Collin Botts on Irish mandola

[DougC]

Some very nice work on mandola and guitar. Enjoy.

[ilovemyF9]

Great clip, but 'for sure it's too big to be a Mandola, me thinks.............

[Bertram Henze]

Very good, and nicely demonstrates 2 things:

1 - a well-played OM can easily outdo the volume of a guitar.
2 - if your bodhran player didn't show up, just bring your work boots.

[John Kelly]

Fine duetting here, and a good pace for the tunes, letting the melodies come through well.

[Colin Lindsay]

What’s an ‘Irish mandola’?

[Beanzy]

Same as the Irish wimmin do.

[Bertram Henze]

What’s an ‘Irish mandola’?

Semantically contracted from the Irish TB, I guess. Irish for GDAE + playing Irish tunes. Somebody will come up with an Irish mandolin, eventually.

[Colin Lindsay]

Semantically contracted from the Irish TB, I guess. Irish for GDAE + playing Irish tunes. Somebody will come up with an Irish mandolin, eventually.

The blurb on the video says Weber Octave Mandolin, which is what I honestly believed it was.
Incidentally I thought the ‘Irish’ tuning was GDAD?

[DougC]

The blurb on the video says Weber Octave Mandolin, which is what I honestly believed it was.
Incidentally I thought the ‘Irish’ tuning was GDAD?

Yes, my mistake! He is playing an Octave Mandolin. I thought it looked a bit big for a mandola. And I'm not sure how he has tuned the strings.

In any case Colin is doing some nice playing there.

Here is another clip.

[mikeyes]

He is using GDAE tuning and that Weber sounds great, better than in his earlier videos assuming it is the same Gallatin. Both of them are very good musicians - very tasteful and inventive.

According to his site, his Weber has a 22" scale.

Mike Keyes

[foldedpath]

The blurb on the video says Weber Octave Mandolin, which is what I honestly believed it was.
Incidentally I thought the ‘Irish’ tuning was GDAD?

Only if you mostly play backing instead of melody. The "Irish Tuning" as far as I'm concerned is like a fiddle, an octave down. If you're playing melody, that is.


Great clip, a nice pace for those tunes. And it's nice to see a Weber F-hole mandolin getting a workout in this music, a bit of ye 'old Gibson influence in the genre. But I'm biased (see my Avatar image on the left, a Weber Yellowstone OM behind my Lebeda).

You don't need a full F-style with all the scrolls and fancy bits to get that tone, an A-style will do as well. But these instruments are well powerful for this music. It's nice to see it's not all flattops and 'zouks in the music.

[Bertram Henze]

Of course, GDAD is one of the many tunings of the Irish bouzouki, plus Andy Irvine's favourity tuning on most instruments.
But it wouldn't be Irish if there was not a good deal of confusion involved.

[Dagger Gordon]

I have a friend who has what looks like the same instrument. He tunes it like a mandolin an octave down.
My friend is always buying and selling his instruments, but finally I think he has a 'keeper'.
It's not cheap, though, but I guess it shows you get what you pay for.

[Bertram Henze]

Here is another clip.

What a wonderfully delicate take on Pipe on the Hob (when you only know Paddy Keenan's pipes version you tend to mimick that squawking character). The third in the set, Con Curtin's, is known to me as "This Is My Love Do You Like Her?" (and found as such on thesession.org).

[Colin Lindsay]

What a wonderfully delicate take on Pipe on the Hob

One of the first tunes I ever learned, back in MCMLXXII

[M.Marmot]

Funny ... I've often seen Mr. Colfer, the guitar player, out and about in the town, and often at the Nancy Blake's session, but i had never seen him play until these videos.

I suspected he was a musician but ... ah, the joys of technology.

By the by, the students (and staff) of University of Limerick's Irish World Academy of Music and Dance do throw a mean session if you are ever in the city and manage to find which watering hole they're hiding in these days.

[Shelagh Moore]

I like the playing and phrasing but not the boot I'm afraid!

[sgarrity]

What lovely music and great playing!

[foldedpath]

I like the playing and phrasing but not the boot I'm afraid!

Some of my favorite fiddlers are stompers -- Martin Hayes, Liz Carroll, all the Cape Breton crew. So I've gotten used to it. Probably do it a bit too much myself.

[James Rankine]

Some of my favorite fiddlers are stompers -- Martin Hayes, Liz Carroll, all the Cape Breton crew. So I've gotten used to it. Probably do it a bit too much myself.

Martin Hayes sure knows how to use foot stomping. Like most things it needs to be used in moderation or it loses its effect. Here is a great 17 minute set from Martin with a fine foot stomping finale. Don't fast forward to 17 mins, you need to appreciate everything that goes before to really appreciate the end.

[DougC]

I can't seem to get enough of these videos from Colin Botts and Alan Colfer. The rhythmic foot work to me, is almost a tradition. It is kind of distracting sometimes, as in this one.

And Martin even shook his mike stand on a recording with his foot. It made it to production because he did not even consider the rattling, he was so focused so much on the fiddle. Someone pointed it out and he said he was sorry but he couldn't help tapping his foot as he played. It is just a part of him, and me too I guess.

[Jim Bevan]

I agree -- nice playing.

The foot (well, boot)-tapping might not be that loud for the audience -- it depends on where the mic recording the video was. If it was mounted on a mic stand, with a metal base, located on the stage, then it would pick up a lot more of the floor noise.

I started following this thread 'cuz, these days, I'm playing a 1921 Gibson H2 mandola, and I was keen to hear someone else play Irish Trad on a mandola. The only "Irish mandola" I'm aware of is the guy in Dervish, and he doesn't play much of the melodic content of the tunes (as is my goal) -- anybody know of anybody else that they could direct my ear towards?

[DougC]

I agree -- nice playing.

The foot (well, boot)-tapping might not be that loud for the audience -- it depends on where the mic recording the video was. If it was mounted on a mic stand, with a metal base, located on the stage, then it would pick up a lot more of the floor noise.

I started following this thread 'cuz, these days, I'm playing a 1921 Gibson H2 mandola, and I was keen to hear someone else play Irish Trad on a mandola. The only "Irish mandola" I'm aware of is the guy in Dervish, and he doesn't play much of the melodic content of the tunes (as is my goal) -- anybody know of anybody else that they could direct my ear towards?

My first response was, "yea, me". But I don't have any videos. (And who am I anyway, just another punter...).

I'll be real happy to find an amazing mandola player doing Irish stuff. So I went to U-tube and was reminded of Doc Rossi. You would do well to follow this guy. He plays all kinds of string instruments including mandola.

And he points to the fact that it is the music more than what instrument it is played on.

Play that mandola well and people will listen.


Here is a sample.

[M.Marmot]

I see your fuss on toe-tapping and raise you a 'I gCnoc Na Graí (In Knocknagree)'.

This is, in my opinion, one of the must have albums (no mandolin content) and as much as the music, by two fine musicians, is fizzling it is more than met and douled by the background noise of the dancers pounding and geeing up the musicians with raucous roars of approval, feverish 'hups' and 'heys' of encouragement.

The noise and the music are inseperable - as it should be - it's a recording. The record of a moment.

Now, maybe we are all spoiled by the profusion of processed and produced music that we can binge on now but, by heavens, it's a sad day when we feel free to bemoan a trad musician's toes-a-tapping / boots-a-stomping.

Next, we'll be demanding that they hold their breath until the all the notes have died away ... 'oh, i rather fancied the music, it's a pity we had suffer the musicians and their enthusiasm'.

[Jim Bevan]

I'm trying to play it well, but those A-major reels are kickin' my butt.

I played a nice session on St Patrick's Day, in Lithuania of all places, with some musicians from Dublin who'd been flown there for the week by the Irish embassy. They were kinda buzzed about the mandola, and one guy said that he'd always thought that mandolas were more suitable than mandolins for trad. I wish I'd gotten around to finding out how much mandola (or who) he'd heard...