Mandolin buddy Adam Paul of Houston, Texas requested recently for me to do an instructional video on incorporating octaves into mandolin soloing. The following are Parts 1 and 2 of that video. Instructional tab to come.
Pink Floyd has been one of my top bands for a very long time. Whether it be the Syd Barret era Floyd, the Rogers Waters era, or the Waters-less era, Pink Floyd is still one of my favorites. The Wall truly stands as a masterpiece within the band’s catalog and I can safely I say I learned every guitar part and solo from that album. David Gilmour, much like Clapton, has the incomparable ability to say more with less.
I arranged Goodbye Blue Sky for octave mandolin some time back. It works well for standard scale mando too. The challenge of this fairly easy piece is two fold: 1) try to achieve a ringing sound throughout to more closely achieve the open guitar string sound of the Gilmour’s playing and 2) achieve the steady “pulse” or “heartbeat” of the original. It’s steady but never rushed.
Tab is available both in TEF and PDF on THE TRANSCRIBABLE page.
Bush and Grisman: Hold On We're Strummin'
Around 5 years ago Sam Bush and David Grisman released a highly anticipated double mandolin album on Acoustic Disc entitled Hold On, We’re Strummin. By all accounts a brilliant album by two established masters of the instrument. Essential listening for the mandophile and if you don’t have it, buy it at the link I provided.
A former mandolin student asked if I would transcribe the tune Crusher and Hoss from said album. It’s a very fast paced traditional bluegrass tune with harmonized mandolins which very much captures the writing sensibilities of each mandolinist (especially Dawg in the opening tag).
I have tabbed out the first minute of the tune which is the entirety of the head. It ends where the solos come in over the A part.
Things to remember:
1) This is a twin mandolin piece that I’ve written for one mandolin. It is not exclusively Dawg’s or Sam’s part. I have used double stops to capture the twin mandolin feel, as well as choose the harmony line as the melody line where I thought that was the most distinguishable line in the tune.
2) I am not a professional transcriptionist. The tab is meant to be a guide or aide to critical listening. First listen to the tune, see what you can pick out, and use my tab to fill in blanks.
3) Listen to the tune over and over! Listen for nuance. Tab nor written sheet music can adequately explain pick attack or the lilt that Sam has in his right hand.
4) Lastly, in the B part, Sam takes the first half and Dawg the second. I’ve written this out as one connected solo. It can be a finger twister going from Sam’s fiddle phrasing to Dawg’s syncopated bop.
Enjoy!
Both of these are permanently on The Transcribable page
Crusher and Hoss PDF Crusher and Hoss TEF
The purpose of this lesson is to demonstrate the application of one of my favorite backup guitar riffs (usually heard in fingerstyle guitar, though not exclusively) to the mandolin.
It’s a fairly simple riff to understand; it’s another to do. The gist of it is that you’re creating tension by taking a major chord and making it a 7th chord. And, of course, you’re doing this within a particular bluesy rhythm.
The difficulty is 1) holding that major chord on the mandolin and doing the walk while holding that chord and 2) playing consecutive up strokes at times on the top pairs of strings.
This riff is easier to do on guitar, as it is a guitar riff. It’s a little harder on mandolin given the tension of the strings and the difficulty this causes in holding that chord sufficiently so you can do the walk on the top string. The cramped fret spacing also contributes to this difficulty. Again, it’s a guitar riff and on guitar it’s pretty easy.
Also, being from fingerstyle guitar–especially with what I associate with the Lightin’ Hopkins school of thumb/index finger style of playing, the top notes of the chord are played with an upstroke. The bass notes (here, the G and D strings) are played with a downstroke; the treble notes of the chord (on the A and E strings) are played with an upstroke. In the Hopkins style, thumb is the down and finger is up. Yank Rachell played guitar this way and you could hear that influence in his mandolin picking as he favored upstrokes.
Tablature is on The Transcribable page. Here’s the YouTube demo:
