Brilliancy- Sam Bush and Chris Thile

Got a new transcription finished this morning of 'Brilliancy' played at Merlefest in 2012 by Sam and Chris. I've always wanted to learn Chris's harmony part and now you can too! :mandosmiley:

Here are the parts:

Attachment 162605

Attachment 162606

Here are the links to the videos:





Disclaimer: There may be some mistakes here and there, if there are just let me know or watch the videos and see what they did differently. A few parts that Chris played were either not audible or hard to hear with the sound quality so I made some educated guesses as to what he would do.

Enjoy!

Went through the fingering for the B parts in Chris' harmony and changed the fingering, here is the updated PDF:

Attachment 162608

As always, interesting, thanks.

By way of comparison I attach the version that I transcribed 52 years ago from Howdy Forrester’s recording - although I haven’t committed it to paper until now. There may be mistakes. In those days turntables could be set to half speed, 16 2/3 rpm, at the cost of a somewhat muddy sound, one octave below actual pitch. Transcribing from 45’s was an even greater challenge, as
45 and 33 1/3 rpm differ by approximately a fourth.

This very piece was one of my main motives for taking up the mandolin, as there were too many awkward string crossings and position shifts on guitar. And, no, a capo wouldn’t have helped, as I needed the open e’-string. for the B part.


There are few spots in Bush’s version that I don’t like. One is the fourth bar of the A part; I fined myself shouting, “no, stop, there, END that phrase”. Also, I think the zig-zagging line in bars 3-4 is a bit lame. At lest it sounds wrong because I’m so used to this version.

On my first and only trip to the USA, in1969, I purchased a copy of the book “1000 Fiddle Tunes”. It turned out that Briliiancy is based on two traditional tunes, Passaic and Trafalgar Hornpipe, in that book.