Week #9 ~ Salt Creek

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  1. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    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!
  2. OldSausage
    OldSausage
    Yes, and everyone has to be that perky when they play it too.
  3. KyleBerry
    KyleBerry
    Finally something that I know! I will probably record a video sometime today.
  4. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    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.
  5. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    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!

  6. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    A home-made video of the A Team playing this tune. Sam Bush on the mandolin.

  7. OldSausage
    OldSausage
    Sam making good use of his repeating riff from Big Sciota again there.
  8. Ken_P
    Ken_P
    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:

  9. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    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.
  10. hendrix2
    hendrix2


    Recorded last year (maybe I'll do it again this week)
  11. Joe Nobiling
    Joe Nobiling
    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).
  12. Tracy Ballinger
    Tracy Ballinger
    Kenneth, that was fantastic! I like the effect of the hammer-ons you added.
  13. KyleBerry
    KyleBerry
    Here is my rough attempt. After playing all day my fingers are about to fall off.

  14. Chris Travers
    Chris Travers
    Hendrix2 - I love the hammer-ons! So clean! NICE!

    Here's mine. http://vimeo.com/5338533
  15. TDMpicker
    TDMpicker
    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
  16. KyleBerry
    KyleBerry
    "Any mistakes are inserted at the musicians discretion." HAHA!! I need to put that after every one of my songs! Good job!
  17. Sore Ears
    Sore Ears
    my "mistakes" are improvisation. And any extra strings struck are just crosspicking.
  18. KyleBerry
    KyleBerry
    ha nice! Just call it crosspicking when you mess up!
  19. David Hansen
    David Hansen
    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.

  20. Bernie Daniel
    Bernie Daniel
    That's outstanding Dave nothing wrong with that one. You do a masterful job on the B part!
  21. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    David, I agree, sounds great!
  22. Don Grieser
    Don Grieser
    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.
  23. billkilpatrick
    david - still looking for those mistakes ... i'll be sure to let you know ... do you play all the instruments? mega complimenti!
  24. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    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.
  25. David Hansen
    David Hansen
    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.
  26. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    Tune under construction. Slow for gin zone.

  27. billkilpatrick
    removed video ... too embarrassing ...
  28. billkilpatrick
    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.
  29. Don Grieser
    Don Grieser
    Mike, nice improv. I like those B parts especially, and I wouldn't exactly call that slow.
  30. OldSausage
    OldSausage
    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
  31. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    Hey, Bill, I watched it before you removed it... I wouldn't call it embarrassing at all! I liked it!
  32. David Hansen
    David Hansen
    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.
  33. OldSausage
    OldSausage
    Bring it back, Bill. We want it back. Well, unless you have an even better one.
  34. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    Bill ... dang! I really liked your video. You have a great sense of pulse and a sweet-sounding mandolin. Bring it back, please!
  35. billkilpatrick
    thank you (red-faced smiley symbol) ... but my next attempt will have more salt in it and less creak ...
  36. billkilpatrick
    ... more ffcp and less fflub:

  37. Tracy Ballinger
    Tracy Ballinger
    Bill, that was SA-WEET! Great job!
  38. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    Nicely done, Bill! Great groove.
  39. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    Bill... awesome.. but I miss your face!
  40. OldSausage
    OldSausage
    Fair enough Bill, that was a lot better actually. Much more danceable
  41. billkilpatrick
    grazie, guys ... wish we were all sitting on the same front porch with plenty of iced liquid refreshment and a nice cool breeze ...
  42. Don Grieser
    Don Grieser
    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.

  43. OldSausage
    OldSausage
    Excellent Don, what a great Monroe-style sound, and thanks for doing it at different speeds it's really helpful.
  44. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    Most excellent, Don. You should have five blue stars on your shirt.
  45. billkilpatrick
    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.
  46. OldSausage
    OldSausage
    Here we go then. This is not the Adam Steffey version I mentioned earlier, this is in my own, er, style.

  47. Mike Romkey
    Mike Romkey
    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!
  48. Don Grieser
    Don Grieser
    Great playing OS. Yes, indeed, keep them coming.
  49. jamann
    jamann
    Once again I really enjoyed your video Don. 5 stars! I'm big on Monroe and you definitely got that feel. Very nice!
  50. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    Finally, here's my Salt Creek, an error or two, definately NOT Monroe-esque!

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