistakes. I’ll try again tonight.
Okay, not perfect but I never let that stop me from making noise https://youtu.be/6zY5QdpqZNQ
That's coming along really well, Don. I love that picking, and the tone is beautiful. Doesn't look easy!
Hey - Don's a pickin' ! Singing and picking = multitasking. Not at all easy. It looks like you are about ready to jump into some solo picking. If so, Baron Collins-Hill has some great free basic lessons (www.mandolessons.com). I do like the singing, Don.
Thanks for the encouragement! I do enjoy the picking and need to keep trying it, I’ll check out Baron’s lessons. I definitely notice I have to have more brain focus on the picking than just strumming chords…which manifests itself a few times when I have to pause to think of what words or chords are next instead of just cruising on autopilot. But mostly that just needs more repetitions, I just started the song a couple of weeks ago and so it’s not perfectly memorized yet.
Very nice, NDO! Has anyone mentioned to you about how you hold the pick? I started out on guitar holding it that way and it was years before someone corrected me, so it was a real long haul re-learning it. Sorry if this is old news, but if not, consider having someone show you the recommended way (or just ask and we can help.) There are lots of reasons the thumb-and-2-fingers method will slow you down as you advance, and I bumped (HARD) into most of them. It was one of the worst of many mistakes I had to overcome on guitar. I still fight my deeply ingrained instinct to pick upwards when playing single notes rather than the right way (down on downbeat, up on upbeat.) But after 4 decades of re-learning I'm making progress. I sure hope it doesn't take me 4 more to really get it down! Regardless of that, you're doing great so keep it up!
Thanks Jeff! I hadn’t realized I was doing that wrong, but am open to learn it right especially since I get some pain in my middle finger when playing a lot. I’m only eighteen months into it as my first stringed instrument so hopefully I won’t have TOO much re-learning curve.
Here's the first google result and it's pretty good advice: https://youtu.be/JofcuQg56-I?t=114 That's what the experts seem to agree is best for guitar. I've read (here I think) that some mando players prefer closer to the top knuckle on the pointer finger in order to get a more secure grep for mando versus guitar. I hold the pick lower too (actually just below the top joint, almost what she said not to do) because a really good swing guitarist showed me that way. Only decades later did I learn about the way shown above and I just don't know if I'm up to changing it again. But I have been learning to be more flexible, using different positions for different cases, and migrating slowly towards the fingertip. Another important point is that it's a dynamic thing. You don't just grab the pick and hold it tight. You're constantly readjusting it to keep it where it belongs, because it moves. If it doesn't move you're probably holding it too tight! This is a subtle and difficult thing to master, and something you can never notice with a good player because they do it invisibly. I don't think it's something you practice. Instead, you just hold the pick with the right pressure and learn to keep it where it belongs while thinking more about what you're trying to play and it becomes second nature. The other three fingers should be relaxed. A lot of players will sometimes rest the tip of the pinky on the pickguard to help in a tricky passage. I find I sometimes do that and sometimes do not and don't pay any attention to whether or not. It's probably considered a crutch, but a number of great players do it. And that's probably the only thing I have in common with a lot of great players. Here's another video, even better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rETTiSBAb-g In addition to avoiding lots of pitfalls and being a better way to hold the pick in general, this approach also opens the door to a very important aspect that's far too often ignored in many of the best guitar how-to videos (and possibly mando but I haven't watched many of those yet) which is right hand palm muting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFc4YKORjW0 That video gives the impression that it's an either/or thing, but (at least for me on guitar) it's a constant adjustment of "how much" to control the tone and dynamics. It also happens at the end of strums or during strums to get the "mando percussion section" effect (think Sam Bush, but they all do it.) Anyway, that's impossible when using the thumb-and-two-fingers holding style. Muting is a whole 'nuther subject of course, with lots of different kinds for different purposes, many used simultaneously (left and right hand.) I think I'm going to watch more of that 3rd guy's videos because it looks like good stuff.
Trying to teach myself Battle of Evermore, Ride a White Swan(bit of T Rex!) Highway to Hell, In Dulci Jubilo, King of the Fairies and Black Country Woman.. Bit of variety there... Different groups of friends wanted to try out different stuff. And I'm not very proficient at any of it yet!!!
Great variety of song selections Bron! Post some videos! Jeff, thanks for the tips!
Nice, Don. I like the arpeggio accompaniment. The picking pattern you are using, D-D-D-U, is the standard way it's taught in the classical methods when playing arpeggios on three strings: using a glide stroke for the first three notes, reversing direction for the final note.
Louise, that’s interesting to hear on the picking pattern. The chord sheet I worked from didn’t have any info on strumming so I just tried a few variations and decided that arpeggiated that way was what I liked. By contrast the song I started this week (Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt) seems to sound best with all down strums on both the arpeggios and chords. I’ll post that up soon for comparison, it’s coming along super easily (two days and almost ready).
I watched part of a workshop with John Reischman where he was joking about constantly dropping picks because his grip is so loose! I had an audition yesterday and totally blew it. I prepared Sarah Jarosz's "Peace" and when I got to the B part my fingers got tangled up and I kalumphed to a stop and then my mind went totally blank and I couldn't go any further. It was excruciating. The audition was for a band sponsored by my company. I've only recently rejoined the corporate world and apparently this is a thing now, there are people who that's their line to put together a band from amateurs, work with them to develop a set list and then they perform at company events. You may laugh, but I'm so desperate for people to jam with that I signed up. I partially rescued the situation by running through Jerusalem Ridge and then the opening to Wish You Were Here - which lays out really well on a mandolin BTW - but I know that more people signed up than can fit in a band and I'm resigned to not making the cut. :-( Oh well, live and learn.
