I'll Stay Around - Sam Bush solo

[lukmanohnz]

I have been focusing for many months on a handful of fiddle tunes. I realized I needed to start working on some vocal tunes as well. When studying blues guitar, I found that learning great solos helped me tremendously with expanding my musical vocabulary and overall musicality. It's not my intent to play these solos note-for-note in jams, just to help me get the feel of playing improvised single note lines that echo the chord changes so beautifully. To that end, I am starting to tab out and learn mandolin breaks from a few of my favorite bluegrass tunes. My first attempt is Sam Bush's solo from Tony Rice's rendition of I'll Stay Around (from Tony Rice Plays and Sings Bluegrass). I've attached both .pdf and .tef files of my transcription here:

I'll Stay Around - Sam Bush solo.tef

I'd welcome any feedback or suggestions on this transcription. I'd also welcome any suggestions on how I could ever hope to play a solo like this with anything approaching Sam Bush's speed and fluidity!

[Jordan Ramsey]

Hey Michael,

Fantastic job! Rather than try to give you notes about the differences that I hear, I decided to have a go at it (most of your notes are correct, but there are a few rhythm notation issues). Here's what I got:



Still a little confused about measure 16, hard to hear in the low register with all the extraneous noise, but I think it's close.

Good on you for putting in the time... the more you do this, the better you'll get. I truly believe that transcribing is one of the most important aspects of moving into that "next level" that so many musicians want to reach. Keep up the good work!

As far as playing this at 260bpm, your guess is as good as mine.

Solo @ 1:39 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsH61...feature=g-hist

[lukmanohnz]

Hey Michael,

Fantastic job! Rather than try to give you notes about the differences that I hear, I decided to have a go at it (most of your notes are correct, but there are a few rhythm notation issues).

Still a little confused about measure 16, hard to hear in the low register with all the extraneous noise, but I think it's close.

Good on you for putting in the time... the more you do this, the better you'll get. I truly believe that transcribing is one of the most important aspects of moving into that "next level" that so many musicians want to reach. Keep up the good work!

As far as playing this at 260bpm, your guess is as good as mine.

Solo @ 1:39 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsH61...feature=g-hist

Thanks for your encouraging words and for sharing you own transcription, Jordan! I'll study your version and look for those rhythmic errors you mentioned. Next up is going to be the break Sam plays on Ain't Nobody Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone from the same album. He only takes the first half of the solo before the banjo player (Bill Emerson?) comes in and finishes incinerating the mic. I'm going to take a stab at composing the second half of the solo as if Sam played it. That seems like a good challenge.

[AlanN]

Nice jobs, boys. Always nice to see how the big dogs do it.

Are you sure it's Sam? I just had a listen to the number, sounds like Brother Larry to me. I'll check the liner notes later. Regardless, good lines in oh-so-familiar G chord!

[John Gardinsky]

Thanks for sharing these.

[lukmanohnz]

Nice jobs, boys. Always nice to see how the big dogs do it.

Are you sure it's Sam? I just had a listen to the number, sounds like Brother Larry to me. I'll check the liner notes later. Regardless, good lines in oh-so-familiar G chord!

Flattered to be considered a 'big dog', Alan. I am decidedly a mandolin puppy. This is the product of slow down software and patience. And you raise a good question regarding who played that solo. Duff, Larry, Sam, and Jimmy Gaudreau are all credited as mandolinists on the album. I had assumed it was Sam, but I am sure we'll find out which of them is on that specific track very soon. If I were home now I could research it on the CD liner notes, but I am traveling for work this week and all I have is the interwebs. ( Googled it, and this discussion thread popped up in the query results... )

[lukmanohnz]

K

Flattered to be considered a 'big dog', Alan. I am decidedly a mandolin puppy. This is the product of slow down software and patience.

Well, I'm an idiot. But then, I knew that already. At least now you know that I know that I'm an idiot...

[Jordan Ramsey]

Ha! Good ear, Alan! I should have picked up on that, them hammer-on/pull-offs threw me Larry is kicking tail right there, that's pretty darn fast. I've been listening to Clouds Over Carolina lately, what a great musician! Picker, writer, singer... the whole package, sorely missed. Revised chart for posterity.

[AlanN]

Yes, Larry was the man! I have all 3 of his albums. He mixed picking with singer/songwriter stuff very effectively. Sometimes, the imagery was a bit, well..."Can't get your sweater off my mind..."

But anyway, he was very great. And his mandolin picking was tres hip, like on the first Tony Rounder record. His solos on Farewell Blues and Stoney Creek were studied, big time.

RIP, Larry.

[Bill Findley]

Thanks for sharing this. Is it done with tabledit, luk and Jordan? I wish to start tabbing out tunes and am looking for suggestions...

Thanks,

Bill

[Fretbear]

Larry Rice cast a longer shadow on bluegrass music than is immediately obvious on first glance.
I just read J.D. Crowe's autobiography, and Bobby Slone, who played bass for Crowe through thick and thin, said that the tightest crew he ever worked with was when Larry and Doyle Lawson were working with them, that professional musicians would come from all over the country to hear that band, and this was before Rounder 0044.
His brother Tony, who called Larry his hero, also said that Larry was just not cut out to be a professional musician, but I believe he was referring to all the other stuff that goes along with being a road musician, not the music itself.
His kick-off in F to "Banks of the Ohio" on Tony's solo Rounder album (The "Rattlesnake" one) is kind of perfection, it can teach one a whole lot about how to construct a great bluegrass mandolin solo.

[lukmanohnz]

Thanks for sharing this. Is it done with tabledit, luk and Jordan? I wish to start tabbing out tunes and am looking for suggestions...

Thanks,

Bill

Hi Bill - I use TablEdit. I chose this program for creating tab because of all the .tef files available online. I had downloaded the free viewer, and then at some point wanted to tab out a song for myself and searched out the full version. It seems to be the most widely used program, though that's just a guess. I know there are many others out there, but I haven't checked them out. TablEdit has a short learning curve and has all the features I would ever need to create detailed tabs. It's also very reasonably priced and extremely well supported.