Bowie Mandolin?!?

[Ben Cooper]

Ok, question for everyone. Any fairly easy David Bowie tunes that can be jammed on with mandolin? Love listening to Bowie, but not sure what translates well to the mandolin. Any Suggestions?

[crisscross]

I once recorded "Heroes" with a chop chord backup.
"Space oddity" should also work fine if you play the chords. http://mandotabs.com/d/david-bowie/space-oddity/

[Ben Cooper]

Thanks crisscross! I will definitely try this one out!

[Freddyfingers]

I can't think of any music that does not translate to any Instrument. You may approach it differently dele do g on what you are playing. As far as Bowie, try them all. If you don't want to play the melody, then figure out the rhythm. My first guess would be white light white heat with Lou reed.

[jaycat]

Actually, if we are bringing the Velvets in here, Femme Fatale translates nicely to mandolin. Play it in D, starting on D maj 7.

But then again, the OP asked about Bowie . . .

[timv]

"Rebel Rebel" is a great rocker and basically two chords most of the way, D and E with just a glipse of A in between. At "they put you down, they same I'm wrong," it's A D Bm E, so not too much more. The main riff is tons of fun to play on guitar and ought to adapt to mando, two open E strings on top instead just one.

With any cross-genre cover, if you want everyone in the room to get the joke, pick one of the two or three best known songs: "Space Oddity," "Heroes," "Let's Dance," along those lines. OTOH, if you want a song that sits well with your style and maybe one in ten or twenty will be grinning like idiots because they know the source, there's plenty to choose from.

"All the Young Dudes," that's a Bowie song and could be good. "Changes" has a strong melody and nice chord changes, pretty familiar and might work well in a stripped down acoustic setting. And I'd love to hear a full bluegrass band doing "Diamond Dogs."

[crisscross]

Though better known by Nirvana, "The man who sold the world" was written by David Bowie and could work also well when strummed on a Mando.

[Ben Cooper]

fantastic suggestions all!

[roscoepwavetrain]

yes, "heroes"

[Steve Ostrander]

I've played Ziggy Stardust before. Pretty easy.

[roscoepwavetrain]

this is quite a strange board as i posted this last year and got zero comments, which is fine but sort of strange as it got lots of views. anyway, if you are looking for easy rock songs for the mandolin this is a good list.

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...ner-rock-songs

[roscoepwavetrain]

lastly, if your thing is playing rock on a mandolin or basically "rock mandolin" then you should check out jim richter as he has some super cool stuff on youtube (check out him playing voodoo chile). also, he does a weekend thing each summer in bloomington, indiana that focuses solely on learning rock mandolin. i went last year for the first time and it was awesome. he's a good dude, great teacher, and you get to meet fellow aspiring rock mandolinists (if that's even a word).

[jaycat]

this is quite a strange board . . .

Ooh, that's a good one too.