Nine pound hammer

[tkdboyd]

Nine Pound hammer break on Manzanita, was it Grisman? It has to be one of the strangest breaks I have heard for that song. Has anyone seen it transcribed anywhere?

A minor pentatonic is what I think he is working from but it is strange and can't quite get my fingers wrapped around it.
Any help or suggestions would be great.
Thanks,

[Celtic-Grass]

my experience is. if it's really awkward to play, it's probably some odd-ball tuning.

[Jonathan Peck]

I don't have the liner notes in front of me, but after a listen I'd say that it's Grisman...and that your being very kind. Sounds like he's playing in the wrong key.

[Kevin Briggs]

I've never liked that break, personally. It sounds like he doesn't quite know what he's doing or something.

Grisman always seems to do a little better when it's his group and his project, and when he memorizes what he's doing before hand. He seems to struggle when he's not working from the standard licks he manages to work into most of his music.

[AlanN]

Hmmm...Grisman has been pounded for that break for years. Cut the man some slack, someome once said a great jazz solo is hard to play twice. Same for bluegrass. Try Home Is Where The Heart Is for solid grass breaks by Dawg, or Here Today, or Don Stover, or Red Allen, or Tony Rice, or...

You wanna hear a break where it's a bit clueless? Try Roland White on Baby, Why You Been Gone So Long. I could just hear Clarence "Ok, E chord, follow my lead"

[tkdboyd]

I wasn't trying to start a "Dawg Fight" just wondering about the break and if anyone else had played around with that version!

[SternART]

Geeze, give me a break.....Guess you've not heard Grisman play straight up BG then? Here Today? Home is Where the Heart Is, DGBX.
He can play VERY authentic licks, culled from immersing himself in all the first generation BG masters. Just because he writes his
own tunes and created a style of music, doesn't mean he doesn't pay homage to the roots of BG when appropriate. Besides Manzanita
is Spacegrass. Listen to Sam's backup fiddle behind Tony's vocals on that cut, or David's mandolin rhythm, I was at these sessions
in the studio, and they were pushing the envelope, having a lot of fun.....true peers....all good friends & among the super pickers of their generation.
There were several versions of the tunes.....one better than the other, with nobody repeating stock licks on their breaks, those boys was creatin'.....
not replicatin'...What a GREAT record. A classic!! They oughta put out 20th anniversary edition, with all the out-takes. Spacegrass.....yeeeeeaahhhhhhh!!!

[MNDOLNR]

Isn't there a lyric in 'Cept Old Bill on "Hold On We're Strummin" where Sam comments on Dawg always playing in the minor key? Don't recall the exact wording, but it's pretty apt. I love it that Dawg turns that break on its ear with that minor third...it's his thing! Comes from his ear for klezmer and gypsy scales...just be glad it wasn't a flatted 2nd.

[SternART]

Isn't that is a Jethro joke?.....

[AlanN]

Grisman does his thing, just like Steffey, Benson, Bibey, Skaggs, etc. I dig the old Skaggs, many folks don't dig the old Skaggs. And I tire of it too, heck I tire of me sometimes!

One of Grisman's best kicks is Don't Give Your Heart To A Rambler from Tony Rice debut Rounder album. To me, that phrasing is da bomb. And his characterisitic flurry on Rattlesnake. Emory Lester reprised that number on one of his early records, and I always felt his marvelous triplet string on there was in strict homage to Dawggy.

[MNDOLNR]

Isn't that is a Jethro joke?.....

Aren't they all?

[Milan Christi]

Wow - I sure miss hearing Tony's voice as a young guy. Oh yeah - Dawg's solo - as far as the solo goes I have no issues at all. It starts low and stays low for a l-o-n-g time. Not exactly what you might call pyrotechnics but there are definitely no bad notes there - it seems he used his home base a fifth lower than the root and stayed in that "key". Pretty darned creative in my ever-so-humble-opinion.

[Flowerpot]

Yep, it's a strange break, and personally, not one I've cared to duplicate... nobody's saying Dawg don't have the chops, just that, well, that particular solo is kind of "experimental." I'd pick some some other Grisman solos to work on, ones that are more representative of his style, from Here Today or Home is Where the Heart Is, but if you wanna go into left field, don't let me stop you.

(how's it going, Mark? Don't lose that pick, dude.)

[Jonathan Peck]

Listening to that break was like accidentally seeing your three hundred pound aunt naked in the shower shaving her mustache....it's just wrong on so many levels. Maybe he was pushing the envelope as you say, but it isn't musical and has zero relationship to the song that he's playing.

I think that when you go that far out on a limb, you're taking a very big risk...but most jazz soloists can come back to the melody at ANY time. To me, he just sounds lost, completely missing all of the chord changes. He also sounds very sloppy and his timing is a little suspect as well.

Most things that are discordant resolve. That break seems to start nowhere, goes nowhere and ends nowhere.

That said...it was probably pretty cool being in the studio hanging with your friends and having a good time. Those guys are all monster musicians and have my complete respect, but that break is just plain bad.

[Peter Hackman]

Isn't that is a Jethro joke?.....

Jethro wrote the lyrics, yes.

Perhaps a bit off topic; it's been very long since I listened to Grisman in a BG context (WHATEVER THAT IS ...)
but according to my recollection he liked to superimpose things, like A over G, apart from more obvious blues pentatonics.

[tkdboyd]

I still have that pick and am loving it! Ordered a dozen or so different picks from Elderly trying to see if anything replicates it.

I've been pounding out a couple of different breaks for 9# Hammer and Dawg's is most certainly the most peculiar, although Monroe's timing with those down strokes are hard to fit in when people in a jam are playing a slower Merle Travis styled version. I haven't figured out "my approach" yet!

Flowerpot: Hope you and yours are doing well!

[tkdboyd]

Grisman in a BG context

The DGBX CD is a pretty good listen; it is basic Bluegrass stuff. It works well for novices like me. For the advanced on this board it would be boring. But can boost my confidence when I can play along with the CD after a few tries vs. listening to Sam Bush's stuff and sitting back and taking a stiff drink and realizing not in this lifetime!

[Jonathan Peck]

......although Monroe's timing with those down strokes are hard to fit in when people in a jam are playing a slower Merle Travis styled version. I haven't figured out "my approach" yet!

Hey Mark,

Have you given Norman Blakes version Live at McCabe's a listen? It's not mando, but might give you some new ideas for an approach.

Also, there's a fingering pickin' version on Will the Circle be Unbroken ala Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. There's a great melody break by Roland White on Mandozine which could be adapted to swing to the NGDB version.

[Kevin Briggs]

Grisman is great, there's no question. My impression of him is that he is very deliberate. I don't hear him as a master at improv, although he certainly seems to be capable of it. To me, this is an issue, because I value improv.

For example, the banjo player in the group I play in - Mighty Fine - memorizes everything. When we go to learn a new song, he's like, "I can learn that solo quickly." To me, that defeats the purpose of playing. I would HATE playing if I thought I needed to memorize what other people did all of the time. I certainly see it's place, but more as a learning tool rather than an entire approach to playing.

Grisman seems to lean this way, and I've heard him describe his early playign as such. When he was in Old and in the Way, as he put it, he was a perfectionist, and was forced to approach playign music in a different way because of Garcia and Vassar.

[tkdboyd]

I have the same problem as your banjo player. If I can't adapt the dozen or so Monroesque licks or the few fiddle tune type arpeggios I am comfortable with, I'll have to pass up a break or destroy the poor tune if I hadn't heard it or memorized it. I am just not that adaptable or tasteful especially simple melodies, two chord tunes are killers for me. I am a product of the eighties long hair, faster the fingers move the better the player mentality. I have learned late in life that quality is better than quantity, I guess at least I now know the problem, now all I have to do is fix it!

[SternART]

I'm with our German friend, MC Gitarz on this one!
And of course Mr. Peck is certainly entitled to his opinion.

[Jonathan Peck]

Thanks, it's really just that...my opinion, which doesn't really reflect Mr. Grisman's true talent or passion for the instrument. From what I've heard, Mr. Grisman is a class act. Obviously, I have a few things to learn from him.

[jmcgann]

They oughta put out 20th anniversary edition, with all the out-takes. Spacegrass.....yeeeeeaahhhhhhh!!!

THAT would be awesome. There is some unique chemistry on that album and in that era. What a classic!

[Fretbear]

It was a bad break; it wouldn't matter or even be being discussed if it wasn't on the particular project that it was on."Manzanita" is one of the finest acoustic string recordings ever made, for the perfection of it's approach, song choices and players, not to mention the absolutely stellar playing by the sidemen. If you wanted to learn any bluegrass instrument (besides banjo) that recording alone could serve as a primer for how they can (and some would say) should be played. I don't believe that even Tony could have had any idea what an important recording it was going to be. He was done with J.D., done with Dawg, and he throws down with the best players that he knows and leaves off the banjo. Over the years, if I ever started to think that I should give up trying to learn how to play, that recording alone would not allow me to quit.
"If he can't go to heaven, honey, I don't want to go, son......"
"Me and My Guitar"

[AlanN]

If it was so bad, don't you think T would have axed it? Or Grisman re-do it?