G’day,
Here's the Bill Monroe classic Ashland Breakdown on my trusty 1917 Gibson mandola. As far as playability, tone and general-ability-to-express-myself-on-an-instrument goes, this may be my favourite instrument I’ve ever owned. You can play anything on it - it’s a deeply traditional and a profoundly modern instrument, all at once. You can feel the history, but it never holds you back. It has a full and resonant bass that really allows you to feel what you’re playing, and it feels and sounds great up and down the whole neck. Gibson really knew what they were doing back then.
We’ve all become solo mandolin players since Covid hit, and I’ve spent a lot of my time at home exploring how to make a mandolin sound as full as possible. I’ll sit with tunes and think about how to arrange them, and have generally tried to stick as many chords, open strings and double stops into my playing as possible. All my work doing this on the arranged portions of the tunes has also really seeped into my improvising. Though truth be told, I always end up doing my best arranging by just playing the song over and over, and figuring out what should happen when in real time. After a while, the line between the pre-arranged and improv sections starts to blur.
Songs in the key of C can be tricky mandolin pieces (especially solo), but they sit perfectly on the mandola (played out of G position), and allow for open strings galore to fill out the sound. If you’ve got a mandola lying around, this is a fun tune to dive into.
Soon after getting my first mandolin, someone told me to check out "Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe," which they described as the "best instrumental bluegrass record of all time." It's been a favourite ever since, and you could make a pretty good case to back up that claim, though I have too many favourites to pick just one. Every track on there is a gem, but this one always stands out as perfect example of how much joy and bounce a bluegrass band can have.
Thanks for tuning in, share what you think below, and stay safe out there,
Adrian
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