RE: Shakti on YouTube. Whoa! Excellent.
(Or should I say "U" Tube. Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
RE: Shakti on YouTube. Whoa! Excellent.
(Or should I say "U" Tube. Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
Wow, that guy can sing, heh? And J.M.L. plays like he's possessed. Amazing.
Here, twice the toy guitar, double the fun!
Ooops! I meant, 6-string single-course solid body electric mandolin in alternate tuning.
Whatever he's playing, he sure can't play. Shameful really.
Aaron Garrett
Pretty good bad music, isn't it?
John McGann, Associate Professor, Berklee College of Music
johnmcgann.com
myspace page
Youtube live mando
And since many of us agree that the guy can "play" ... we could call his instrument a "toy".
In a non-perjorative sense.
Curt ("Ornette-give -me-this-axe") Roseman
He can play alright. It might not be to everyone's taste, but there's no doubt he knows what he's doing.
David A. Gordon
This has been a fun thread to read. I don't know how I missed it until today, but it's especially relevant to me, as my single-course mandolins/toy guitars have been taking an increasingly larger proportion of my own "lap" time. With my 4-string Jazzbo, and recently the acquisition of 4-string Old Wave JazzDola, I have found new life musically. Tremolo never tripped my trigger (listening to bad tremolo is downright nauseating) and I've discovered new potential and sonic frontiers in finger control, vibrato, and absolute liberation in phrasing and hornlike sustain. A former frustrated guitarist, I've found the magic of 5ths tuning and its symmetry open my chop vocabulary exponentially this last decade.
I've been making the transition in the groups I've played with slowly, but a bit of epiphany, these people didn't have any preconceptions what a double-course mandolin is all about, let alone a 4-string. As long as what I'm doing is musical and fits the ensemble environment, it really shouldn't matter with my little guitar/ukulele/banjo/mango thangy.
Ultimately, it's about making music, and I'm having the time of my life playing these great instruments.
GO TED GO!!! Nice lookin' horns too!
I like "Mango" as the all purpose name!!!
John McGann, Associate Professor, Berklee College of Music
johnmcgann.com
myspace page
Youtube live mando
You guys are reminding me of a few things,hopefully humorous and/or pertinent--
I've played 5 string electric a lot in bands. Originally I had a Roberts "Tiny Moore" that I got from Tiny himself. A guy comes up to the stand one night and asks "What IS that instrument?"
I told him it was an electric mandolin and he immediately replied "OH NO IT"S NOT!" What an odd sensation-what could I say? Something like, "Well, I've spent a lot of bread on the wrong thing then, and that's odd because the guy I got it from is the best Electric mandolinist I've heard.."
There's a legend about Glen Campbell, the great studio guitarist and backround singer who went on to become Glen Campbell..Apparently he memorized a lot of Tiny solos, thinking they were done on a guitar and undaunted by their difficulty. This may explain some of his wonderful facility.
Johnny Gimble's EM 150(which he carries in a tennis racket bag!!)is tuned C-G-D-A from low to hi. It has a pickup wound by Leo Fender himself in the forties. That pickup may be of Loar value, who knows? And when Johnny plays this instrument
you can tell he digs George Barnes and Junior Barnard, yet it still seems very mandolin-ish. And of course it swings like nothing else and makes you feel really good.
I wish I knew more about Indian music, this thread has been helpful there. John Kruth is there now studying, and his blogs are entertaining and enlightening.Is it true that to obtain mastery a young player is assigned one raga and a guru?
Jethro once told me he didn't play much electric mandolin because he could play guitar, something like "If I want a sound like that I'd just play guitar"...still some of his tracks using the Fender four string are stunning, and he recorded the solid Gibson 8 string a couple times too. Each
thing seem to bring something different out of him, all of them were great sounding..
Here in Chicago we have some great Indian percussionists, Kalyan Patak, and Sandip Berman. Sandip's band opened for the Dawg once here and he gave some very informative demos of the complex meters the music is played in. This served to remind me that plain old 4/4 is often more than I can handle.The occasional 3/4 is ok, provided we're allowed to swing..
Phillipine Banduria? (fourths,double courses) Baroque mandolin?(a/k/a "soprano lute)...it seems various cultures and epochs of history come up with something that makes melodies in the range we think of as mandolin.I like hearing most of them, then seem to always come back to the old g-d-a-e complete with tremolo, although I do love the five string too and wish i had more opportunity to play it. Even there I look at it as a low four strings, and a high four strings. And I'll bend a la BB or try to grab clusters or blocks a la George Benson..
Sorry to ramble... please carry on so we can all figure out what we're playing! As far as figuring out what's good or not all I'll say is another Jethroism. After listening to a band at a fest one time he said(with the famous smile).."NOT EVEN." I asked him what he meant and he said "I wouldn't like that band, not even if they was any good!"
Thanks for all the info cats. Now back to our regularly scheduled discussion..
Here's three mandolins -- a four string, a five string and an eight string. I think you'll agree they all can play the mandolin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdG7zkF-eMQ
Aaron Garrett
The main difference is that the first is real, the second not.Originally Posted by (jmcgann @ Jan. 04 2007, 15:46)
I thought it was a mandolin because of Bob Wills' hollering.Originally Posted by (Paul Hostetter @ Jan. 04 2007, 21:47)
Actually I believe he started out with an amplified 8-string,
and I'm not sure anyone could identify what he's playing
on different cuts.
What's in a name etc.
"Plucked nyckelharpa"?Originally Posted by (Paul Hostetter @ Jan. 04 2007, 21:47)
So...
I ventured into Artesia, CA's Little India yesterday (really in search of pistachio kulfi "milkshakes" and forearm-sized dosa, but that's beside the point). Of course had to check out the numerous music shoppes, and scored a bunch of CDs, including one from Snehasish Majumder I hadn't heard before (he definitely plays the mandola - though he's always called a mandolinist, LOL). Of course I also bought a Srinivas disc it turns out I already had, except it has a different title and different cover. DOH!
But what surprised me was how many Bollywood DVD covers had images of mandolins on them. At least I thought they were mandolins, maybe they were some other instrument? Anyway, the characters were just holding them as props, like a 1920's movie star would be holding a uke in a movie poster shot. You know, man and woman, running around on the beach, with mandolins! Obviously! I wish I had thought to take a cameraphone shot of some of them, but that probably would've gotten me in trouble (I definitely don't look Indian). Maybe I'll go back one day and just buy or rent a few.
Anyway, I asked some of the shop owners and turns out mandolin has been used for ages in (heavily orchestrated) Bollywood soundtracks, mostly because of the composer duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Perhaps this could be a more home-grown reason for Srinivas' father gifting a mandolin to his son (vs. Paul's 'he-needed-a-gimmick' reason)?
Here's another fascinating story from an Indian Blog about a man who evidently was one of the original players in those soundtracks. Was this already posted? I seems vaguely familiar...
I bought an instrumental mandolin CD that purportedly had songs from popular Indian movies played in that "soundtrack" style, and while it probably isn't for me it was certainly an interesting listen (IMO the tunes ranged from simple/catchy/bouncy - to OK that's a little saccharine - to now I want to kill myself). Pretty heavy on the tremelo, in an O Sole Mio kinda way...
IIRC someone on these boards once mentioned mandolin's connection to Indian film, but I don't think it was ever discussed at length. Can't seem to find that post anymore. Anyone remember?
Man, I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around, but that was a great read....
Thanks all!
Orcas Island Tonewoods
Free downloads of my mandolin CDs:
"Mandolin Graffiti"
"Mangler Of Bluegrass"
"Overhead At Darrington"
"Electric Mandolin Graffiti"
Back to the topic of mandolin in Indian music...
While looking for a recording of one of my favorite Indian instruments, the jalatarangam (porcelain bowls tuned with water and struck with wooden dowels), I stumbed upon a recording of a mandolin and jalatarang duet recorded in India around 1930.
It is called "Jala-Tarang" and is found on the cd The Secret Museum of Mankind Vol. 5 (Shanachie).
I got it from iTunes -- certainly worth a listen.
Then you can all go back to sorting out what is or isn't a mandolin.
That was also a radio show (The Secret Museum of the Air on WFMU) and it's full of all kinds of crazy stuff! You can subscribe to their podcast (which they have been updating lately) and listen to the clip mentioned above for free. Sadly, the show is now out of production, but it's great that they're providing them via the Web.
SM podcasts
Here's an interesting mandolin from Ebay India...
Orcas Island Tonewoods
Free downloads of my mandolin CDs:
"Mandolin Graffiti"
"Mangler Of Bluegrass"
"Overhead At Darrington"
"Electric Mandolin Graffiti"
This is a wonderfully erudite discussion, but can we see more pics of hot chicks with cigars in their mouths?
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