Bonaparte's March

Here's a tune I picked up yesterday, it goes by many names, but it's so similar in many ways to Loch Leven Castle, which I've been working on lately, that (1) It was fairly easy to "learn", and yet (2) it's difficult to play without thinking too much in order to keep from playing Loch Leven!

But I like it so much, I had to share it, even though I don't have it down yet to play it comfortably.



If anyone is interested, music here: http://www.mandozine.com/music/table...ns-Am-Trad.tef

That's really nice mark.I don't guess I've ever heard that tune.That's more the tunes I'm starting to lean to.Maybe it's the Irish in me!Thanks for posting.

Very nicely done - especially when considering that you are not 'playing it comfortably' yet.

Keep up the good work!

Nice, Mark. I know the title as Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains, among others. Although some of the mountains he crossed were surely rocky, I don't think the were this continent's Rockies. I like both tunes and hadn't considered the similarities but I can see them now. I'll have to do a side by side comparison. I think of the Bonaparte tune as more march-like and Loch Lavan as hornpipe-y but it sounds like some cross pollination might have happened between the tunes.

That's a goodie. Thanks.

Although the melody and chord progression are quite different, the 1st measure (plus pickup notes) are identical, and the last notes of 1st half A part are the G notes, second half of the A part are the A notes, same for B part.

Let me know what you think, Sleet, to me they are very similar tunes though the middle parts have a much different sound.

Geez Mark every time I start to work on the Allemande in Bach Cello Suite 1. You find a tune to distract me. :D

Kevin, unaccompanied Bach is a lifetime's work. Plenty of time for a little Bonaparte along the way!

Louise yea in fact I love the dichotomy. I can pick up a celtic tune or old time tune something like Bonapartes in a couple of weeks. I will probably spend 4 weeks just getting the first phrase of the Allemande to acceptable. It took over a year on the Prelude and I still listen to others playing it and try to wring out a little more.

Sounds great, Mark!

LOL, man, I just sat down and ripped out three of the tunes I've been learning, I wanted to post Loch Leven/Bonaparte's March medley here ... but I was so stage-fright nervous, and it sounded so awful, that I can't upload it!

I don't know why my nerves were so bad! And I played all the notes (almost) flawlessly, but it sounded awful - nervous energy, jumping ahead of the beat, too loud - it looked as bad as that tremolo video I did. I'll try it again in a moment, and upload it if it works out.

Meantime, here are two tunes that I haven't practiced much, but I love, just now learning these.

Jefferson and Liberty is a 6/8 jig and I had real trouble with pick direction



I know nothing about this next short little tune, except that I heard Bobby Horton playing it and wanted to learn it. Bobby played it with banjo, then pipes, etc. with a snare drum for marching effect. I assume it's Civil War era, or perhaps Bobby wrote it. Just trying to learn an arrangement of it here.



And here is the way these songs sound when the pros play them, I love this kind of stuff:

Jefferson and Liberty


Chattanooga

They both sound nice, Mark. Nerves may been felt, but they weren't seen or heard.

I did some checking on the tunes. It appears that Bobby Horton did indeed write Chattanooga. Jefferson and Liberty is interesting (to me anyway): It was originally a jig titled "The GobbyO" or "The Gobie O". There is a discussion of it over on thesession.org. Nobody seems to know exactly what is a "gobby" or "gobbyo". Consensus seems to be it may be a small fish (but not the tropical goby). Thomas Jefferson adopted the tune as his campaign song (with new laudatory lyrics) when he ran for president of the US way back before his head was on our five cent coin (aka 'nickel').

Both sounded solid to me Mark, I gotta say I think we have some similar tastes in music from other eras. I will be finding some arrangements on both of these

I don't think you'll find tabs for Horton's tune, Mike, but I usually write out music as I figure it out, so, here's what I've got:

PDF:
Jefferson and Liberty
Chattanooga

TEF:
Jefferson and Liberty
Chattanooga

Thanks for the encouraging words, it was the other tune, the medley of two songs, that I had such bad nerves on and sounded horrible, but I'll redo that and upload it. Never give up

Thanks for the history, Henry, I knew that tune was much older than Jefferson and went by other names. I bet it's so old that wherever it came from, everybody knew what a "gobby-o" was, LOL

Seriously, you don't have to go back more than a few hundred years to encounter indecipherable terms in the English language. Check out this song at my website, I can read and translate or paraphrase most of it, but there are a few I can't decipher.

The Boy And The Mantle (Child No. 29)

Awwww. Not sweet Gwinevere, too!

I recorded this medley again today, with not much better results, but it is what it is. My conversation with Sleet above about these two tunes led me to the decision to make a medley with them. Here's how it goes:

Loch Leven - AABB
Bonaparte - AAB
Loch Leven - AABB
Bonaparte - AAB



And finally, here's another one I'm learning little by little, I bought Brad's lesson on this song, and I recorded a practice session today. I have only studied the first half of Brad's Lesson, so I only have about half the licks in here; when I get to Em chord I just chord the rest of the tune instead of playing the licks. Brad's lesson is great, now I have to finish learning it and then slow it down to get it accurate.

Your on a roll Mark, Thats a lot of work/practice/thought. Super enjoyable hearing the medley, not knowing either tune I wouldn't be able to separate them, which means it works for me! And wow you must have read my mind on posting those tabledit files. Immediately after hearing gobby o I went and found a pdf and popped it into Gpro, then looked for an hour for any version of chattanooga with zero luck. I was content to add a hunnerd views to your vid though till I figured it out. Kudos!!

Really nice Mark! I was just looking at spme tunes in Brad's site this morning. To be honest I didn't know he had those tunes.I don't know how I've missed them. Keep them coming Mark!

You do a good job, Mark, on both videos. I now have a version of Loch Levan in my "to learn folder", so, some day ...

I really like how you get a groove going when you play. You just bop along like you are strolling down the street. No rush, no effort, smell the roses ...

Good work!

I particularly like the Jefferson and Liberty piece. It has a nice old quality to it. Thanks for transcribing and then sharing.

Mark, you're sounding great! The A part of Jefferson & Liberty could almost be a Latin melody. Maybe you brought that into it, considering where you live.

Really nice job on sitting on Top of the World. Very confident playing. A+ as always.

Thanks to all for the nice comments. bbcee, check out the sound of the mp3 track. I don't remember where I found it, but that fiddler is similar tothe sound I'd like to have eventually whenever I play J & L. After I found that, I spent a little time trying to learn it by ear and transcribe it, but I didn't get far due to other matters. Later, I found the music at traditionalmusic.uk.co, which is different, but that's what I'm using in the video. Someday I'll find the time to learn some variations to bring it more in line with the fiddler in that mp3; then after a few years maybe I'll get it up to speed

Just catching up after the summer visitors have left. I'd never heard Chattanooga before. For a recent tune, it has a kind of Renaissance vibe. Thanks for introducing it. Your medley fits the two tunes together nicely. I've messed around with both of them and never recognized their similarities. "Sitting on Top of the World" could have been written for you; it fits your style so well. Very enjoyable.