Looking for different mandolin music to learn-obscure/nonstandard

Irish mando player here. Been curious to explore some other styles of music. Not much an old time or bluegrass. Although I did try searching google for "weird bluegrass mandolin solos" or "Cool bluegrass mandolin solos". Nothing really came up except really well played standards, which I can appreciate musically, but looking for something a little more squirrelly. I'd be fine with even some standardish stuff, that maybe does stuff that is surprising, or takes an interesting twist while remaining musical.

Hard to describe. I'm imagining there must be some non-standard stuff out there, that's not standard but also not extreme avant garde. Looking for insights or suggestions.

I mean... why should it be "mandolin music" that's your boundary? My main focus has been on jazz for a third of the time I've been playing. People are always a little shocked to see a mandolinist at a jazz jam but find it pretty cool. If you like that, take a list of the top 100 jazz tunes and learn some. Get a bit of theory under your belt. If jazz isn't really your thing but you're super into metal, get out the pedalboard and plug in! Any genre you want is in your grasp, no song too far.

Also, a good standard that is chock full of squirrelly stuff is Have You Met Miss Jones. Maybe listen to the Ella Fitzgerald version to get an idea of the song.

Hope that helps,
--Sam

Thanks Sam. Good idea. I was focusing on mandolin music primarily so I could observe the techniques specific to the mandolin, in whatever genre I am unknowingly searching for. ; )

I will check that out though.

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Originally Posted by Narayan Kersak

Irish mando player here. Been curious to explore some other styles of music. Not much an old time or bluegrass.

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Originally Posted by Narayan Kersak

Thanks Sam. Good idea. I was focusing on mandolin music primarily so I could observe the techniques specific to the mandolin, in whatever genre I am unknowingly searching for. ; )

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How about using the "Ballo Liscio" thread and learn some Italian music? After all, it was an Italian instrument first!

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Originally Posted by Narayan Kersak

I'm imagining there must be some non-standard stuff out there, that's not standard but also not extreme avant garde. Looking for insights or suggestions.

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Have you visited the Dawg Pound? It's a musical wonderland . . . . https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...321-Daily-Dawg

Consider other regional styles of "Celtic" music. Breton, from Northern France, Cape Breton from NE Canada and or Scandinavian tunes. Often you will find Irish and Scottish players use tunes from these places as 'something different'.


https://youtu.be/nrhrLcQlcnI

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Originally Posted by DougC

Consider other regional styles of "Celtic" music. Breton, from Northern France, Cape Breton from NE Canada and or Scandinavian tunes. Often you will find Irish and Scottish players use tunes from these places as 'something different'.


https://youtu.be/nrhrLcQlcnI

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That was great, thanks for sharing. I was not aware of Breton style celtic music. Will be diginin in!

There are two books of Italian folk music collected by John T. LaBarbera (there IS another John LaBarbera) few of which are performed regularly other than by, ya know, my local Italian music friends. Almost necessarily, they ARE mandolin music.

A quick search, however, shows only this one. Maybe the other is out of print?
https://www.amazon.com/Traditional-S...44995223&psc=1

Check out all the categories under "Music By Genre" toward the bottom of the Forum page. Also click on "MP3 Library" under "Learn/Listen" at the top of the page. You'll find a great variety of musical genres.

I love playing swing on the mandolin - there's a lot of really cool stuff by folks like Don Stiernberg, Aaron Weinstein, Grisman, and etc that I would totally recommend checking out.

I'm a big fan of 80's and 90's music in general, so I also play a lot of that style of music for fun. Sweet Child of Mine is surprisingly similar to a fiddle tune haha.

I agree with Sam. If you lose the "mandolin" part of your search, you'll get a lot more options ;)

I really liked Sierra Hull's most recent album, which is pretty bluegrass inspired but is definitely non-traditional.

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Originally Posted by milli857

I really liked Sierra Hull's most recent album, which is pretty bluegrass inspired but is definitely non-traditional.

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Her stuff with Cory Wong is amazing too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPGbj1gFalA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT-W-UEcsns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTjUI274ag4

She and others like her are opening up the instrument to a lot of cool things.

Besides other Scandinavian, there is also Finnish mandolin -

Heikki Lahti was one of the pioneers. There are a number of his videos on YouTube. Here's an example -

https://youtu.be/F5p-Z5CQ7aw

Another great player is Jarmo Romppanen -

https://youtu.be/IxakVAONFY8

There are many others, but those are two of my favorites.

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Originally Posted by mbruno

Her stuff with Cory Wong is amazing too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPGbj1gFalA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT-W-UEcsns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTjUI274ag4

She and others like her are opening up the instrument to a lot of cool things.

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That whole Cory Wong album is awesome. I love that he brought in 3 different amazing bluegrass players (Sierra Hull, Bela Fleck, and Billy Strings) for his funk album.

I have been playing lots of Québécois and other French-Canadian music and have also been exploring the traditional music of France.

https://youtu.be/_qf5CwtKivc

^^^
I really love Ashley Broder’s approach to the mandolin. Definitely not the well-traveled path. This piece is a great example.

I've been transcribing tunes by Leveret, Andy Cutting, Wood & Cutting, Shooglenifty & Jerry Holland. So many good tunes available and resources using Musescore and The Session.

I think Peter Ostroushko probably has you covered

Maybe some Brazilian Choro? It seems like there is a decent amount of instruction out there for it on the mandolin, so you wouldn't have to start from scratch.



Also, I'm not sure exactly what genre this is, but it's Mike Marshall and John Reischman playing something other than bluegrass, and it's super cool!

Argentinian Astor Piazzolla , did not write for the mandolin , but perhaps you can work up your own arrangement.

And on the other side of the border shared with Finland is Karelia .
They with the Karelian folk music ensemble, http://kfme.onego.ru/

they include a player that also plays the mandolin in the group for some songs...
They played my town, we have a Suomi Hall.

Can you Read Violin charts, in standard notation?



:whistling:

klezmer, gypsy, slavic, greek ... ukrainian ... i mean, if an instrument has played it you can probably mimic it in mandolin, within reason.

English? OK most of it sounds like ploddy fairground music but there’s some good stuff in any genre.

Sportsman’s Hornpipe.
The hoses brawl (actually might be french but has a cool dark twist in the C section).
Old Morpeth Rant/Hesleyside reel.
https://youtu.be/L3jafvjjNSo
The valiant.
Portsmouth (playford)
New anything

There are some American old time tunes with crooked structures that’s might interest you. The only ones I know though are Cherokee shuffle, Old black cat, Elk river Blues.

Like the others said, Scandi stuff is especially interesting but I haven’t got around to exploring it yet

Randi made me realize another great one to try on mandolin - Miserlou. Our band plays it when we are in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It still has a following with folks dancing to it. The link includes an early recording and also sheet music.

https://folkdancefootnotes.org/music...sirlou-greece/

I just came back from a trip to Norway (oh boy, what a beautiful country!) and bought a couple of sheet music books: Norse folk music and wedding marches from different parts of the country. I'm sure I'll find some treasures there!