E.M.D. (Grisman)

[Larry S Sherman]

I've been learning E.M.D. from Don Julin in my mando lessons. It's a cool song to play. I'm not quite up to speed yet, but on my way.

I found this video and thought I'd share:

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Larry

[Jim Garber]

Is that from around the mid 1980s? The era Dawg was playing a Monteleone GA?

[Larry S Sherman]

Certainly is the Grand Artist. Not sure of the year.

Larry

[Marty Henrickson]

Definitely looks like mid-eighties-ish Tony there.

[Steve-o]

Cool stuff Larry. E.M.D. is one of the Holy Grail mandolin tunes in my opinion. I've seen Don play bits of it, but I don't have the chops to attempt it myself yet. Someday. By "not quite up to speed yet," are you shooting for matching Dawg's tempo?

[SternART]

I've been playing what I call my puppy Dawg , or slightly slower version for years.
It is hard to even play the chords at the tempo the DGQ plays it, but it is a fun tune to
jam on........at any speed. There is a good transcription, notation & tab, of the head & a
solo in the Tabledit files on Mandozine, transcribed by Mike Stangland several years ago.

[Larry S Sherman]

By "not quite up to speed yet," are you shooting for matching Dawg's tempo?

Right now my goal is Don Julin's tempo. If I can get there I'll see if Dawg is any faster. :)

Here's a 1981 E.M.D.:

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And the Doc n' Dawg version:

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Larry

[Ivan Kelsall]

As a rider to this thread & seeing that Dave Grisman is playing a Monteleone Mandolin in the OP's post YouTube clip,does DG still own that Monteleone ?. I ask because a a UK Bluegrass Festival many years back,an English Mandolin player turned up with a Monteleone Mandolin that he said had once belonged to DG.Maybe DG has owned more than one Monteleone instrument ?.I can only say that even though i wasn't playing Mandolin back then,having seen many trad.Gibson style ones,i thought that the styling of the Monteleone was stunning - i still do,
Ivan

[SternART]

Grisman is good friends with John Monteleone......in fact they collaborated on the Kentucky Dawg series of mandolins, built back in this late 70's- early 80's era ........that are a Japanese built version of the Monteleone Grand Artist, built by Sumi....... a luthier still working today, building instruments in his own name.

Monteleone told me that David had a recent NY duet concert with Martin Taylor, and if I'm not mistaken brought the Grand Artist he played & was featured on the cover of the "Quintet 80" album to play.......and John had a Monteleone "Radio Flyer" that he also played that night.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Thanks for the info.Arthur. It must be 'maybe' 22to 25 years since i saw the 'Monteleone' Mandolin over here,hence the question.
I've heard of the Kentucky "Dawg" model Mandolin,but until a minute ago (see pic.) never seen one. Not being a Mandolin player when i saw what i believed to be a 'Monteleone' over here,i'm now wondering if it could have in fact been a Kentucky Dawg model,which i now recognise as having the 'Monteleone' styling. I must admit that i can't remember even looking for a name on the Mandolin i saw back then - i was too interested in the shape,& possibly it could have been a Kentucky Mandolin 'once owned' by DG,
Ivan 77052

[Scotti Adams]

Looks like hes playing the KY Dawg model in the first clip

[Chris Biorkman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDE-Kzc6Ezg

Here's one of Andy Leftwich playing EMD.

[AlanN]

A modern day masterpiece, for certain, from <gulp!> 30 some-odd years ago. Has been embraced by the younger set. I am actually sick of it, although I never tire of the original. 1, 2, 3, 4....

[SternART]

I saw the premier of a movie on the legacy of Ali Akbar Kahn, the incredible sarod player & teacher.......this was at the Mill Valley Film Festival last night, near where his school of music is located. The film talks about, how after his death, his son is now carrying the torch, & has appearances by Carlos Santana, Mickey Hart, Butch Trucks, among others who found inspiration in his music. One quote really struck me and relates to Grisman tunes like EMD or 16-16. The Indian Raga is a tonal framework for composition and improvisation, the way the notes are rendered in musical phrases and the mood they convey are even more important in defining a raga than the notes themselves. The quote was something like this......."a very good player could play the melody & improvisations in two minutes, where a true master could stretch it out to two hours."

These tunes Grisman has written IMO are like this, they are modal platforms for improvisation, and in the hands of masters have potential for endless variations. For example, I got some new ideas watching Andy Leftwich playing it in the video above. Now when I first started to blow over the changes, not that I'm an expert now....hardly so, but I thought stuff like.........lets see what works, Eminor is the relative minor to G, so I tried my G licks........hmmmm some of this stuff works nicely. Lets try some Pentatonic scales.......hmmm interesting. As I delved deeper into the repeating Eminor to C.......or a more harmonically complex Eminor 7th to C 9th change...... which is the basis of the tune except for the turn around....... I found that one note could change the chord from one to the other. 4-2-5-x to 3-2-5-x. That got me thinking in a different way. Deconstructing the chord tones, and then looking at some Dawg solos showed me other areas on the fingerboard to play the melody, and the how relationships of surrounding notes changed. Then I tried connecting parts of the melody in the different positions. Just one tune like this can be a tool to learning the fingerboard, and the more I learn, I can see how in the hands of improvising masters EMD is much like an Indian Raga.....an exploration of a modal melody. Then you have the turn around or connecting chords A7th, C7th, B7th.......I looked at what might go over that to bring the cycle home. Another aspect is the rhythmic groove.....an area where Grisman excels and is part of the complexity and excitement of Dawg Music, different tunes have different rhythms, and to get the groove right I studied different rhythm chord patterns David used. Now I thought about getting the melody in scync with the chordal rhythm, and looked at how that worked. I've found endless hours of study & enjoyment from this tune. Watching the DGQ closely over the years, and that first album, tunes like this are what first inspired me to try to play the mandolin.

I'd be interested to hear from some more experienced players to see how they think when improvising over a tune like EMD. I guess in the end after you learn the ideas, you just need to forget it all and be in the moment.......

Like AlanN says..........a modern day masterpiece!

[Eliot Greenspan]

I love Leftwich's mandolin playing (apparently he's ok on fiddle, to). Very clean and excellent tone. The transcriptions of his Big Mon and Salt Creek solos on Mandozine are filled w/ some great ideas and approaches...

[Don Julin]

Art, great comments! As far as speed is concerned, the title E.M.D. does stand for Eat My Dust and seems to be intended to be played fast. But as with most good compositions, it can be played in a variety of tempos and grooves. I also see this as an improvisational piece (once you can play the melody well) and one suited well to the bluegrass musician looking to stretch out a bit. I have been showing this tune to some of my students as a demonstration of great syncopation used in the melody. Yes a true modern day classic mandolin tune.

[coletrickle]

I love the fast versions, but I also love the slow bluesy version on the third DGQ 20 Year Retrospective disc. Much different feel to it.

[Paul Kotapish]

A quick note on the title. "E.M.D." does indeed stand for Eat My Dust, and it was the theme music for a really bad, very early post-Opie-Taylor Ron Howard film by the same name. Grisman provided the sound track, which was pretty cool throughout, but it's not much of a movie. You can still find it in various formats in the bargain bins, sometimes paired with Grand Theft Auto.

http://www.moviegoods.com/Assets/product_images/1020/233630.1020.A.jpg

[AlanN]

I actually think I watched part of that movie (hard to get through the whole thing), just to catch the tunes. It also had Opus 12 or 23(?) in it, that tune in E Major.

[Marty Henrickson]

That's weird, I always thought it stood for "E Minor, Dawg"! :))

[mandopete]

Wow, that version by Andy Leftwich above is clear off the chart!!! I really like what he does with the melody on his first break.

Years ago I heard Grisman and Matt Eakle doing a nice, slow version of this tune at a workshop I was attending. It's fun to play at any tempo!

[Marty Henrickson]

I finally got around to watching the Leftwich clip, and "Wow", indeed! I really like the liquid tone he gets up the neck at the 2:40 mark.

On a side note, I recognize Jason Bailey (from Birmingham) on the other mandolin, who's the goth playing guitar?

[SternART]

In a previous version of the DGQ, in their live show...... they used to start EMD with Jim Kerwin playing solo bass at a moderate pace, then Joe Craven would join him, sometimes doing percussion on the bass before heading to his drum kit, while Jim kept playing it, followed by Enrique Corea, then Matt Eakle, all setting a moderate groove. They would introduce Grisman & when he stepped up to the mic, they would kick it to full speed. Very effective & theatrical entrance.......two grooves in one.

[greg_tsam]

Dig the emo guitar player. Solid. Nice vid of Leftwich. Love Grisman. Love EMD.

[cmmang]

As this thread started with a comment regarding Don Julin, I thought I would mention that Acoustic Oasis http://acousticoasis.com has just released Don's CD, "TRACTOR"
as a digital download....check it out at http://acousticoasis.com/guest.html