This week's tune is Rocky Road to Dublin. This tune actually has lyrics, for those of you who like to sing! This is a slip jig (9/8 time signature) in A dorian. Here's a link to the lyrics & a midi song file Here is a link to this tune on www.thesession.org Here's the ABC from that site: X: 1 T: Rocky Road To Dublin, The M: 9/8 L: 1/8 R: slip jig K: Ador efe d2B ~A3|E2A A2A Bcd|efe d2B A2c|B2G G2A Bcd:| e2a a2f ~g3|e2a a2f g2d|e2a a2f g2e|d2B G2A Bcd| e2a a2f ~g3|e2a a2A Bcd|efg fga g2e|d2B G2A Bcd|| For those not familiar with this tune, when you play it the final time, you end with the first measure of the tune. In Fiddler's Fakebook, it is noted that in that first measure (and later in the tune, when a measure like that comes around again) it is optional to play the F# as an F natural. That's the way I play it, and the way I most often hear it played.
It helps if you have a voice like the mating-call of a rusty file...
Hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road and all the ways to dub a lin, Whack for all de dah.h.h.h.h.h.h!!!!
Up the Dubs!
Here's mine on my Fletcher tenor guitar with some backup on guitar, bass and concertina.
Jill, I guess you went the opposite way... The Rocky Road to Tuam... Great Craic David...
Great job, David
try again
Here's mine on my Collings MT2O mandolin & Petersen cittern
Lovely versions from both David and Barbara - well done the pair of you! And it is indeed a very rocky road to Tuam, Eddie!
Barbara and David, very nice Saturday after-breakfast concert for me. You guys make 125 bpm look so easy.
I love playing slip jigs, really, all jigs & slides! Anyway, for those who aren't used to this type of rhythm, I am an advocate of DUD picking. Here I am playing this just on my cittern, slowly. The first two times through, I'm picking all eighth notes, DUD (meaning as written, there are lots of quarter & dotted quarter notes, but I'm picking them as the appropriate number of eighth notes). The third time through, I'm picking it as written. I think I spaced out (I looked spaced out, don't I?) and played too many A parts a time or two.... but the point of this video is the picking! I believe that if you firmly get DUD in your right hand, and in your head, it makes these MUCH easier to play fast. I'm off to go watch Iowa State Women's basketball with a friend! Let's hope the snow stays away till we get home!
The cittern really suits this tune!
Played on an Eastman 815MDA Mandola.
Nice one, Eddie!
Nice playing, all. Eddie, I like the way you fill out the melody. I might have to borrow that approach.
Great job, Eddie, Here is my version from the Fiddler's Fakebook.
Nice, Manfred! Great tremolos, I'm going to have to start putting those in this tune!
Here is my take on Rocky Road: I learned this in E-Dorian on the whistle, but played this in A-dorian the last time thru, as it works even better on the mando.
Great stuff Dana!
Here is a try from me on the zouk. I played it with another tune because I learned them together like that. I got the two tunes from an album by a group called Dual featuring bouzouki player Eamonn Doorley, and his wife Julie Fowlis as well as the singer from the group Danu, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh. I wish I could sing like Luke Kelly... haha (but I don't, so I don't sing! ) It would take me a lifetime of whiskey drinking to sound like that
Kyle, Very nicely played! I don't usually like the octaves on the lower courses (at least when I play them), but you make it work well.
Mandfred, I agree about the tremolos. You have the timing perfect for jigs. BTW, are you multi-tracking the backup? What are you using? I see a Zoom H2 in the foreground; which track/tracks are you using that for?
well played there, Kyle!
CelticDude, Thanks for your kind words regarding my tremolo. Before I started playing the mandolin about 3 1/2 years ago I didn't know anything about ITM, jigs, reels, etc. I only had a Dubliners CD and had seen them live. I first encountered these fast tremolos in Dan Gelo's book/CD 'Fiddle Tunes & Irish Music for Mandolin' and have practiced some of the tunes in this book. No, I am not multi-tracking the back-up. I use Band-in-a-Box to play the back-up through my PC speakers. I use the Zoom H2 as a microphone (through USB) for my webcam (Logitech) recording software, which enhances the sound considerably as compared to the webcam's microphone. I often use BIAB as a practice tool instead of a metronome. I just enter the chords of the tune (2-3 minutes) and select a style. However, there are only very few 9/8 and other 'odd' styles available. Manfred
Barb, Could you elaborate more on the DUD picking? I assume that means Down,Up, Down. Thanks in advance. Dave
Dave, you should go on the regular message board and do a search on DUD pick direction for jigs, and you'll have DAYS of reading material! Yes, it means down up down. Those who advocate it believe that this picking pattern gives jigs the lilt that a 6/8 (jig) 9/8 (slip jig) or 12/8 (slide) time signature indicate. It helps to visualize this, if you can read standard notation. Let's say you are playing a jig (6/8) and we're dealing with a section that the measure contains 6 eighth notes; you'd pick that measure DUD DUD. If you are counting, then the down strokes are one counts 1, 3, 4 & 6. The up strokes are on counts 2 & 5. Most tunes aren't straight eighth note jigs, many measures will have a quarter note, then an eighth note, then three eighth notes. Those measures the count is 1 (2) 3 4 5 6. But, keep your hand going in the DUD DUD pattern, just don't pick that 2nd count, which means you pick that measure D D DUD. The most important part of this, is that the jig has two major down beats, on count 1 & 4. So, it's important that those beats are down strokes. Many people play jigs DDU DDU, which, once it gets going, is hard to tell a difference... you still have 2 downstrokes in a row, and count 1 & 4 are still down strokes. The main thing is that if you are used to picking 4/4 time in alternate picking DU DU DU DU, and you pick a jig DUD UDU, well, it's still doable (and a lot of people do it that way), BUT, you are picking count 4 as an upstroke, and it really does make a difference. Hope this makes sense!
Thanks Barb, When I get home today I'll start practicing. I've been playing these tunes DU DU DU etc so I can see where DUD DUD would make a difference.
Rocky Road to Dublin TEF file. http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/at...1&d=1266499588 Michael
We obviously don't have a limit on the number of videos you can submit of the same tune! Here this tune is again, played something like 5 times through (someone commented on YouTube my video was too short!), this time played on my Collings MT2O mandolin, with my Petersen octave mandolin also playing some melody, and the rhythm track. I think I'm getting a little better with the rhythm playing....
Played on a 1924 Bacon B tenor banjo - 17 fret. My first TB tune in a long while - I had a hit-and-miss experience with a Gretsch TB about a year ago...
Lovely TB you've got there! I do love them!
I love how "clean" you pick this one Barbara. I'm still working on cleaning it up. I actually got three tunes recorded last evening . . . this, Morrison's Jig and John Ryan's Polka (which I haven't had time to post yet). That's a record for me!
Martin those hammer-ons are so cool you can make a salmon keep a month outside the fridge with them. Nice doublestops on the B part, too. Way to go.
Thanks Bertram. I use HO's a lot because my pickin' hand is too freakin' slow.
On my new tenor banjo!
Still on the theme of trips, here’s another one. The Rocky Road To Dublin https://youtu.be/R0Oa2g2DM6M
Very nice atsunrise. You are really making that OM sing.
I am always amazed at Sunrise's proficiency on this octave. I've played Rocky Road and I'm never sure quite how to end it.
Thanks Robert and Ginny you guys really are kind. But hey, I don’t think you’re as amazed as I am! I’ve had so many tunes in the past with some small technical problem and I’d just leave it and start another (real bad habit), for example I still can’t do a bluegrass slides. But now with each little detail that I learn it seems to be suddenly coming together. With the endings, have you tried the exercise where you have to slow down steadily and end with a double stop in 2-3 measures? I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a metronome or Youtube accompaniment vid for this exercise. (I’d be interested) Or a slowing descending bass line to a stop? Lot of fun. Good luck.
Nice take, atsunrise. Don’t know how it feels for you … for me your performance seems to be calm and unagitated.
Thanks Frithjof, yup that’s me walking up a rocky road. -now in a car, that’s the downstroke-only version.
I'll add my compliments @atsunrise - nice, relaxed feel, and that OM sounds great.
Nice fluid playing there, atsunrise!
Thanks Bbcee and John, did I mention the rain?
Just a quick run-through of this old favourite Irish slip jig, as an excuse to get my 9-string waldzither out after Frithjof showed his off on "Hut On Staffin Island". I've used the transcription in Paul Hardy's Session Tunebook: https://pghardy.net/concertina/tuneb...n_tunebook.pdf Played on waldzither (tuned GDAEB), doubled in unison on tenor guitar, with a mandocello bass line. 1925 Joh. Zimmermann waldzither Vintage Viaten tenor guitar Suzuki MC-815 mandocello Martin
See what I mean? There you've added another song I really want to learn now. A relatively local group called Larkspur (and I recommend them) sang a good version of this. It works well as an instrumental, too!
Thanks, Martin. Of course I would be happy to see some pictures of your waldzither.
Frithjof -- here is a photo I've posted before, showing (left to right) my 10-string no-name waldzither, my Gibson A-jr and my 9-string Zimmermann waldzither. For "Rocky Road to Dublin", I have used the Zimmermann in GDAEB tuning. The Gibson is the mandolin you hear on the other two tunes I uploaded yesterday (Cadair Idris and Brafferton Village). Martin
Thanks for the service, Martin. I like vintage instrument. In the first half of the last century Thuringian Waldzithers were build in very different corpus shapes. Not to mention the differences to the Hamburg Waldzither.