Hi Chris - looks pretty good to me. You should try to loop your strap over the scroll on the body of your mando instead of wrapping it around the headstock, as it tends to get in the way there. Your left and right hand look pretty good, but think about loosening your grip on the pick and letting that right arm feel a bit looser, it looks a bit tense - which is only natural when you're starting, but it's a good thing to lose as early on as you can. And practice pressing as lightly on the strings as you can with your left hand too - gripping hard will hurt you although it feels necessary until your fingers become used to it. All around excellent work so far though. Good steady rhythm and clean up and down strokes.
Hey Chris welcome. Sounds good to me too. You picked it nice and clean. I actually learned this tune yesterday. I've been trying to learn the old standards I've missed while I've been learning. I ditto everything O.S. says. I would also say your left hand also looks a bit tense. Scroll up to Roland Whites video and watch his left hand. Where his thumb sits and where the neck rests in his hand. This allows his fingers to just hover over the strings and minimize the amount of movement. I know, it sounds like a lot. But, with practise it gets easier every day. So, keep on working and have fun. You've already given yourself a good start. Gary
OS and GK, thanks for the feedback. I wasn't sure anyone would notice a post on such and old thread. I need to get a different strap that fits better under the scroll. The one I have is too long, so when looped around the scroll the neck hangs very low and at a flat angle. The feedback about tension in both hands is spot on, the blisters and white knuckles are proof...I'm hoping some was due to camera shyness. A friend suggested I put a set of light strings (J62s or similar) on to help with the left-hand pressing issues while learning. Thoughts on this? Will using light strings now just leave me having to adjust pressure later on when I move back up to something like the J74s? Thanks again for helping a beginner figure things out. Your videos have been inspiring and a great resource.
You'll struggle with left-hand tension until you find a way for the neck of the mandolin to stay in the proper place without your hand supporting it. Different strap, different instrument position, whatever it takes. It takes extra control and coordination to play with a relaxed hand while also gripping the neck to keep it from moving around. Best to eliminate that extra requirement altogether.
This arrangement is from Mickey Cochran's crosspicking book. I have had this book well over a year and I'm only just beginning to master some of his pieces.
Impressive cross picking!
Here is my version of Soldiers Joy on my Herb Taylor tenor guitar.
This is only a couple of hundred weeks late- I hope I'm not in too much trouble....... Theres so many great settings of this on this page- It's great to listen to so many different takes on the 'same' tune!! This is a 'traditional' Shetland version of it Things are still abit 'echoey' but I've just realised we've got laminate flooring through the whole house so nothing to deaden the sound. Sorry! Jim
Sounds good to me Nj. Just a little reverb. I got lucky last week. I was looking at a Tenor to buy, but someone else grabbed it. Pheew. But I have thought if I do break down and buy one I'd probably get a Gold Tone. So, it's nice to see and hear one in action. Keep having fun. Gary
video troubles
tried again can't get it on here.
Three times a charm I guess.
Very solid picking and nicely played. What kind of mandolin are you playing Dusty Miller?
Thanks Michael! That means a lot to me coming from you, I SO enjoy all your videos. That's a Michael Kelly mandolin. Kris
I wasn't a member of the SAW group when Soldier's Joy first came up. (It happened the 4th week.) I've been doing a lot of picking with an old band mate of mine. Here's the Soldier's Joy from a recent concert of ours on July 5th. Bob is on the fiddle and I played the mandolin and sang the tune. This song is a blast to pick...
Love this version. It's a great duet. Y'all blend together so well.
Arrrrgggg.....just finished making a new video to replace this one. The new one featured what Gregg Horne calls passing tones. I had it 'fairly' clean and, I thought, produced to take to Vimeo. Nope. Wasn't recorded after all. I'll be back. That's a threat.
Hi Karon, The heartbreak of technology. I know how you feel. Keep at it! Bob
Moving along....only have around 275 more tunes to catch up! See I missed a few notes but I'm headed over the waterfall.......
Sounding good Karon, keep going!
Thanks, David. I believe I will. Always find so much inspiration at Song a Week.
Never look back Karon. One foot forward, then the other.
A few different versions my little girl has been working on. She's playing an A-5 Silverangel, and I'm doing my best to keep up on an A-5 Morris. These old fiddle tunes are a lot of fun to revisit
Wow, she's a fast picker for sure... You are going to have to fight to keep up!! Well done!!
GHall, love the backwards-slides at 0:31, nice!
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What a great version, guys. It is a tune we play very often here in Scotland but I have never heard it with words before! Great to see you on the SAW group, Michael. We need it so much in the present circumstances.
Glad to be here. I've been spending so much time on my computer lately that it occurred to me that I should visit my friends on Mandolin Cafe and see what they've been up to. Thanks John for the kind words. I think you can thank all those American musicians who drank too much of the corn liquor at the dance gatherings for the words, I myself wrote the verse that goes A,B,C,D,E,F,G... or it came to me in a dream.
I enjoyed your live performance a lot. Thank you, Michael.
Michael, your version made me revisit this great tune. I posted it here along with The High Road to Linton away back about 9 years ago, played on tenor banjo and mandolin. Here is a new recording, along with Mrs Macleod of Raasay, this time on octave and acoustic guitar. I recorded the octave on my Tascam DR05 at the same time that I was filming with the camcorder; The opening chord is to give me an accurate sync position for lining up the track with the camcorder sound track (a sort of clapper board), which is later deleted in the final film. I loaded the Tascam wav file into REAPER then added the guitar track, mixing the two tracks down to mp3 for the film. Thought I would wear my virus-defying top again! Stay safe, everyone, and keep up the music.
Well done Mr. Kelly! It's the same tune alright! I believe that the differences between our two versions are more stylistic, but it is remarkable how the melody is nearly identical. That's the folk process at work. I like your recording setup! I myself have a new camera and the ability to use my Zoom H2 recorder plugged straight into the camera for the sound. The theory is that I wouldn't have to "line up" the video with the audio. When I get the chance I'll try it out and see if it's going to work. I''m finding it fun and useful to revisit a lot of the songs I've recorded before. I mean, a good tune is a good tune and should be played often. So why not revisit a good tune? I'm glad Barbara made that change as well...
Two great versions of this rather simple tune!
Sounds great on your octave, John.
Nice set, John. And well played. These tunes go very well together. What's the advantage of a digital audio recorder over playing the tune straight into the computer using a microphone? Is it worth investing in one?
It all depends what you want to do with your setup. A computer with a DAW (digital audio workstation) and the microphones and accessories necessary to get the sound to the computer is great. However, to take it on the road is a bit daunting unless you have a laptop and the time to set it up each time you go somewhere. That's where a digital audio recorder comes in handy. A Zoom recorder of some sort or a Tascam is very portable and produces extremely high quality sound. They are very economical to purchase compared to a computer. Many have professional quality stereo mics built right in. They can be set up anywhere and if used together with a camera, a high quality movie can be the result. The resulting video and audio files can be off loaded onto your computer for additional processing and assembly into a finished audio file or a movie. The best of both worlds! The video above with Northbench was recorded with a Zoom H2 and an old Olympus camera. We set up the camera and recorder on a mic stand, turned it on and then just proceeded to play our sets. Later I edited the files into individual movies on my computer. So to sum up... get everything because you'll find a use for it!
Well done Michael, I like the singing! Nice one John, certainly played in the right mood, and ‘Misses my clouds’, what a lovely tune that is! (I certainly miss the clouds, flying I mean)
Dennis, everything Michael says about the wee recorders is what I think too. It can be great just to sit playing without having to set up the computer/laptop, mics, interfaces, etc. I often use my Tascam if I am playing around with a new idea for a tune. It has a tiny and rather poor speaker, but I usually just plug in a set of earbuds to listen to the playbacks. You can record in different formats - mp3 or wav in the Tascam, and I use wav as I can then upload the files easily (by usb cable) to my REAPER setup on the laptop to do any editing and other processing. I record in wav format in REAPER so the files are standard format, and are transferrable to other setups via internet - as Michael and I did on Furrow's End. In the recordings I do with Ginny we tend to use mp3 as the internet speeds in my rural area are not exactly fast, and mp3s are so much smaller. Ginny also uses a Tascam, but in her recordings with Emory she goes into his studio to use his rather more sophisticated equipment. You can hear some of their work on this forum and on Ginny's YouTube channel, Celtic Mandolins. By the time a video gets processed to the YouTube stage the files have been compressed so much that it can be difficult to tell whether the recordings have been made as wav or mp3 or any other format. Notice the high quality of some of the videos we see posted here made just on a phone! Thanks, Simon, and I am sure the MacLeods will not be raising the fiery cross to rally the clan against you after your rather clever little pun! The Island of Raasay is just off the Isle of Skye and Dunvegan Castle on Skye is the ancestral home of the MacLeods
So it's a matter of portability rather than quality. I understand that. My recordings happen in a very limited number of places because of the need to set up the laptop and microphone. I have a stereo dictaphone for work, but never tried it for music. It's probably not made for that.
Probably does not cover the frequencies that music needs, Dennis, but there is one way to find out! Any idea what sort of format the machine uses to save the files? Give it a go and let us hear the results! We all have that extra time at the moment to do such essential things in our own homes! Music preserves our sanity, though not always while trying to get a clean recording of a tricky tune at the 20th take!
Using my trusty Ashbury octave, an iPhone 6, a Boya 1MM microphone, editing just topped and tailed the clip.
I love those variations, Simon! That's something I'd like to learn.
I too found the variations interesting, Simon. Those old traditional tunes exist in so many different forms, especially when learned aurally rather than from notation, though even notation can have many variations in it. When the tune crossed the Atlantic with the early settlers then came back again, it had picked up so many little embellishments from the regions and playing styles it came from and from the ones it was brought into. An amazing and ongoing process!
Thanks Dennis and John, and I’ve added ‘(variations)’ to the title. I might do another with harmonised variations too...
Today we are revisiting Soldier's Joy, which has trended over the years, and most recently, earlier this month! It was one of the first mandolin tunes I learned! I'm not sure if the video that I made of it is still showing up, which is an issue with the very old discussions. I've noticed that in many of these old discussions, the older videos aren't showing up! Anyway, hope everyone is safe in the world, today, when the world is gripped in a global pandemic!
Well, I haven't located the first two videos that I submitted way back when, but I did find this one....
Oh, look! I found it!
Good to see you posting your playing, Barbara. It seems like ages since you last posted (other than running this entire group, of course!) Interesting version of the tune there, several differences compared to the Scottish version I am familiar with. Two fine instruments with great tone.
Really nice Barbara, I like that you’ve got the military feeling, that naive joy of going off to war into the tune, along with the soldier’s use of morphine as part of normal fun life. In my vid I had him there being looked after by nurse MacLeod till the end. A bit dark. -ha, ha, or maybe it’s just a tune! Nice octave mandolin by the way, who made that?
Thanks, guys! You are right, I haven't posted much recently, other than keeping the group going! I hate to admit, that I've kind of fallen into a slump as far as playing any instrument for the last several months! So much going on! My fingertips are like a baby's bottom! :-( As far as this tune, I learned it to play with the group of people I used to play with. The gal who played the whistle (or flute, I'm not sure which instrument she played this tune on, as she has a whole arsenal of instruments!) played the tune with all the notes, and there's a banjo player, too. So, what i play just compliments them doing all the fancy stuff! As far as the Octave mandolin, it was built by Bill Petersen of Council Bluffs, Iowa. I don't think he's making instruments any more. I do love those that I have that he made.... a cittern, an OM, a mandolin, a mandola, and a tenor guitar!
Another one of my barebones videos during lockdown, featuring yet another of my sometimes neglected instruments. This is my Garry Probert resonator tenor guitar, tuned GDAE. Single cone, biscuit bridge, plywood body and a rather industrial paint job! Martin
