Peter Hackman
Nov-01-2007, 7:10am
My second installment in the nostalgia series is included here mainly for philosophical reasons. I recall that we felt compelled to include a couple of fast standards. One such tune would be Shucking the Corn, on which I usually played five or six improvised choruses, and one I didn't really like. There were others like it. Key of G; fast, no time to think or shape my ideas.
However I CANNOT recall ever doing Foggy Mt. Breakdown - we deserve credit for that !!!!!!
And, as a mandolin player I had to play this one. It's one of 5 or 6 Monroe numbers that I play and I do like it, and it's probably the only 160 bpm tune I would attempt today for reasons of age (63) and maturity (let's call it that).
What would my mythical band, the Amazing Slowdowners, do with it?
What do YOU do with it (good question, that's the point of my post). Do we need it at all?
This is March 1969. Monroe's version was issued on LP in 1965
and I heard it in 1966 before I really got started on mandolin (I'm not sure when I began but I got serious about it in late 67 or early 68).
Records were the only source we had in those days, at least in Europe.
My attitude then as now was by all means do your own thing on a tune but know it first. I wonder how many mando players in those days
who, like me, slowed down their turntables to half speed to capture every single note (and a few more) and perhaps a few (very few in my case) of the nuances.
The mandolin is my twopoint blonde Levin Aristokrat, set up low, which accounts for at least some of the differences in sound and feeling
from the original.
Apparently my idea was to play the first A part straight both times, and improvise my variations on the second part, both times. I would probably do it that way today (but wilder on the ad lib A sections) but I would never, given my expanded knowledge in harmony play the B part the same way twice. I would inevitably spice the reprise with jazzier notes and figures.
This is a "rhythm bridge" mind you!
http://www.huthyfs.com/music/rawhide.mp3
However I CANNOT recall ever doing Foggy Mt. Breakdown - we deserve credit for that !!!!!!
And, as a mandolin player I had to play this one. It's one of 5 or 6 Monroe numbers that I play and I do like it, and it's probably the only 160 bpm tune I would attempt today for reasons of age (63) and maturity (let's call it that).
What would my mythical band, the Amazing Slowdowners, do with it?
What do YOU do with it (good question, that's the point of my post). Do we need it at all?
This is March 1969. Monroe's version was issued on LP in 1965
and I heard it in 1966 before I really got started on mandolin (I'm not sure when I began but I got serious about it in late 67 or early 68).
Records were the only source we had in those days, at least in Europe.
My attitude then as now was by all means do your own thing on a tune but know it first. I wonder how many mando players in those days
who, like me, slowed down their turntables to half speed to capture every single note (and a few more) and perhaps a few (very few in my case) of the nuances.
The mandolin is my twopoint blonde Levin Aristokrat, set up low, which accounts for at least some of the differences in sound and feeling
from the original.
Apparently my idea was to play the first A part straight both times, and improvise my variations on the second part, both times. I would probably do it that way today (but wilder on the ad lib A sections) but I would never, given my expanded knowledge in harmony play the B part the same way twice. I would inevitably spice the reprise with jazzier notes and figures.
This is a "rhythm bridge" mind you!
http://www.huthyfs.com/music/rawhide.mp3