Has anyone gone all the way through the JB book. That is some hard stuff!
Has anyone gone all the way through the JB book. That is some hard stuff!
yup
If you're talking about this one, no way. And I've had the durn thing since its release date, 1976. Some of it is just so wicked. Was it Carlo Aonzo, the great Italian maestro, who played it page by page? Amazing.
The book cover looks familiar. I may have it somewhere in one of my boxes in storage. I did learn from Jethro that "jazz" chords are better than "bluegrass chop" chords. Easier to do, and nicer sounding.
Every time I think i'm getting good I run into something like this and realize I suck!
Is that the same as the book currently available from Mel Bay: http://www.melbay.com/Products/94875...-mandolin.aspx
Mark, that's the complete collection of the three Mel Bay publications. It has the humbling 'Mandolin Player' with many exercises and examples of his musical mandolin ideas and few 'easy' things to get started, his 'bluegrass techniques' book, which is of course very jazzy and very npon, and his 'mandolin picking solos', with transcriptions of his jaw dropping breaks on the 'budget bin buster' Wade Ray album that showed the upcoming second generation of bluegrass mandolin players how blazing hot bluegrass mandolin could be.
Well-described, Jeroen. I have all 3 and still can't give Jethro's Tune justice and I dropped them all down to .pdf for ease of access, hasn't really helped.
I have all four, but I can't find 'solos', so maybe I have lent it to someone and forgot.
Jethro's tune is the worst in a way, because it's such a fun tune.
Friends love to jam on its nice progression, but I feel bad about improvising on a tune I can't play properly.
Instead, I make a fool of myself trying to kick it off in style and again when I could have made fun for my second round. Of course my third fail is the theme again to close it off.
I raised myself on Jethro, early Statman, Duffey and Dempsey. I thought mandolin was about having fun. When the neo-traditionalists decided you had to stick to the rules I was out.
And now it often feels like I'm too old for both the cheerful energetic approach and the hardcore stuff.
I have these 3:
Jethro_BluegrassMandolinTechniques_MelBayBook
Jethro_MandolinPickingSolos_MelBayBook
Jethro_MandolinPlayer_MelBayBook
(this last one is the one I floated the photo of)
which is the 4th?
And in terms of Jethro's Tune, Don Stiernberg recorded it at a much slower tempo than Jethro. It worked well. And I love how Jethro quotes Bernie's Tune when the boys recorded it on Back To Back, the Grisman-produced chef d'oeuvre, circa 1979.
@Hudminster, I know. I started playing clawhammer banjo two years ago and I love it.
@ Alan, It's not a secret book you missed, it's the complete one
All I can say is that Burns was a master mandolinist, and of that old school of ear players that had really "big ears". Lots of old-time and Bluegrass mandolinists fit that description, but Burns had what I've run into in my past, that is, he was also tuned in to what was the popular music of his youth, jazz, and he understood ALL those chord changes, nothing in the American Songbook (and even modern jazz) seemed to phase him, he could hear it all and play it beautifully.
If I could ever play half as well I'd think I was doing very well indeed. I've played with some old-timers that could hear the most complicated chords once through - it's a bit frightening, and also inspiring.
Isn't there a website that has some ZIP files of lessons from guys that studied with burns?
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