let's see if I can get Steve Larson's video to show up!
I posted Steve's video a page back, Barbara. Got the url from YouTube. Music will keep us going through those troubled times. We all must keep playing and posting.
The Road to Lisdoonvarna (REVISITED) -can we revisit my vid next?
Here's a (revisited) version from Friday recorded for a virtual gig due to the you know what. Not sure if that's the point of these revisited videos. Just happened to notice this due to the recent activity.
That's really ice. The video starts a bit late but makes up for it with a great cast of musical characters. I like your solo in the middle.
Fine performance by a happy group there, Mike. I like the bluegrass band use of the single mic that you each take your solo at.
Well done Mike, friendly group having fun, nice to see, thanks.
I was waiting for the bass solo! Seriously, that sounded good and looked fun!
You are lucky to have such a nice team of musicians to play with, Mike. I enjoyed your virtual gig.
We aren't even allowed to get together in groups like that here. We have to keep 6 feet away from other ppl except those in our household. Social Distancing at its best is John Kelly playing in Scotland and me in Canada sending mp3s to each other. I wonder if we can tech-team up some of the regulars together here on line...for example ummm... Simon and Bertram...that would be good...and David H with David M. It would be memorable, yes?
Great group effort, reallly good sounding mandolin solo!
Ginny, I second that idea! Those would be very interesting collaborations.
I like the sound of acoustic instruments played outside. Playing in nature is very recreative. After watching the nature recording series by Simon I was looking for an occasion to do this myself. Yesterday I got the chance to practice in our local river forest – the Auenwald. Please excuse the low-voiced recording. It was done just with the built-in micro of my smartphone which I placed two meters in front of me on top of another lying trunk.
A fine little video, Frithjof. Back to basics with just the camera and built-in mic. And you are certainly practising the physical distancing regime there. Your phone has done a fine job, as have you.
Frithjof, that was great! The birds were singing along. It's a truly idyllic setting with good acoustic music to fit.
I chose that tune, because I wanted to get better on DUD DUD picking. I recorded a backup track, that was quiet fast, in the hope to become able to play along. But things don't happen that fast. It will take me some yaers to become a better jig/slide picker. So I recorded a rather slow backup and still had problems...
That is a fine version, Christian. You play it at a pace which suits your present playing level, and it works for you. I like your backing track too. If it is any comfort, I cannot get my head round DUD DUD picking at any sort of reasonable speed, so I just cheat and hope for the best - one of the joys/drawbacks of being self taught!
This sounds quite nice at this tempo Christian..a nice change of pace...literally. As for DUD DUD...I don't do it at all and am too old to learn new stuff. (also one of the reasons I don't record myself) I would be so worried I was doing an upick instead of a downpick I'd lose the rhythm of the song and ppl would yell at me.
Here is a test, and I apologize up front for the lousy video and poor sound. I have been lurking on this site for over 5 years and have learned a tremendous amount from all of you. Since retiring last year, I had planned on starting to post regularly, but somehow, time seemed to get away from me. I normally record with Reaper and the little video I've shot has been with a D850 Nikon, and edited with DeVinci Resolve. But, I have never uploaded into YouTube prior to tonight. This clip was all done on my iPhone. So, here is a test, which I thought was appropriate as it was Week #1. The mandolin is a Buckeye (#81) built by Pete Hart here in Ohio, and will be 3 years old on May 21 this year.
Amazed it worked!
Nice to have you back posting again, Christian. A warm welcome to Bad Habbits. I would like to watch your video. Please change the settings at YouTube from private to public.
Really nice with the birds and woodland sounds Frithjof. Christian, that’s fine with the DUD DUD, this is actually the tune I was playing to learn DUD DUD. My main motivation for learning it was that it’s basically two triplets. And I (still) want to learn clean relaxed triplets. I found it was just a case of using a metronome at 6/8 and setting it at quarter note=50, really (painfully) slow. Then with this tune, which I think’s one of the most difficult jigs I’ve learned, partly because a lot of the right hand movements aren’t common. I had to isolate each measure and practice just the right hand string changes. After a while the most problematic measures start to iron out. It’s well, well worth the effort though, I found that after this ordeal my right hand felt lighter and more ‘upbeat’ if that makes any sense. I also found that playing one measure at a time once normally to remember the melody and then once but with the fret hand barring the twelfth fret while staring at the right hand and then the next measure etc... is another real eye opener.
I have changed the YouTube setting to 'public' - so hopefully the previous clip will work. Sorry about that - brand new to YouTube
Welcome, BH. That's a neat job you have done on the tune, and a very creditable first posting. I look forward to more from you soon. Interestingly it was also through the Mandolin Cafe SAW group that I first started posting on YouTube, away back around ten years ago, and the time seems just to have flown by since then. At this time of global restrictions the Cafe is a safe haven to meet people I now count as friends (though with the exception of Bertram and his wife Regina) I have never met anyone in the flesh, though I have produced collaborations with three separate members, in the US, in Germany and currently with Ginny in Ontario, Canada. You have made your first steps into a great online community.
Nice solid performance BH! Very good first post. And welcome to our group.
Thanks for the kind words John and Simon. It is interesting that I started lurking on this site prior to owning or playing a mandolin. I've been a guitar picker all my life, but Blues / Country jams had pretty much became non-existent around here and I started going to Bluegrass jams and knew very few tunes. MC was recommended to me as a place to find various versions of tunes to help learn. While checking it out, I came across a video posted by Don Grieser playing Poor Richards Blues, and thought - that's a cool tune - I need to get me a mandolin and learn that So I did, and the rest as they say is history. I have learned so many tunes from you guys that I really feel I know you all. I had originally thought I would be playing mostly BG, but because of the wide variety of tunes on this site, I play a wide variation of music genre. Thanks for all your posts.
That's a crystal clear recording, Bad Habits, and skilful playing on a great-sounding mandolin. I often wonder how some of you manage to get that magical tone. Christian, that's a good speed for this particular tune. It doesn't want to be too fast. I wouldn't recommend it as practice for DUD DUD picking, though. It's actually a slide rather than a standard jig, so the triplets are mixed up with longer notes, which makes pick direction more complicated. A jig such as Coleraine, which I posted on the previous page of this thread, would be more obvious practice material. DUD DUD is one of the few things on mandolin that I feel pretty confident about. The first thing to do, as always, is to feel the right rhythm. The phrase "apples and oranges" is useful because it has just the right rhythm for a bar of 6/8. Then you might want to tap along to a recorded jig to get used to it. The way I then learnt to pick this rhythm was to take every opportunity, for just a couple of days, to engage my hand in that DUD DUD movement. Most of the time, this was without an instrument. Sitting on the bus or while reading something at work or talking on the phone, I'd just take a coin, hold it like a pick, and "scratch" the rhythm against my other hand. That was important because the left hand could feel whether the right hand was playing the right rhythm. After a surprisingly short time, it was ingrained. Quarantine is plenty of time to learn it!
With apologies once more for lateness. My take on this slide. Not played very often in sessions I've hung out in. The reel version of the tune would seem to be much more popular (but then I'm a long way away from Sliabh Luachra...)
Nice clean performance on that tune, Jogging to Lisdoonvarna Aidan, and I like the tone of your mandolin. Here's my third ever post to the SAW group I had this earlier tune in the thread and then a year ago I replaced it with the new and improved revisited version but I'm quite fond of this first clumsy effort, sloshing about in mosquito-land. https://youtu.be/I_Eqh1CLbks?feature=shared
A preview to summer, Deputy Sergeant Simon in the Vietnamese jungle on his way from Mi Lai to Lis Dun Bhana
This is in France Bertram and no soldiers were harmed in the making of this film.
Thanks, Simon, not heard this tune for a while…you’ve not aged a bit
