This week's winner is Slocum Hollow, which was submitted as a tune by the late Butch Baldassari. Here it is: Here is a link to mandolin tab on mandolin hangout. our own luurtie posted this version last month: If anyone can come up with some abc or standard notation, that would be great!
This sheet and tab was al I could find, but I played it by ear... http://www.bluegrass.sk/zvonky/tab/g...cum_hollow.gif
Wonderful, Hendrik. So relaxed.
Super sweet playing Hendrick. Thanks for suggesting this tune. Mine needs some more polishing or maybe spit shining! Anyway, gave it a try on the F4 I finished in December.
Even with this tune you sound a bit like Bill Monroe Timothy, very well done with all the extra's in it! Thanks for all the compliments about my version Timothy and Manfred, I think it needs a bit more variation but I'm glad 'my' tune had won this week. Butch Baldassari composed such nice things, we should never forget him!
Great stuff luturie I always enjoy your playing and style Sasquatch and beautiful mando buy the way. Here is my go.
Well done so far everyone. Here's my effort with guitar backup.
Oh my God, speed demons chasing each other. Great effort everyone. Sasquatch, also very impressed by your self-built mandolin. I have it up to 180 bpm (quarter notes) in 2 days. So it will be another 5 years of practice before I post.
Great to see a tune by Butch Baldassari being played, and some mighty fine picking by everyone. Thanks to Hendrick for bringing this tune to everyone's attention. I'm working on it, but I'm a slow learner.
Manfred was right. The speed demons really got out of the gate this week. Great playing guys, I very much enjoyed the different takes on it!! While slower learning and slower playing I had a great time trying this one out. My usual issue arose of missing notes and beats and then stumbling to cover it up. It's so easy to play it solo and make it sound good but then adding in the guitar etc really uncovers the warts. I'll keep working on it but you get to hear the warts for now. In regard to the video, 'Hollows' to me are the 'hollers' of West Virginia, particularly the coal mining regions so I used that for the video. I included a slide of a map for Scott Hollow Cave. If you have never heard the tune Bluestone Mountain by Mark Brinkman check out this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV9LncU9iLg (he messes the words up in spots so don't learn the words from him but I love the way they play it). I really enjoy the tune and we play it at jam sessions.
Great arrangement Woodenfingers and I liked your video pictures as well. My version is from the Acutab book. I never made much use of it before as haven't heard any of the recordings the tunes are taken from. Must take a look at some of the others.
Great work from all this week. Here's mine, I had a bit of help with this one:
Beautiful in so many ways.
Yup. OS. That's the way it should sound. Clean and at speed. Your audio technician did a good job too.
Thanks folks: she's a lot easier to work with than most sound guys!
Good work David and technician and my compliments to rest of the Slocum Hollow players. I'm glad you like this tune the way i do..
That was really great, David. Enjoyed seeing your helper too. I couldn't pass up the chance to learn a Butch Baldassari tune, so here's my version at a moderate tempo. Played on my Heiden A5. Backup track by ireal pro.
Don, that's beautifully clean picking and superb tone. And the tempo is not so moderate either. I wish I was there already. David, that is quite spectacular picking there.
That's great work, everyone. Don, I'm trying to get my head around Ireal Pro. Can you recommend any tutorial?
Thanks, Manfred. Gelsenbury, I'll PM you.
That was excellent Don. You play it very clean... I love that Heiden mandolin!
Thanks Hendrick, and thanks for getting us all started on one of Butch's tunes.
Bringing this one back to life. I recently bought Butch Baldassari's "Old Town" album, and among many great tunes, got hooked on Slocum Hollow. Here's my and Don's version, the second time around for him. I play the first mandolin melody and the following mandola, then Don plays octave, his new Brentrup mandolin, plus the end harmonies. Video are timelapses from his corner of the world. Hope you enjoy! I grew to really appreciate Butch's artistry in learning this one, not that I didn't love his playing before.
Yet another fine duet, Bruce and Don. You two really play so well together.
Thanks John, appreciate it! Hope others might give this one a try as well.
Great duet…and you have prompted me to give it a try!
Excellent, John W! Looking forward to hearing your effort.
That was great Bruce and Don! Q stuff as per. Mandos ect... all sound so good. Pro played. NIce video. But the, everything, done virtual continues to impress.
Great professional performance of the Don & Bruce duet.
Thank you both for the nice comments, and apologies for posting on your efforts less often than I’d like. Days seem shorter these days!
How could I miss this video? Two great musicians at work.
Top playing Gents, nice to hear you doing a such a good job of this lovely. Very musical and I like the camerawork. Great sound quality too, what programs do you use?
Thanks for all the comments! I was away playing a house concert with a friend of mine that I've played music with for over 20 years. He now lives quite a few states away, so it was a treat to get to spend a few days catching up and playing music for an actual audience. Simon, we both recently purchased Line Audio CM4 microphones. It's a small diaphragm condenser mic with a very flat response. Each one is hand made in Sweden and very inexpensive for the quality you get. Most inexpensive condenser mics have a high end boost that doesn't flatter a mandolin. I mix in Reaper, and don't do much to the tracks--just adjust sound levels, do a bit of panning and eq if needed. I put just a touch of reverb on the main mix. I don't use any compression or limiting. Pretty simple work flow.
Yea, for anyone looking for a mic for their double course instrument, I'd heartily recommend the CM4. Hyped top end is sort of a relic from the analog tape days, and with modern digital recording, it sounds cheap. As Don said, the price is more than affordable (NFI). I use Harrison Mixbus installed on the AVLinux distro, which includes pretty much everything I need for these simple kinds of recordings right in the package, and you don't need a current-spec computer to get the best out of it - my laptop is about 6 years old, with 16G RAM installed. Mixbus looks like a recording console, which is comfortable for a former recording engineer!
The words "former recording engineer" do a lot of work there in explaining why your recordings always sound so great! But, most importantly, you also play the tune very well indeed.
