That's really good, Simon. Why not put the two together (with the dorian one as a variation)? Now I find myself closely scanning the ground around you for evidence of your recording kit. It would never work here once spring arrives - too many power tools. Or do the locals give you a wide berth as you hike off with instruments and recording kit? "Le fou anglais au chapeau brun..." (Or is that unfair? Are the woods of southern France alive with the sound of al fresco recording sessions?)
I know what you mean about the power tools! We live at the end of a peaceful close in a village, but whenever I try to record something for work or for musical purposes, there's that risk of someone trying to update their homeowner credentials by drilling, cutting tiles or strimming the lawn. I'm not complaining because I make the same noises sometimes. But a soundproof room would be quite attractive during the warmer months. Anyway, Tobin's Favourite ... Although I appreciate the experiment with transposing, I prefer the usual key. It's great how your octave mandolin requires no accompaniment except the sounds of nature around you and occasionally those drones you sometimes use. You fill the forest with music!
Thanks Richard and Dennis, that reminds me that sometime ago I heard about a guy who went out and bought a BMW or Audi. It cost him almost nothing because it didn't work! He had the thing parked in his driveway, on bricks. He took out the front two seats, fitted a drinks cabinet and used to sit on the backseat. Yes it was his soundproof room. Now that's very crazy. About the accompaniment, I thought of playing slower all the time so that I could more easily play my less familiar instruments but I think it often distracts from the melody. I do occasionally hear or see people in the woods who are singing or playing Instruments, often guitars and ukuleles. Sunday is a good day. There is twice as much land in France as the UK per capita and with the continental climate people probably get out more.
Clear picking with a lot of bass, Simon, I like that Ambient sounds suggest that the Geonosian Empire is preparing an attack with their full droid fleet
Oh the invasion of the ambients! I’m guessing that Watership Down is part of the Geonosian Empire and occupied by those rabbits. Though I don’t think I’ve ever seen rabbits up there on the hill. It was a very still and very quiet day. I got everything set up, just about to begin, and then the bulldozer starts up. My fault though, recording on a weekday. It was to avoid the hikers, maybe I’ll go further next time, out of the woods.
Why avoid the hikers, Simon? Instead of machines humming, there might be applause bursting at the end of the tune!
NIce work Lawrence, Dennis and Simon! I missed these...
I shall no doubt have many more occasions to rant about power tools, even though it has nothing (directly) to do with mandolins or music. The American suburban yard is often a green desert that must be maintained with a gas-guzzling mower and gallons of chemicals. My tiny lawn, push mower, and organic methods are... well, not the norm, at least in these parts.
Rabbit-power is the future Richard! They’re quite popular with families who also have kids, or people who like rabbit.
One of those tunes which appeared regular as clockwork at a session is used to show up at, er, regular as clockwork. This thread jogged my memory...
Another great, unadorned delivery of a classic tune, Aidan, and played at a tempo at which it can be appreciated! Is the tone you get purely from the electric mandolin or do you use a mic as well? There seems to be really good sustain and a bit of reverb in your recordings.
Hi John... It's a Belmuse EM-190 fed through an M-Audio M-Track Solo USB interface into my Macbook. Non-Ceol Dorcha tracks are recorded in Garageband using the "transparent pre-amp" setting, EQ adjusted to accentuate the bass and a dash of echo and reverb added to lively up the sound. (It's very flat otherwise...) I then transport the sound file to Audacity to trim it and normalise it to -6dB, my standard setting. I find Audacity much more user-friendly for detailed work such as adding/reducing silence at the start of a track, normalising volume, etc. My Ceol Dorcha stuff on the other hand uses a whole variety of amp emulations, effects, etc. But that's a completely other story. I'd like to have the facility to record acoustically again. But since the pandemic the sheer volume of domestic noise which acoustic mics pick up is just too much. All my neighbours - right, left and below; and my partner - now work from home and gone are the days when I could make acoustic recordings fairly easily without picking up interfering noise from my neighbours (anyone interested in some tracks I've recorded with random loo-flushing noises and/or footsteps moving down a neighbouring hallway whose progress, because I'm using a stereo mic, you can track from left to right?). This also means, of course, that I have to be very judicious about when I play acoustically because what's sauce for the goose is annoying for the neighbouring ganders... (Added to the above, we live just at that point on the normal Heathrow flightpath where planes drop their landing gear and so on and it can be quite a racket when I tune into it. I have lived in this neck of the woods for a long time and I don't even notice aeroplane noise now at all; it takes conscious effort to be aware. But just as the camera never lies, neither does the microphone ever stop listening!) Anyway ... that's the technicalities. More importantly, thanks for the kind words about the playing. I've been doing a lot of work recently on tone, tempo, really starting to get to the nub of the tune. The words of a friend of mine, delivered many years ago when we were having a few beers and a few tunes in his house one evening, ring in my ears when I find myself trying to over-reach. "Play the tune, not your mandolin." (Those words at first puzzled me. And then stung me - to the extent that I gave up playing for quite a while. But on picking up the mandolin again - and on re-listening to some recordings which I made about 20 years ago - I began to see and feel what he might have meant. And playing the tune - not the mandolin - is something I'm still aiming for.)
Lovely, Aidan, and I agree with John on the tempo, which works perfectly. The problem with playing the tune rather than the instrument is that it implies a mastery of the latter that I don't have, not for the guitar I have been playing for more than half a century, still less for the mandolin that I have been playing for less than two years. Moments come when the technicalities of playing get forgotten and making music is the only thing. But they are rare for me.
If your recent recordings are evidence of how far you've come in two years, Richard, then I'd say that you've spent that short space of time very wisely.
Aye, home recording has its pitfalls, Aidan. I am lucky in that I live in a small, detached house in a quiet little cul-de-sac well away from flight paths and general traffic noise. Thanks for your detailed notes on your recording methods. It is always fun to learn how others go about getting their particular sounds. We who post regularly here can probably identify each other very quickly both by the sounds we are making and by the type of visuals we use to back them - or does the sound actually back the visual? I am sometimes unsure about which element I want to highlight in a video.
Mike Black A2Z https://youtu.be/K7zfWPuCAbM?si=FbB6Cs5y-fHy83i4
That's lovely playing Dan - and a fine instrument to boot...
Really nice! Everyone at sessions seems to like this tune. Last time I played it in a set of Tobin's Favourite, Ten Penny Bit, Rakes of Kildare. These are well-known tunes, so many people were able to join in.
Indeed... great set of warhorses. But interesting that you mention The Rakes Of Kildare. I know that tune in two guises, a major version and a dorian version. Myself and a fiddler who'd been at the racket for a very long time (he started playing in ceili bands and sessions back in the 1960s) used to play both as a set. (I thought I'd conjured it up uniquely but he tells me that he used to play that very set with Lucy Farr and others when she was still living in London.) Now - here's the thing. I was at a session not very long ago and in a set the others played a tune which I'd not heard before and I asked the name (as you do). The person who led the set called it The Rakes Of Kildare and a few others concurred. So I played a few bars of the major version of the tune which I know as The Rakes Of Kildare and all concerned agreed that it was a different tune (and, in fact, one which they hadn't heard before). So I was wondering if it is possible, out of interest, to point to the tune which you know as The Rakes Of Kildare? Cheers... Aidan
Fine playing, Dan. Aidan, I think from memory that the version Dennis refers to is this one, but I could well be wrong! (link to a posting of mine over a dozen years back): https://youtu.be/zSPTGyC4BzY
DAN’s VID HERE: Really nice playing Dan, good to hear your mandolin playing. Very admirable, joyful performance there John, I’ve (incidentally) recently been working on ‘Thank God We’re Surrounded by Water’ which is very similar to The Rakes, but seems a bit country-dance. And nice rhythm there Aidan. And just listened to yours Lawrence. Love it!
I realised after I posted my reply to Dennis that the old "dancing about architecture" analogy rung true... talking or writing about music in the abstract is tricky. And so I very quickly made a recording to illustrate the two versions of The Rakes of Kildare that I was yakking about above. (Each version played through just the once, cos I'm kinda doing this in between a few - too many - other things this morning.) The major version of the jig is the basis of air to the songs "Surrounded By Water"... I say songs because there are two sets of lyrics which I know under that name, both of which were big favourites at "come-all-ye"s in my house when we were growing up. One's very much republican-influenced (and was originally called "The Sea Around Us" by Dominic Behan when he wrote it, although it mostly gets called Surrounded By Water or Thank God etc these days) and has two of the cleverest verses from such songs... "Two foreign oul' monarchs in battle did join Each wanting his head on the back of a coin If the Irish had sense, the'd throw both in the Boyne And partition throw into the ocean" And "The Scots have their whisky, the Welsh have their speech Their poets are paid about ten pence a week Provided no hard word on England they speak Oh Lord, what a price for devotion!" The other one, written by Shay Healy, is a bit more scurrilous and begins... "On Dollymount strand on a cold winter's night I pulled up the handbrake and switched off the light Says I to the mot "are you feeling alright?" Myself and the architect's daughter" The Dubliners recorded both and my da's band back in the late 60s/early 70s, The Bordermen, would do one or the other (or both :-) ) as part of their repertoire... I do go on... tell me to shut up if I'm boring everyone to tears... this stuff's in my blood and there are so many connections...
Yes, I mean the minor tune as played by John and as in your second tune. I didn't know there was another tune of the same name, but I'm not surprised either!
