Down Home Waltz

  1. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    I first heard this tune on a Youtube clip featuring the CD Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza featuring David Grisman, Sam Bush and other mandolin greats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3VXTgQ6UBc
    I liked it and tried to play it my way:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1GgdiIYCRM
  2. Ginny Aitchison
    Ginny Aitchison
    I don't know this tune CC - but it sure sounds nice the way you play it here. It has a nice flowing melody making it easy to listen to and enjoy.
  3. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Great recording, Christian, with brilliant tone!
    And after listening to the version of the bluegrass masters I say it again.
  4. Hendrik Luurtsema
    Hendrik Luurtsema
    I know I heared this tune before on the Bluegrass mandolin Extravaganze cd's. David Grisman played it with Buck White an Ronny McCoury. Your version is lovely too, you recording sounds very professional and it sounds like it's being played in a concert hall.
  5. Don Grieser
    Don Grieser
    Hendrik, yes, and it was written by Buck White I think. Really nice version, Christian. You really did make it your own tune.
  6. John W.
    John W.
    I’m not familiar with the tune, either…but I enjoyed listening to you present your version.
  7. Bren
    Bren
    Love it Christian.
    I learned it from the same source as you, many years ago and introduced a lot of people to it.
    Then Nigel Gatherer put it on his mandolin site and a new wave of players came through with the tune.
  8. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    Thanks folks, I only found the melody without chords first. Nigel Gatherer's website seems to be down, but google still shows his transcription with chords, so I wrote them above the notation.
  9. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Lovely rendition, Christian. I somehow missed this one when you posted it. It is a great tune for mandolin. I loved that picture on the big industrial complex as a sort of counter to the expected scenery of a Down Home sort of area.
  10. Jess L.
    Jess L.
    Sounds nice, Christian!
  11. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Since I heard Christian's version of this tune I have been waiting to see who else might post a version, but no takers so far, so here is my attempt.

    I recorded the melody first on mandolin then added the octave track, playing while listening to the mandolin on headphones. I added a bass line via keyboard then added the rhythm track using my Telecaster guitar as a change from my usual acoustic. I then edited the two melody tracks, deleting the parts where I did not want to have both instruments playing together. For the last 16 bars I kept in only the mandolin and added in chords on the Telecaster with a capo at the 7th fret, so the G chord is played as an open C, etc.

    The photos were taken yesterday morning in Puck's Glen, a lovely forestry walk very near my home. I used a slow shutter speed on the camera to get the blurred effect on the water.



    https://youtu.be/OUQ8MCIKEHs
  12. OldSausage
    OldSausage
    That's a great sound John, I like the mix of instruments.
  13. Michael Pastucha
    Michael Pastucha
    Very beautiful John. Love the tele back up!
  14. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    I gave away one YouTube ‘like’ to you Christian and then, like impulse buying I got carried away and gave one to you too John.

    Nostalgic, played with feeling, and high standards of production as usual Gents. Well done.
  15. Gelsenbury
    Gelsenbury
    Two very nice videos of this lovely waltz. You both get excellent tone from your instruments.
  16. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Lovely arrangement and playing, John.
  17. Ginny Aitchison
    Ginny Aitchison
    I very much like this tune by both John and CC. John I like the layers you have added and I always like to see the local photos, nature at your doorstep. Simon I thought you said you gave 'likes' to everyone...?
  18. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Thanks, all. Looking forward to hearing some more versions.
  19. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    Great recording John, I like how the different instruments seem to talk to each other. What pickup position did you use with your Telly?
    BTW: The big industrial complex in my video is UNESCO World Heritage Site Völklingen Ironworks near where I live in South-west Germany. But we have lots of nature too, as you can see...
  20. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    The guitar is one of the 70's Mexican Thinlines with the f-hole and twin humbuckers, Christian. I had both pickups selected and had the guitar plugged straight into my Behringer interface, not through an amp. It gives a nice clean sound. It is always interesting too to learn just what a variety of places can become World Heritage Sites, and a huge industrial complex would certainly be a contender, seeing just how much we relied (and still rely) on iron and steel to shape our world.
  21. Frankdolin
    Frankdolin
    Christian, I also found this tune on that album and it is my favorite of the album. I think you really got the message out on this one, with the laid back, down home feeling you put in this. NiCe! John I like your exploration into using your Tele here, and the overall arrangement came out beautiful. And I want to imagine someday taking a walk in those beautiful woods!
  22. Jess L.
    Jess L.
    Very nice, Christian and John! Enjoyable versions. Good to hear the tele, John, and nice ornaments and harmonies. And Christian's industrial pic inspired me to try to learn to play the tune, and then I may have got a little carried away with that theme but anyway here's what I have... with some boo-boos, I need a lot more practice. Mandolin with backing track and non-standard chords. I used custom bass notes to make some bass runs in the backing track.


    (or direct link)
    Some places where it sounds like the wrong chord, I think it's just me playing the wrong melody notes that don't match the chord that I'd decided on earlier.
  23. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Very nice Jess. Smooth playing.
  24. John W.
    John W.
    Ditto, Simon’s comments ��
  25. Jess L.
    Jess L.
    Thanks, Simon and John W!

    Thought it might be of interest to list the pics I used, at least what I know about them:

    0:07 - somewhere in British Columbia, Canada (I think).

    0:13 - a Shay (geared) locomotive and logging train near North Bend (Washington state) with Mount Si visible, c.1904. How this relates to this thread's topic of 'home', is that back in the day, one of my kin climbed Mount Si when she belonged to a climbing group, and as to the logging, there were many people on both sides of my family who worked in logging going back a long ways.

    0:20 - center of video: Potomac Electric Power Co, Benning plant IV. Judging by the cars, I'd say 1920s-30s.
    Left/right background: rainforest thousands of miles away on other side of the U.S. Tall smokestacks are an unappealing substitute for tall trees, but I have to admit that electric power is a useful thing.

    0:26 - a 1905 painting, "Hawaiian Nights" with mandolin (although a rather small one), by Leon Lippert. An article says mandolins were quite popular in Hawaii during that time period, which I hadn't known. I was suspicious that maybe the painter had painted the wrong instrument (small mandolin instead of uke), but maybe he had it right.

    0:32 - center of video: telephone switchboard operator, 1922.

    0:37 - left side of video: Port Of Seattle radio operator for ship communications, 1921. I chose this pic because some of my 'home' kin worked in various RF-related jobs. MOHAI says about this pic:

    "The Port of Seattle was very busy during the 1920s. The harbor radio station, call letters KPE, was located on Pier 1 at the end of Yesler Way. Ships leaving or entering the harbor radioed their estimated arrival or leaving times and other messages to KPE. This helped the port control ship traffic. This photo shows a wireless radio operator at the Port of Seattle."

    The right side of that part of the video shows modern ship traffic, to sort of tie it in with the companion pic of the 1921 radio guy.

    0:50 - center of video: "Peasant Girl With Sheep", c.1895 painting by Julien Dupre.
    Left/right background: Mt. Rainier (my picture is reversed), one of that region's active volcanos (Mt. Rainier is a ways north of its more-famously-active cousin Mt. St. Helens). Haven't seen shepherds there though.

    0:55 - a modern ship. By the looks of the terrain I'd say probably somewhere in either British Columbia (Canada) or Puget Sound (Washington state). I used to think such ships were oil tankers but I could be wrong.

    1:02 - a lake, possibly in Canada, not sure. (Some of my internet free clip-art sources aren't very informative as to where pictures were taken.)

    1:07 - a Merganthaler linotype machine in 1906 in Seattle, setting type for the Pacific Tribune which was a Swedish-language weekly newspaper. There were many immigrants there from Scandinavian countries, so a foreign-language newspaper was not unusual at the time. The linotype machine looks cool from a gadget-freak point of view, but I've heard that some linotype machines were also risky if you worked with them long enough (asbestos and lead exposure etc).

    1:19 - Seattle High School Mandolin Club, 1903.

    1:31 - center of video: ladies with lute or mandolin or something, Eduardo Galli (c.1854-1920).
    Left/right sides of video: I added 'paneling' on both sides - I made the right side slightly animated (it slides a little) in an effort to create an effect of walking into the room and seeing more of what's there.
  26. Michael Pastucha
    Michael Pastucha
    Love the chords, the melody and whatever you did to the rhythm to give it a definite Latin feel. Great ideas!

    Speaking of Linotype machines, the last printshop I worked at before I retired around 2005 had a working linotype that was occasionally pressed into service for some 'hot type'. It was right outside the door to the modern graphic arts room where I worked with the MAC computers running the latest software from Adobe. Nothing can compare to the tinkle tinkle of the type dropping into position as the operator set the type. It was a totally relaxing sound taking you back to another time...
  27. Jess L.
    Jess L.
    Thanks Michael! And that's awesome that you got to work with a Linotype, very cool!

    As to the chords, they're all shown in this sheet music (view in browser, or click that page's download/arrow link to get a printable PDF). The guitar tab part (3rd staff) has the fancy chords, whereas the first staff has optional ultra-simplified basic versions of those. The fancy (guitar) chords are identical to those in the video except for the several minor updates noted at the top of the sheet music, which makes the backing track sound like this now:


    (Optionally, Chordpulse users can download the .cps file from this page - there's no browser "preview" of that filetype so it's download-only.)
  28. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Interesting blend of live melody playing backed by the midi Chord Pulse backing track you created, Jess.
  29. Jess L.
    Jess L.
    Thanks John!

    FWIW, two chord charts below (one fancy, one easy) for my version. The 'triangle7' symbol is iRealPro shorthand for "maj7", in this case Gmaj7 (GBDF#). None of these chords are exactly normal/trad chords for this tune. The A and Asus chords in the 4th bar are quite possibly wrong - the transition from G to A sounds rather abrupt, but I haven't yet figured out what else to do with it, as the long C# melody note there makes me think the A chord is the thing to use on the 2nd beat there but who knows. Maybe as long as I'm going all modification-happy I could just delete that prominent C# melody note and have that whole bar be a G chord like it is on the repeat.

    1. Fancy-chords version:





    2. Ultra-simplified version:



    (If those charts don't show up for some reason, here's an alternative link to post 458 in the Social Group posting thread)
  30. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    This is the third of five waltzes I recorded yesterday -- after the first two I uploaded were played on the Vinaccia (Georgiana Moon and Festival Waltz), this one features the Gibson for a total contrast in tone.

    This waltz was written by Buck White and first appeared on his album "That Down Home Feeling" in 1977. My version is again based on a transcription from the Southern Maryland Open Band tunebook at:

    https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...ookJan2021.pdf

    1921 Gibson Ajr mandolin
    Vintage Viaten tenor guitar


    https://youtu.be/dfm2fnBRcxE

    Martin
  31. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Nice version, Martin, with good tone from your Gibson Ajr.
  32. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    What Frithjof said.
  33. Frankdolin
    Frankdolin
    Lovely versions JL and Martin!
  34. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Fine version, Martin. It is a lovely tune and good to see it being kept going in this thread.
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