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Thread: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

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    Registered User DogHouseMando's Avatar
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    Default Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Just for fun, I thought I'd ask what songs/tunes drive our partners crazy. What I mean is, those songs/tunes that we play over, and over, AND OVER again just to make sure we're getting them right.

    The one that drove my wife crazy for the longest time while I was learning it was Ozzie and Max from Sam Bush. I play it much better now , but whenever I start up that opening riff I get that look that suggests I need to knock it off.

    What are other songs/tunes that folks have driven their loved ones up the wall with?
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    Registered User Simon DS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Here are some rules.

    For my family it’s any song with words where there’s an obvious logical fallacy!
    -you can sometimes get away with it but you have to laugh while singing. Apart from that, anything goes... as long as you can dance to it.

    An Air is ok... as long as you can dance to it.
    BUT any tune that should be in 4/4 time but today it’s being played in 6/10, 5/8 and 7/8 time, randomly... will always lead to a discussion.

    Repeat as much as you like, slow enough, with a quiet earphones metronome... as long as you can dance to it.

    If any family member starts tapping their feet then you have to stand up, and sing really loud, even if it’s a tune or be accused of being a senseless dunce who lacks imagination.
    -Kids can be very cruel.
    Last edited by Simon DS; Apr-06-2021 at 11:05pm.

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    Registered User Jill McAuley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    For me it was when I was working on the B part of the reel "The Log Cabin" - there's a stretch to the high B in that tune that I wasn't hitting cleanly, so I would spent 10 minutes of each playing session just focusing on that passage of notes - on the 5th day of doing that there was a shouted "ENOUGH!!!" from the other room.... All good though, as by that stage I'd nailed it!
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    I guess I am lucky. My wife is pretty solid on guitar and she will play the accompaniment over and over as I work a piece out.

    Lat couple we were playing with were Moon River and That's A Plenty.

    The first I can remember was Tijuana Taxi.

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Anything new on mandolin banjo!
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    One would think anything at all on mandolin banjo!
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Mandolin user MontanaMatt's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    My wife hates Banks of The Ohio...I see her point, petty jealousies and murder.
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Not quite the same, but I had to stop playing Deep River Blues because my GF hates hearing me sing "My old gal's a good ole gal, she looks like a waterfowl when I've got them deep river blues"

    Guess I need to find a bluegrass love song that's super complementary if I'm ever to sing that song again.

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    Registered User Sue Rieter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Yah, who the heck wants to be compared to a duck!

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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    I'm teaching my girlfriend to play, and we started with Cripple Creek in G. I'm pretty sure she'll be sick of it once things start to click for her! As will I I'm sure...

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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Definitely - Wagon Wheel. Not that I have any complaints about what other folks do or like, but our family has heard that song far too often for one lifetime.

    Used to be FMB, Cripple Creek, Old Joe Clark and any song related to Deliverance, but we very rarely play any of these songs anymore anyway.
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Quote Originally Posted by dhergert View Post
    Used to be FMB, Cripple Creek, Old Joe Clark and any song related to Deliverance, but we very rarely play any of these songs anymore anyway.
    Alrighty then! Seems the training worked.
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Registered User Frankdolin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    When I was a kid my Uncle Jay always said "Everything you guys play sounds like " Red River Valley ", including tuning up"!

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    Registered User Eric Platt's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Am lucky - my wife never complains. She has the ability to tune it out. Even when playing the same passage repeatedly to try and get it right.
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    Mandolin Player trodgers's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    I've only received the 'glare of death' from my wife on one occasion. It was one o'clock in the morning and I thought I was making good progress on the second section of the Theme from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. I had started very quietly, but apparently the volume increased with my excitement of finally getting it together.
    Suddenly, my wife appears in nightgown with eyes that looked bigger than pie plates. "Dear........Could...you...please...STOP," says she, in her best elementary school teacher meets Satan voice. I complied.
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    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    My kids flee the area when my husband and I play Irish music. Too many years of hearing us practice in the living (music) room as we learned the tunes did them in, apparently. Now, if my husband and I strike up a bit of classical or choro or gypsy or klezmer, we just get eyerolls, but to really clear the room, we just start in a couple of jigs or reels.
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Any tune I’m learning as I play it section by section, over and over and over night after night after...
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Living alone has its advantages. I can play music whenever I like, as loud as I like, as long as I like. It's part of the deal, making the high rent worth it in order to enjoy personal freedom. But there was a time, several years ago ...

    I had secured a gig playing Italian music Friday nights in an Italian restaurant in Key Largo, 100 miles up the road. I had to find a vehicle in order to do this, as though there are buses that go there, they don't run late enough for the ride home. It sounds a bit much, a four-hour round trip for a four-hour gig, but they were paying me well enough that the $30 I spent on gas was worth it. Indeed, two gigs more than paid for the van. Plus the free meal was always good. Plus I got to just sit on one side of the room and play lovely music well-suited for the mandolin, without having to deal with drunks, smoke, loud chatter, requests for Jimmy Buffett songs, or any other inconvenience inherent in Key West bar gigs.

    But before I could start, I had to beef up my repertoire. I knew several numbers already, the usual suspects of familiar Italian-American standards, and learned some more. Then I found a treasure trove here - transcriptions of music from the Abruzzo region, east of Rome. Actual Italian music. All in all, I had about two hours' worth, which was all I needed - play it through, take a break, play it through again. It was unlikely any customers would be there long enough to hear the same song twice. All I had to do was learn the material and practice until I reached a comfortable level of proficiency.

    It was winter, which means temperatures ranging from the high 60s to low 80s - very pleasant porch-sittin' weather. I was living in a side-by-side duplex, with adjoining porches. My neighbor was an old hippie, an ardent White Album fan, who had possibly dropped too much acid somewhere along the way, and her version of peace-love-tie-dye had gone a bit helter-skelter. She was extremely territorial, acted as if she owned the place, though she was just another tenant, and even something of the neighborhood bully. She had developed an intense dislike for me, which manifested itself in many ways, including calling the cops on me whenever she had some issue, generally unfounded. So when I learned my long practice sessions irritated her, I moved them out to the porch. The slamming of her door after she stormed inside was music to my ears. "Tarantella" was one sure-fire irritant. For a month I put in my hours and got familiar with the material, and also got to give back just a bit of how much meanness she had visited upon me, without being technically rude. Ah, yes - music as a weapon, music as torture; a soft approach to psychological warfare. Don't underestimate the power of music.
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Registered User T.D.Nydn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    It's not my family but me,,2 tunes that I can't stand and drive me nuts that I will never play : stumbling and sweet Georgia brown,,,lol..

  26. #20
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    When I first took up concertina, back in the late 1980's, I bought a learner-level English system Bastari from a friend. Concertina was unlike any of the stringed instruments I'd been playing, so I went to my basement "cave" and tried to learn a simple melody in the key of C. The one I settled on was Jock Stuart (I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day), and I must have played it for hours at a time. It was a song I already knew well, so I knew when I was playing it correctly. Later, I was actually able to sing it with Belle Stuart and the other Stuarts of Blair, at Pinewoods Camp Folk Music Week.

    Here it is, played on an Anglo system instrument (not by me). I think it's a great melody, but when you hear it being played on concertina for 90 minutes at a time, I can see where my wife and kids used to sing it back to me in "nyaah nyaah nyaah" format.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    I had a bird that liked my mandolin playing, regardless of the song. But he also liked the sound the dryer makes when it is finished.

    My dog really loved my fiddle playing. He would sing a kind of coyote wail when I played. I am not sure, however, if he was responding to the music, or trying to get me to stop.
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  29. #22
    That guy playing mandolin
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    I've played the Kesh Jig so many times I'm surprised I haven't worn holes in my fingers from it yet. One of my less musically aware roommates is convinced that all I ever play is the Kesh Jig, though to be fair I do play a lot of fiddle tunes. I'm sure he'll still have that earworm in his head years from now (dun dundun dundun dun dundun...)

  30. #23
    Distressed Model John Ritchhart's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    The G run. Used as fills, tags etc. She says can't you come up with something else? As I silently mouth the word no....
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    Registered User Dave Hicks's Avatar
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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Whatever I'm working on recording! (Currently Cliffs of Moher.)

    D.H.

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    Default Re: Songs/tunes that drive our partners (and families) crazy!

    Quote Originally Posted by John Ritchhart View Post
    The G run. Used as fills, tags etc. She says can't you come up with something else? As I silently mouth the word no....
    Try it in A or C or D. "See, honey? It ain't the same. Not 'zackly."
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Finders Keepers, my duo with the astoundingly talented and versatile Patti Rothberg. Our EP is finally done, and available! PM me, while they last!

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