This is one of my favorites this week: Crazy by Gnarles Barkley
Post some of your favorites..
This is one of my favorites this week: Crazy by Gnarles Barkley
Post some of your favorites..
I don't have any clips but one of my faves is Aint Misbehavin.
I am doing a lot of ballad type stuff, old country music ballads from Hank and Patsy. You can really get that "high lonesome" tremolo going to good effect.
I have been given the challange to learn Nola on the mandolin.
Here it is on guitar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTZpCD5QRsk
Now doesn't that sound like something that would work on the mandolin just beautifully???
I found some piano sheet music on it, and I am just starting to wade in. It gets pretty deep pretty fast.
If anyone here does Nola on the mandolin, and would care to impart some advice, I am all ears.
Amazing, I was just listening to Les Paul & Mary Ford today! (My dream gig would be to accompany a beauty like Mary Ford on the mandolin!!) I would love to play this tune! My approach will be to steal...uh I mean be inspired by Les' version. They sell a book with his version in it I believe. I will be very curious to hear how it goes for you!!
I've also been working up "Nola" off the original piano sheet music (for about 4 years!). It's doable, but quite a challenge to play to perfection. My goal is to get it videoed yet this year.
The piano version really fits the mandolin fretboard well, but of course, you have to leave out the left hand bass parts.
Jethro's version of "Nola" is a killer!
"I wrote a song called 'Tea For One' and it didn't do well at all until a feller came along and added another one to it." - Jethro Burns
My suggestion is less ambitious. I have Neil Gladd to thank for the heads up on the passing of Blossom Dearie on February 7th 2009. I heard the tune to Figure 8 used in the movie The Squid and the Whale and knew it would be great on the mandolin. The song is by Bob Dorough. I grew up with the Schoolhouse Rock PSAs on Saturday morning. The opening melody to Figure 8 was always a faovrite. I also loved Blossom Dearie's voice in this one too.
Figure 8.
Jamie
Last edited by JEStanek; Feb-09-2009 at 9:32am. Reason: wrong movie title!
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. Logan Pearsall Smith, 1865 - 1946
+ Give Blood, Save a Life +
I dig that Gnarles mando version.
Bob Dorough, the cat who sang Blue Xmas with Miles Davis cool jazz behind.
I have recently been playing Sonny Rollin's "St Thomas".
MWN noted out St. Thomas across 2 issues, melody and harmony. The bridge has nice m7b5 voicings.
There are a couple of versions (violin solo part, fake-book with chords) on Jim Garber's
19 the century tunes page/
David Westwick.
Maybe a little Barry Manilow, with proper dose of swing on the Arrow Jazzbo:
Could it Be Magic
Most of the Beatles' catalogue is very mando friendly.... On the other end of the spectrum, I did work up an instrumental version of AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" on my mandocello. Not only is it fun to do that sort of stuff, but working up tunes like that really gets your mind thinking mando-differently, and many times you can learn new things that can be applied to your primary style of playing. Not really a news flash, but just a reminder...
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
That great old ballad Two Sleepy People. Nifty chord progression and a fun, lilting melody. IMHO
How about some Zappa?
Valley Road Bluegrass Band
www.valleyroadbluegrass.com
In my youth Frank Zappa was almost half of all the music I would listen to. There were couple of Zappa-esque effects I could pull off on my mandolin, but nothing seriously musical.
I had a cool thing I did with a cut off his album Sheik Yerbouti, (his song about broken hearts and what they're for). I had this cool sort of chord progression over which I would recite the title of the song.
Ah well. I don't take the irreverence as well as I used to, and I have to admit I miss that.
One of the nicest "non-mandolin" songs I've heard is Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust.
Jethro's Nola is a great one but it's tough to learn as I've found out.
OTW
Just a report from the field.
I am making some good progress on Nola. I played the guitar version in the background a lot till I got a Nola ear worm.
Then I was able to recite the rythm. dididih dit didahdi dahdi, dididih dahdi dididih dididit (SERN SNSS in morse code in case you really need to know.)
Now I can get through the first page, the main theme, in time, and even with a little bounce and verve.
I have been ignoring the bass clef (from the piano music) unless the melody is there, in which case I raise it an octave. That is my approach for now, once I get it the tune under my fingers I will think of something more interesting to do with it.
i don't think a single one of the tunes i play was conceived for the mandolin, except a few of my originals. a while back i wanted to work up "only you" in the key of Eb, which is the key the platters use. but it's too slow, so in true bebop fashion i worked up a rhythmic original over the same changes.
right now i can do it on the guitar, but as it sits in my vocal range it's really too low. a rule of the thumb is, on mandolin, play one octave higher, on guitar, a 4th or a 5th higher. i hope to learn it on the mando, only trouble is a few figures don't sit as neatly there as on the guitar.
as for other people's tunes, the latest one is "slow poke" by chilton price, a very weel structured song. i learned it from pee wee king's band on youtube, in the key of G. as i would sing it in Bb, i've moved it up there; that key also allows for a couple of nice three note chords towards the end. the melody extends the chords in several places; where the chords are basically Bb to G7 it really comes out like dm7 to bmin7b5 (or G9) on the 3 lower courses of the
mando. seems to be a very good piece to blow on.
for exercise i would like more pieces in Ab (for some reason, the key furthest out, six sharps or flats, is more comfortable). i have a collection of transcribed jazz trumpet solos that seem to be in a perfect range for the mandolin. not that i enjoy transposing (the notation is for Bb instruments) but they look useful.
i used to play nola; but right now i have too many tunes in D.
I personally really like Caravan; ala Grisman on his Early Dawg album. It is not too hard to figure out.
I personally like the song Caravan; ala Grisman on the Early Dawg album. It is not too hard to figure out especially considering that I did it.
....but not the edit button? j/k
Valley Road Bluegrass Band
www.valleyroadbluegrass.com
Come to think of it, that is a good point. Most everything I play was originally played on something other than the mandolin. All the fiddle tunes and old timey stuff, the waltzes, all of it - I can think of nothing written for the mandolin.
Oh wait, the tune "Far Away", a waltz in The Waltz Book collected by Bill Mattiesen, I think it was written originally for a mandolin.
Other than that I have a hard time thinking of anyh.
Bookmarks