Clementine

[Mike Buesseler]

I've been playing around with some VERY simple tunes lately, trying to learn to embellish tunes in general. #It seems to be more effective for me to start with a *really* simple tune (like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, or Darling Clementine), that I know really well and go from there, as opposed to taking a more complex tune that I first have to learn, and then try to embellish....

Anyway, I shamelessly just uploaded this almost dopey arrangement of Darling Clementine to the Misc Musings file. # I wrote the tune and the harmony this morning, learned them both, recorded them, etc, etc, and posted it just a few minutes ago. #So, it is, shall we say, UNpolished?

I was hoping others might find working with such a simple tune as fun as I did, and submit some other versions, partly as inspiration for me, partly just to try my idea out.

Does this interest anyone?

[Mike Buesseler]

Does this interest anyone?

Ummm...apparently not. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Phantoj]

Haven't listened to it yet, but I think it's cool.

:cool:

[Mike Buesseler]

Ok, Phantoj, how about whipping out a version? http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Phantoj]

Maybe.

One caveat - the reality provided by recording myself stuns me back into the realization of what a poor musician I am.

I worked up a passable Bill Cheatham last weekend... 174 bpm tempo, only a handful of obvious mistakes... still not really good enough to post, though.

[Phantoj]

I listened to the Clem duet. Sounded really nice. I thought the harmonized part was really slick. Creative.

How did you do that? Did you sit down and think, "okay this melody note needs to be played over this harmony note to suggest this chord..."?

I'm impressed.

[psann]

Where is Clementine? I went to http://www.mandolinproject.150m.com/ and found 31 files in the miscellaneous musings, the latest one being 9/6. Am I missing a second page somewhere? I did hit refressh.

[Mike Buesseler]

Thanks, Phantoj. This was definitely NOT a showcase thing. I played the tune the way I remember it...with some flourishes, I guess. Writing harmony is not especially hard. I got lots of practice writing all the tunes in the Duets tab section here at the Cafe. I learned just about all I know from Niles Hokkanen's Twin Mandolin book.

I'm just not all that creative when it comes to embellishing tunes, so I thought I'd see what other folks would do with so simple a tune. I'm still waiting.

I guess Craig hasn't moved that file into the Misc Musings page yet. It's still on the upload files page....

[psann]

Found it. Thanks. Very well done.

[Kelly_guy]

Yeah, MikeB, that was great. I think I need to do the same, go back to really basic tunes and see if I can improvise over those melodies. I think I'm picking songs that are way too complicated, so far.

Very clean sound you've got, too.