The problem with playing oldtime tunes/songs on mandolin is that too often it comes off as sounding bluegrassy.
Mandolin can be played in a manner where it
does sound oldtime, but it requires a different way of playing, either emulating clawhammer/frailing banjo or oldtime fiddling.
The banjo approach is more of an alternative style of crosspicking. (At first I used flatpick only, but later switched to pick+middle finger which I think sounds better and smoother.) I had (still have) the Art Rosenberg
"Old-Time Mountain Banjo" book on Oak and spent a lot of time adapting those tunes/tabs onto the mandolin, paying special attention to keeping notes on different strings (if that was how the banjo did it) and all the slurrings/slides/hammers/pulloffs. This was late 1970s and early 1980s when I was also putting Mississippi John Hurt fingerpicking, Clarence White solos, Richard Thompson guitar transcriptions onto the mandolin.
The other approach was to try replicating the bowing and slurring of oldtime fiddle. My opinion was that if you wanted to bring mandolin into a genre where it was absent or minimally used, one needed to model your vocabulary and dynamics after the
one or two dominant instruments of the genre. In oldtime, this would be fiddle and banjo; in Cajun, it's button accordion and fiddle; in Tex-Mex 2 or 3 row button accordion ala Flaco Jimenez. An if you wanted to
rock on mando without sounding ridiculous, all the signature guitarists from Jimi to Garcia, BB, RT, Angus Young, Allman, etc.
At the time the
only other mandolin player I ran into doing oldtime banjo style stuff on mando was
Larry Rice., with whom I did some playing/recording with in 81-82. He was on a similar track as me, but ahead on the banjo sound. I've occasionally run into some people that also played clawhammer banjo as well as mando who applied the banjo right hand technique, but that gives you something different than what Larry and I were doing. I should add that there's a substantial similarity to the across-the-strings mandolin and mandola playing of Andy Irvine on those Planxty albums.
There are some
"clawhammer mandolin" arrangements in
The Mandola Sampler book. In
Hot Solos For Bluegrass Mandolin, there is a clawhammer version (and clawhammer harmony) for
"In The Pines" before it goes into the single-line solos. There have been a few clawhammer mando pieces in
The Mandocrucian's Digest issues, as well a some
Oldtime Fiddle on mando columns by Judy Hyman of the Horseflies.
Niles H and Larry Rice, Crystal River, FL, 1982
(This is a bit tangential to the thrust of the OP, but it's worth thinking about . Good for solo playing and accompaniment too)
Niles H
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