This week's tune will be Salt Creek (aka Salt River) I don't play this tune, but here are some search results: Mandozine TabEdit Files Salt River/Salt Creek AllTabs Salt Creek Mel Bay's Mandolin Sessions ~ Wendy Anthony Here's a video of Sierra Hull & Ryan Holladay doing Salt Creek a couple of years ago (talk about setting the bar high!) That ought to be enough info to get ya'll started!
Yes, and everyone has to be that perky when they play it too.
Finally something that I know! I will probably record a video sometime today.
I love it when you post videos with the tune links, Barb. Hearing (and seeing) the tunes performed gives a real leg up to looking at the scores. Thanks for making it easy on us all! One of the cool things about this tune is there are a bunch of different pickers' transcriptions. I started working on some of the TabEdit versions last night -- guessing this would be the tune -- but I think Wendy Anthony's version (link above) is pretty close to what my fingers seem to want to play. Note the third-position fingering in measures 1 and 2 and 5 and 6 of the B part.
Here's another great video, it's on flatpicking with the guitar, but I believe we can learn from all kinds of sources! and another.... don't these awesome youngsters put us oldies to shame! And here's a pretty good one that is instructional on the mandolin!
A home-made video of the A Team playing this tune. Sam Bush on the mandolin.
Sam making good use of his repeating riff from Big Sciota again there.
I've always considered the Blake and Rice (and Doc) version from their second duo album to be the definitive version of Salt Creek. I don't think I've ever learned it on mandolin because it's so much a guitar tune for me. For those who don't know it, first, go out and buy/download the album right now, and in the meantime listen to this. There's no actual video, just a slide show, but this is the track:
You don't get any better than Tony Rice and Norman Blake. Or Norman Blake and Tony Rice. As I understand it, this is a fiddle tune. Bill Monroe made one of the early recordings of it, and the label changed the name from Salt River to Salt Creek because his previous release was Big Sandy River and the marketing people didn't want another River. I don't have a recording of Bill, but that would be interesting to hear. (No luck on iTunes or YouTube.) There is a TabEdit transcript of his version, and it's pretty much all there. There's speculation that this tune and Red Haired Boy may have sprung from the same well.
Recorded last year (maybe I'll do it again this week)
Finding the stories about these tunes can be an interesting journey in themselves. Here's some other info on Salt River/Creek found at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...eed+13035a36)) Notes "Salt River" probably refers to the river of that name in Kentucky. Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys recorded this fiddle tune in 1964 under the title "Salt Creek" (Decca 31596), modifying the original name in honor of the creek in Indiana near where Monroe held his annual Bean Blossom Festival. Monroe's banjoist, Bill Keith, apparently got the tune originally from West Virginia banjoist Don Stover. The Monroe recording has given the tune a new lease on life on the bluegrass circuit. Henry Reed's set is melodically fairly simple, suggesting the possibility that the tune was usually played as a banjo tune. He begins on the high strain, as does Hobart Smith of Saltville, Virginia, in a 1956 recording called "The Pateroller Song" (on "Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians", Tradition TLP 1007) that sounds similar. The tune's distribution seems to have been limited to Virginia and West Virginia before its bluegrass diffusion in the later decades of the twentieth century. See additional discussion and citations under "Muddy Roads" in "The Hammons Family" (Library of Congress, AFS L65-66). As a tune, "Salt River" is a scion of the large family of tunes best represented by the Irish and American reel "Paddy on the Turnpike" (see Bayard, "Hill Country Tunes", #31 for comparative references).
Kenneth, that was fantastic! I like the effect of the hammer-ons you added.
Here is my rough attempt. After playing all day my fingers are about to fall off.
Hendrix2 - I love the hammer-ons! So clean! NICE! Here's mine. http://vimeo.com/5338533
I've been playing Salt Creek some so I can offer up attempt at this tune. Please note: Any mistakes are inserted at the musicians discretion. Terry
"Any mistakes are inserted at the musicians discretion." HAHA!! I need to put that after every one of my songs! Good job!
my "mistakes" are improvisation. And any extra strings struck are just crosspicking.
ha nice! Just call it crosspicking when you mess up!
Here's my version of Salt Creek. It's full of mistakes but it's hot today and I'm tired of re-recording it. Those are my excuses and I'm sticking to them, literally. It doesn't sound quite right on a Celtic mandolin does it? I think I'm feeling a MAS attack coming on.
That's outstanding Dave nothing wrong with that one. You do a masterful job on the B part!
David, I agree, sounds great!
Wonderful, David. I'm really enjoying the sound you get out of the Sobell and wishing I had one. Good to see I'm not the only one who can't sit still while I play. Your music room looks awesome too.
david - still looking for those mistakes ... i'll be sure to let you know ... do you play all the instruments? mega complimenti!
I'm really enjoying playing this tune! It cries out for some jazzy riffage, but I'll probably post a straight-ahead version and continue to work on it. I've downloaded Norman Blake's guitar version and a several live versions with Tony Rice, Doc Watson, Blake, etc., having at it. (Go to http://sugarmegs.org/ and search for "salt creek".) The Thile TabEdit transcript has some spacey stuff in it, but nothing I can cope with at this point. If anybody has any music or tab that's particularly wild, please post. This is so fun!!! Let's see some more posts! David: Do you have the old Fretboard issue with the Sobell interview? I found mine during a bout of weekend cleaning. I'd be happy to send it to you, if you don't have it.
Thanks to all for the kind comments. Bill, yes I'm playing all the instruments, actually just two, guitar & bass. There's something about American tunes that cries out for backup. Mike, the Sobell interview would be very cool. Thanks.
Tune under construction. Slow for gin zone.
removed video ... too embarrassing ...
compliments to those who posted previously - mega-respect in particular to those who take it slow and sure and avoid flubs. i keep telling myself "slow-slow, clean-clean" but just don't have the patience to keep it up.
Mike, nice improv. I like those B parts especially, and I wouldn't exactly call that slow.
Good picking Mike. If you're still interested in tab for wild versions of this, I've just posted my transcription of Adam Steffey's break on the "Mountain Tradition" CD on my blog http://mandoliniana.blogspot.com/. You can also hear the track here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYrzDfO3zRI
Hey, Bill, I watched it before you removed it... I wouldn't call it embarrassing at all! I liked it!
Bill, I saw it as well and I liked it too. We're not all cookie cutters here, a unique approach is always welcome from my perspective.
Bring it back, Bill. We want it back. Well, unless you have an even better one.
Bill ... dang! I really liked your video. You have a great sense of pulse and a sweet-sounding mandolin. Bring it back, please!
thank you (red-faced smiley symbol) ... but my next attempt will have more salt in it and less creak ...
... more ffcp and less fflub:
Bill, that was SA-WEET! Great job!
Nicely done, Bill! Great groove.
Bill... awesome.. but I miss your face!
Fair enough Bill, that was a lot better actually. Much more danceable
grazie, guys ... wish we were all sitting on the same front porch with plenty of iced liquid refreshment and a nice cool breeze ...
Nice bounce to your version, Bill. Here's three versions: the first time through is what I worked up from slowing down Monroe's playing on Salt Creek and trying to figure it out. It's not a perfect transcription by any means, but it's got a lot of how he played it. The second version is my Monroe-ized version for when someone kicks it off too fast at a jam. I leave out a bunch of notes and slide through things whenever I can. The third version shows what the second version sounds like sped up.
Excellent Don, what a great Monroe-style sound, and thanks for doing it at different speeds it's really helpful.
Most excellent, Don. You should have five blue stars on your shirt.
don - i agree, more stars on your shirt! thank you for the demonstration - my toes were tapping for the first two versions but were stilled into static submission for the third. playing fast - alà bluegrass - has mega kudos (i can imagine the whoops and hollers a performance of this quality - and speed - and accuracy ... mamma mia!! - might solicit from BG fans) ... but toes is all i knows.
Here we go then. This is not the Adam Steffey version I mentioned earlier, this is in my own, er, style.
Mighty fine, O.S. One tune, many different fine interpretations -- fast, slow, Celtic, blue grassy, Monroe-style. A veritable banquet of mandolin stylings! More, please!
Great playing OS. Yes, indeed, keep them coming.
Once again I really enjoyed your video Don. 5 stars! I'm big on Monroe and you definitely got that feel. Very nice!
Finally, here's my Salt Creek, an error or two, definately NOT Monroe-esque!