“Toujours jolie” by Ernest-Louis Patierno

[Toomas Rannu]

This is my arrangement of “Toujours jolie” (Always pretty) composition for solo mandolin by Ernest-Louis Patierno (1863-1929)

Again, a one-voice piece. The only GDBG in the end and double DC interval in the Introduction. The original has a 12-bar section of continuous tremolo that challenges players of the classical style, as well as me, to keep the episode moving with adding appropriate harmony.

What does this piece offer me? What does my performance offer the listener? Will this piece become an episode of my live performance, or will it remain just an exercise in learning and improving technique of playing, a video memory of the work done on a piece that will soon be forgotten? Would a one-hour program consisting of such pieces attract the listener? Or after arranging a piece, practicing for hours and perfecting it first for recording, then for live, is the piece still fresh enough for me to want to achieve an even better result, to practice some more? I hope it will become clear in time.

The maestro, Italian birth name Ernesto-Luigi, has his 160th birthday anniversary this May. According to some data, it is May 10, and according to others May 12. Happy birthday!

https://youtu.be/ecwzIJbpwUw

Toomas Rannu
Flat-backed mandolin, crafted by Viljar Kuusk in 2008 (Tallinn, Estonia)

[DavidKOS]

That's lovely!

Very nice choice of added harmony chords and and I appreciate the use of hybrid picking in the right hand.

"Would a one-hour program consisting of such pieces attract the listener? "

Yes, I think so, as long as there a variety of rhythms and themes, it would be a fine program. It would also showcase your style of playing and arranging.

If you have any original pieces, be sure to play a few of them too. Maybe some Estonian music too.

Thanks for posting.

[Toomas Rannu]

"Would a one-hour program consisting of such pieces attract the listener? "

Yes, I think so, as long as there a variety of rhythms and themes, it would be a fine program. It would also showcase your style of playing and arranging.

Thanks, David! When performing Patierno's pieces live, I have experienced their good feature, that by increasing or reducing the repeats in the piece, it is possible to shape the length of the piece without changing anything fundamentally. In this way, a longer piece can be used, for example, when playing on the street, or as a background, and a shorter piece on a special occasion. Repeats of this piece I recorded according to the original intentions of the composer.

[Jim Imhoff]

What surprises me in this is the consistent bright tone of plectrum and finger plucked notes. You appear to be playing melody with the pick and adding harmony with 2nd and 3rd fingers right hand, correct? If I tried that the harmonies would be dead dull "thunks." I don't know how common this practice is, only seen it a few times. But you use it artfully and effectively. I also enjoyed your self-analysis of "why I play this:" and you do not offer a simplistic or cliched answer. In the music education field we talk about "how" more than "why," but it is an important consideration for the continuance of the art, and there are many answers.

[DavidKOS]

.... You appear to be playing melody with the pick and adding harmony with 2nd and 3rd fingers right hand, correct? .... I don't know how common this practice is, only seen it a few times.

Jim, this is a common practice for steel string guitar players, particularly on electric guitar. It's usually called "hybrid picking".

I noticed Toomas's fine use of this technique too.

https://www.guitarworld.com/magazine...ro-no-time-all

https://www.fundamental-changes.com/...ybrid-picking/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_picking

"The technique is not widespread in most genres of guitar playing (though notable exceptions exist), but is most often employed in "chicken pickin'"; rockabilly, country, honky-tonk, and bluegrass flatpicking styles who play music which occasionally demands fingerstyle passages."

One of my favorite prog rock guitar players, Steve Howe, also uses this technique a lot.

It's also a lot of fun!

[Jim Imhoff]

I always did fingerstyle on my folk guitar; have tried finger-picking on my mandocello using banjo-style fingerpicks. Sadly, I have been a habitual nail biter all my life, so I need the plastic or metal tips. For the same reason I can't do this hybrid style. Never even considered classical guitar.

[DavidKOS]

I always did fingerstyle on my folk guitar; have tried finger-picking on my mandocello using banjo-style fingerpicks. Sadly, I have been a habitual nail biter all my life, so I need the plastic or metal tips. For the same reason I can't do this hybrid style. Never even considered classical guitar.

For classical guitar I use average length fingernails, and I'm pretty comfortable with steel-string guitar hybrid picking...but it is a bit harder on the double strings on mandolin. Toomas does a fine job with that trick.

Have you tried some of the less usual style fingerpicks?

i use one of these sometimes for Persian setar:

https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Kelly-Pi...623488545&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Kelly-Pi...a-522187795866

and these are another option

https://www.amazon.com/Thumbpicks-Pr.../dp/B0791ST8FQ

[John Kelly]

The hybrid picking Toomas uses is what first drew me to his playing on his YouTube channel. I have tried it on my octave with reasonable success but find the mandolin string spacing a bit too tight for me. Again, as others have said here, we use finger style and hybrid on guitar quite regularly, depending on the sort of music we play.

[Toomas Rannu]

What surprises me in this is the consistent bright tone of plectrum and finger plucked notes. You appear to be playing melody with the pick and adding harmony with 2nd and 3rd fingers right hand, correct? If I tried that the harmonies would be dead dull "thunks." I don't know how common this practice is, only seen it a few times. But you use it artfully and effectively.

Thank you, Jim! I've been working with sound for years. Leaving aside the sound that depends on the quality and characteristics of the instrument and strings, although they play a very important part in shaping the sound, the sound generally depends on how the instrument is picked up, the position of the hands on the instrument, how the finger of the left hand presses the string and what it does after that, how the finger of the right hand pulls the string, i.e. what happens at the moment of plucking, what shape and material the pick is made of and at what angle it pulls the strings, how far from the bridge of the instrument the hand touches the strings.
In addition to the pick, I use my nails to pull the strings on my right hand. They are roughly the shape of a shorter type of classical guitar player's fingernails, currently around 3mm. At the moment of pulling, the string is touched first by the tip of the finger and then by the nail. The tip of the finger gives depth to the sound and the nail gives brightness.
All this in short and in general, especially since my search is still going on...

[Toomas Rannu]

I also enjoyed your self-analysis of "why I play this:" and you do not offer a simplistic or cliched answer. In the music education field we talk about "how" more than "why," but it is an important consideration for the continuance of the art, and there are many answers.

Thanks, Jim! "Why" can be asked differently. I may ask, why I play this or that piece, but also, why I do this, why I start this time-consuming, a physically and mentally demanding process. And that question "why" takes me to my roots. I guess the answer to that brings me closer to the understanding who I am.

And the answer may be different if I play for fun on Sundays and sometimes on free time after every days work or I try to make ends meet as a musician.

There must be something in this process that feeds me. If it's music, so what is that music, how does it feed me, so to speak, or what does it offer? With all this aside, the question of "how" seems much easier to answer.

If to ask "how", then rather not in the context of how to play a piece, but how the music, for example a new piece, makes it all happen, that I start another process, find enough time and energy to complete it, at least from the point of view of the skills of the moment?

Yes, again, lots of questions, but it seems that somehow we can manage without answers, but not without questions.