Sorry the practice blog is getting a little stale. Not because I haven't been playing (I have!) but just not recording lately. I'll be recreating on a sunny beach on Vieques (little island off coast of Puerto Rico) for a couple of weeks. New posts to follow directly!
Don
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
The First Whippoorwill
The next one is from Mike Compton too. It's a Bill Monroe tune, The First Whippoorwill. I think it was originally done in G# but with the mandolin tuned to play in standard intervals.
I included two versions of this, one pretty slow and one a little faster.
The song has some very characteristic Monroe's moves. Like the slides from Bb to B and the pull offs from F to E. Lot's of good material to work into my vocabulary here.
I included two versions of this, one pretty slow and one a little faster.
The song has some very characteristic Monroe's moves. Like the slides from Bb to B and the pull offs from F to E. Lot's of good material to work into my vocabulary here.
Lessons with Mike Compton
Back in the Fall of 2007 I started taking online lessons from Mike Compton. Anyone who is on my practice blog probably knows Mike already - but just in case. Mike is one of the best Monroe style mandolin players in the world. He's also great at teaching this style of playing. So don't let my mediocrity fool you - Mike is the real deal and can really teach.
This first video is one of the first things I picked up from Mike. It's the solo to Blue Yodel #4. Bill Monroe plays this tune lightening fast. I offer it here at (much) more modest speeds. I included two version here, one slow and one medium. I don't attempt Mr. Monroe's speed.
The solo is played entirely with down strokes played near the bridge, except for the triplet phrases which are picked dud. So you get a bunch of those characteristic dud d phrases that Monroe loved so much.
This next one is Sugar Coated Love.
It's got some interesting timing in it and is also picked with down strokes except for the triplets and the tremolo.
When I first learned it, Mike told me I played it "real purdy," and that I had better stop doing that if I wanted it to sound right! He reminded me it was about love gone wrong and that Bill played it angrily with a very strong attack back at the bridge.
I've had about 6 weeks off from my lessons with Mike while he was traveling in Australia with Steve Gilchrist and Dasspunk. I suspect that would have been one helluva trip.
My lessons start back next week, so I'm working on that material again to knock the rust off before Tuesday.
This first video is one of the first things I picked up from Mike. It's the solo to Blue Yodel #4. Bill Monroe plays this tune lightening fast. I offer it here at (much) more modest speeds. I included two version here, one slow and one medium. I don't attempt Mr. Monroe's speed.
The solo is played entirely with down strokes played near the bridge, except for the triplet phrases which are picked dud. So you get a bunch of those characteristic dud d phrases that Monroe loved so much.
This next one is Sugar Coated Love.
It's got some interesting timing in it and is also picked with down strokes except for the triplets and the tremolo.
When I first learned it, Mike told me I played it "real purdy," and that I had better stop doing that if I wanted it to sound right! He reminded me it was about love gone wrong and that Bill played it angrily with a very strong attack back at the bridge.
I've had about 6 weeks off from my lessons with Mike while he was traveling in Australia with Steve Gilchrist and Dasspunk. I suspect that would have been one helluva trip.
My lessons start back next week, so I'm working on that material again to knock the rust off before Tuesday.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Crosspicking Wildwood Flower
This week, our classes at the Folk School started back up. I'm taking 2 classes on Monday nights, Advanced Mandolin and Bluegrass Ensemble, both instructed by Dave Mueller. He's a great instructor and player. His regular bluegrass gig is The Grass Pack.
This week in the mando class, Dave introduced us to crosspicking. We used a version of Wildwood Flower from the Mandolin Cafe. As I understand it, crosspicking was developed by Jesse McReynolds to sound like the 3-finger banjo roll. I think it allows you to play something unaccompanied that sounds nice and full. In many cases, and in this song particularly, the melody is played on the lower notes, which ring out, while the additional two notes are put on top. The picking pattern generally is either d u u d u u d u (reverse roll) or d d u d d u d u (forward roll). There's also some interesting departures from these two used to create the correct rhythm of the melody.
Without further delay, here's my crosspicked version of Wildwood Flower.
This week in the mando class, Dave introduced us to crosspicking. We used a version of Wildwood Flower from the Mandolin Cafe. As I understand it, crosspicking was developed by Jesse McReynolds to sound like the 3-finger banjo roll. I think it allows you to play something unaccompanied that sounds nice and full. In many cases, and in this song particularly, the melody is played on the lower notes, which ring out, while the additional two notes are put on top. The picking pattern generally is either d u u d u u d u (reverse roll) or d d u d d u d u (forward roll). There's also some interesting departures from these two used to create the correct rhythm of the melody.
Without further delay, here's my crosspicked version of Wildwood Flower.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Skip Gorman Weekend
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to spend most of the weekend listening to, learning from, pickin' with and hanging out with Skip Gorman. You won't meet a nicer fellow and a really great teacher. Skip was in town the entire weekend and my friend and a fellow Folk School board member Ellen was kind enough to host Skip at her house. Being a fiddle player herself, I'm sure she had a great time hanging out with Skip and taking him out to Geoff Seitz violin/fiddle shop.
On Friday night, Skip performed a concert at the Folk School of St. Louis. It was a great show, with Skip primarily playing guitar and singing the old songs of the West. He also treated us with a few fiddle tunes. I believe he only played one mandolin song (using my '21 Gibson F2!), but it was a treat.
After the concert, about 10 of us went back to our house and shared some snacks and nice red wine (thanks to my lovely wife - the Show Me Vegan). Skip was pretty tired, so he didn't pick any tunes after the show, but we enjoyed his stories and picked a few ourselves.
Saturday morning we headed down to KDHX 88.1 for Keith Dudding's Down Yonder radio show. Keith was a gracious host and had Skip for a nice interview and several songs. Skip even managed to get in a good plug for the Folk School!
Skip then had to rush off to grab lunch and get to his fiddle workshop, which I heard was a great success. Later that evening, Skip, Ellen, and a several other friends had a nice dinner and a little pickin' back at Ellen's house. I've never been to an old time jam where I knew NONE of the songs. Between Jim Nelson, Skip, Geoff, and Mark Renard, there was an encyclopedic knowledge of the old tunes.
As nice as all that was, finally Sunday came around and we had our mandolin workshop with Skip. As I already mentioned, he's a great instructor. He likes to weave stories into the class as he taught us 3 tunes and emphasized several aspects of Bill Monroe's playing that gave it its characteristic sound.
So I'm still working on getting the other songs from the workshop in shape for recording, but here's the first installment.
This is Waltz in G, which you can find on Skip's great CD The Old Style Mandolin Volume 2 Monroesque (or at Amazon). It's a very pretty waltz that Skip learned from Bill Monroe. I understand it was never recorded by Mr. Monroe (except for maybe on a bus recording).
Skip said as soon as he heard it he knew he was going to learn it. There's a spot where the rhythm goes to the A chord and the melody stays on a G. I really like it and I hope you will too.
On Friday night, Skip performed a concert at the Folk School of St. Louis. It was a great show, with Skip primarily playing guitar and singing the old songs of the West. He also treated us with a few fiddle tunes. I believe he only played one mandolin song (using my '21 Gibson F2!), but it was a treat.
After the concert, about 10 of us went back to our house and shared some snacks and nice red wine (thanks to my lovely wife - the Show Me Vegan). Skip was pretty tired, so he didn't pick any tunes after the show, but we enjoyed his stories and picked a few ourselves.
Saturday morning we headed down to KDHX 88.1 for Keith Dudding's Down Yonder radio show. Keith was a gracious host and had Skip for a nice interview and several songs. Skip even managed to get in a good plug for the Folk School!
Skip then had to rush off to grab lunch and get to his fiddle workshop, which I heard was a great success. Later that evening, Skip, Ellen, and a several other friends had a nice dinner and a little pickin' back at Ellen's house. I've never been to an old time jam where I knew NONE of the songs. Between Jim Nelson, Skip, Geoff, and Mark Renard, there was an encyclopedic knowledge of the old tunes.
As nice as all that was, finally Sunday came around and we had our mandolin workshop with Skip. As I already mentioned, he's a great instructor. He likes to weave stories into the class as he taught us 3 tunes and emphasized several aspects of Bill Monroe's playing that gave it its characteristic sound.
So I'm still working on getting the other songs from the workshop in shape for recording, but here's the first installment.
This is Waltz in G, which you can find on Skip's great CD The Old Style Mandolin Volume 2 Monroesque (or at Amazon). It's a very pretty waltz that Skip learned from Bill Monroe. I understand it was never recorded by Mr. Monroe (except for maybe on a bus recording).
Skip said as soon as he heard it he knew he was going to learn it. There's a spot where the rhythm goes to the A chord and the melody stays on a G. I really like it and I hope you will too.
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