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Thread: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

  1. #26
    '`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`' Jacob's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    For single note melody, I find instruments with uniform intervals between the strings to be much more player friendly. Mandolin family instruments tuned in 5ths and bass guitars tuned in 4ths work best for me. Single note melody on guitar means I have to always be aware of the major 3rd between the G and B string. With uniform intervals, I can just play.

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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Well done Allen

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    Registered User Bren's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Irish Washerwoman is a fine tune that has lasted for generations.
    Fits well into dance sets.

    I do remember it being used in Warner Bros cartoons etc of the 1930s-50s to signify "Irish stereotypical character" but that has no relevance to young people playing today. Not that I was around in 1930-50 but you know, repeats and so on.

    I don't think it's all that easy for beginners, compared to, say, a D Maj tune with more open string notes and no high b.
    But at least there's a fair chance that you'll have it in your head before you start playing, which is always good.
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill McCall View Post
    You never did mention what makes it awful, except for polling and an English allusion, neither of which discusses the musicality or lack thereof.
    I think I did. It's a rabbit hole to dive into the minutiae of what makes a good Irish tune and the proclivities of Irish musicians. If someone likes the tune, that's no biggie to me, but it's definitely not something to warm the heart of an Irish player, which is about as good an explanation as it gets.

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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mainer73 View Post
    I think I did. It's a rabbit hole to dive into the minutiae of what makes a good Irish tune and the proclivities of Irish musicians. If someone likes the tune, that's no biggie to me, but it's definitely not something to warm the heart of an Irish player, which is about as good an explanation as it gets.
    Fair enough; likewise I don't mind at all if people dislike tunes I like or vice versa. But I just haven't come across many Irish musicians looking down on or dismissing the tune when played in a traditional style. Certainly on the YouTube link I posted earlier the Glackin brothers are playing it with great enjoyment, and Paddy (Glackin) has recorded it on a record of his.

    The link again (if anyone's interested): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt597FUXXFQ Irish Washerwoman is 3rd tune around 1:48

  8. #31
    small instrument, big fun Dan in NH's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    I assume you're referring to the Irishman's Shanty lyrics, or the Paddy and the Rats mash-up (a Hungarian Celtic-punk band?? Evidence of global cultural cross-pollination!).

    I would venture that a tune first published in 1785 has had quite a few sets of lyrics written for it in the centuries since, but somehow I doubt that dislike of the tune is related to that fact. Some people just don't like some tunes, and one played as frequently, and in as many varying formats, as Irish Washerwoman, may inspire a few negative reactions.

    The band I'm in plays it every gig, in a medley with Swallowtail Jig and Saddle the Pony, and I have to say -- whether it's the familiarity, or our world-class musicianship (I suspect the former), we always get a lot of applause for it.

    Here 'tis, in case you'd like to listen. I'm doing the (Sobell) mandola harmonies.
    The "official" lyrics to Irish Washerwoman, at least the ones that I'm aware of, have absolutely nothing to do with a woman, or with laundry. They're about a boy who goes off to war, and the tough veteran corporal who whips him and his his squad into fighting shape, and then in the first battle the corporal dies but the POV character services, and now HE is the tough veteran who has to whip the new young lads into fighting trim.
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    small instrument, big fun Dan in NH's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Quote Originally Posted by GMorgan View Post
    I saw reference to the trombone in an earlier post, and I used to play one. In high school, I needed an instrument that would get me onto the football field and a violin wasn't the way to go
    Total topic hop, but I've recently wondered if I could talk my way onto the high school marching band by playing a Telecaster through a Pignose a la Ralph Macchio from Crossroads. I know I've seen videos of all electric guitar marching bands.
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    Registered User Bren's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Quote Originally Posted by ampyjoe View Post
    I just haven't come across many Irish musicians looking down on or dismissing the tune when played in a traditional style.
    Me neither.
    A lot of widely-played tunes become cliched and fall into disfavour, but you only need to hear someone playing it well once to suddenly hear it with fresh ears.
    Bren

  13. #34
    small instrument, big fun Dan in NH's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    It's funny, when my Boston Irish wife wants to poke fun at Irish music that is trite or stereotypical, she always breaks into a rousing chorus of Oh Whiskey You're The Devil.
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    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Quote Originally Posted by phydaux View Post
    The "official" lyrics to Irish Washerwoman, at least the ones that I'm aware of, have absolutely nothing to do with a woman, or with laundry. They're about a boy who goes off to war, and the tough veteran corporal who whips him and his his squad into fighting shape, and then in the first battle the corporal dies but the POV character services, and now HE is the tough veteran who has to whip the new young lads into fighting trim.
    There are other lyrics, including the Irishman's Shanty bad-stereotyping song:
    Did yez ivver go into an Irishsman's shanty,
    Where water is scarce, an' the whiskey is plenty...
    etc.

    The tune was first published 235 years ago, in England. For a "lousy tune," as some posters maintain, it's been pretty enduring. Over the centuries, it's certainly picked up quite a few sets of lyrics; the Corporal Casey ones cited, are also somewhat negatively stereotypical:
    When I lived at home I was merry and frisky;
    Me dad kept a pig and me mother sold whiskey...
    etc.

    What the "official" lyrics may be, is perhaps indiscernible.
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  15. #36
    small instrument, big fun Dan in NH's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Yes, but how many American bluegrass songs are about moonshine, both the making and the drinking?
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    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Quote Originally Posted by phydaux View Post
    Yes, but how many American bluegrass songs are about moonshine, both the making and the drinking?
    Quite a few, for sure. But there is a difference between songs in which members of a group admit -- sometimes with pride, often with humor -- to taking part in questionable activities, such as distilling, selling and drinking moonshine -- and when those outside of that group accuse group members of doing it. There are tons of Irish songs celebrating alcohol, including illegally making it: The Old Mountain Dew, Hills of Connemara, I'm a Rambler and a Gambler, etc., etc.

    However, when a non-Irishman lampoons the Irish as a race of irresponsible drunks --
    Q. "What's an Irish seven-course dinner?"
    A. "A boiled potato and a six-pack," e.g.
    --
    members of the "Irish in-group" may take it amiss. I'd put Irishman's Shanty in the latter category.
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    Default Re: Single Note Melody - Is mandolin "easier?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Don Stiernberg View Post
    no argument intended, but...

    for discussion let's remove what music is being played, style, ethnicity, experience level of the player, and just look at the mechanical and visual aspects of the two instruments in the original poster's question...

    "tuned in fifths" has a lot to do with perceived advantage mandolin, but why? Because it allows us to envision the fretboard as symmetrical. Patterns, scales, chords are more readily visualized and located. But hey, fourths are symmetrical too aren't they? Yes, but that pattern is broken at the B string on the guitar. Also the more expansive range of the guitar means there are many more ways to play things on the guitar, more places to locate notes, phrases etc on the board.

    One might the longer fret scale on the guitar would be another advantage mandolin, but lest we forget finding things in all keys on mandolin requires comfortable usage of the fourth finger when manipulating those beautifully symmetrical scale patterns. Perhaps we're thrown right back to subjectivity here.

    I guess I'm mostly saying it's easier for me to see and feel my way around a mandolin fretboard than a guitar fretboard. Finding the ideas one "hears" in the mind's ear on the fretboard and sounding them happens more readily on the mandolin. We read how piano players get an assist from their instrument because they can look down and see where everything is, and the pattern on the keyboard is consistent from bottom to top..

    I marvel at saxophone players, trumpet, trombone, etc. They set the standards for facility yet what are they "seeing"? I suppose they might say "oh, we have patterns and symmetry too"...but where do they put the capo?

    One last notion. If one finds his instrument easier to play melodies on than on another instrument, perhaps best to allow that player to believe that. Every bit of confidence, relaxation, and accuracy counts.
    Tune your guitar's top strings up a semitone each to C and F. Symmetry! The only thing lost is the ability to play first position cowboy chords.

    As for saxophone players, in my case I practice the arpeggios etc so much that I just know the finger positions in my bones. At some level we may also visualize sheet music, for some visual input. I'm not really sure if i do that.

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