Brilliancy medley, sam bush's version

[Jonmiller]

I love this tune as played by a couple fellas on Utube-beautiful, I've learned the first part but so far can't grab the rest, anyone have in transcribed to notation?

[AW Meyer]

It's available on the "Sam Bush Mandolin Method" instructional DVD from Homespun. Sam slows it down and discusses the technique he uses for the descending run in the B part of the tune. The accompanying booklet includes a chart in tab and standard notation.

[theBlood]

I have a version of Sam's solo in Tabledit that someone transcribed pretty accurately. I can forward a pdf in tablature if you'd like.

The mandozine site, url: http://www.mandozine.com/home.php

Has tons of tefs that people have submitted, and many are very accurate notations of famous solos. I'm amazed that more people on the cafe forum aren't making use of those...

[ab4usa]

I believe there was a version in an old mandolin magazine. If you still need a copy let me know and I will go digging

[Peter Hackman]

Perhaps I should point out that Sam Bush recorded Brilliancy, a hornpipe in 3 sections, not Brilliancy Medley, a medley of fiddle tunes including, e.g., Bill Cheatam. You can hear the latter on YouTube, both Eck Robertson's recording and a very fine rendition by Fairport Convention.

I've seen a transcription that puzzles me. As Sam Bush knew Howdy Forrester
(his father was a friend of Roy Acuff's) I always assumed that he learned it from
Forrester, yet their versions are strikingly dissimilar in places (I transcribed Forrester's version fairly accurately in 1965, and recorded it in 1969), esp. the B part. But then, I canged four bars of that part when I forgot the original.

"Folk process" is the name people give their misunderstandings.

[Paul Kotapish]

Eck Robertson and subsequent fiddlers included a variety of punchy tunes in the "Brilliancy Medley," including the title piece and various portions of "Little Billy Wilson" (sometimes called "Old Billy Wilson"), "Brown Skin Girl" (aka "Going Down the Road"), "Drunken Billy Goat," the above-mentioned "Bill Cheatham," "Durang's Hornpipe," "Sally Goodin," "Miller's Hornpipe," and "Wake up Susie."

You can hear one of Eck Robertson's classic recordings of the medley starting with "Drunken Billy Goat" here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO2Y4KXTP70

Here's an interesting version by Dave Swarbrick and the Fairport lads © 1973.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beATl3QI2X8

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/8182

[Peter Hackman]

Ah, yes, I forgot: there are (at least) two pieces named Brilliancy. Forrester's piece is made up of sections from two traditional hornpipes, Trafalgar and Passaic. The one used by Robertson has nothing in common with that tune, except the key of A. There are two versions of it in the O'Connor-Phillips book.