Teach your Children: Crosby Stills Nash

[Pasha Alden]

Hi everybody

Having the National Arts Festival in SA. Here in my hometown of Grahamstown.
Saw a band HatchetMan. Very good, excellent harmonies and guitar. So will be performing at a concert at the old age home as part of Mandela day. So some of my repertoire to include: Teach your Children and Singing in the Rain.

[Roger Moss]

Sounds good. Teach Your Children was never one of my favorite CSN&Y tunes but I can see great potential in it as a mandolin song.

[Barry Wilson]

I am doing that one in D, G, A. What chord are you hitting at look at them and cry... I use a vocal harmonizer and had to try a couple different chords to get the harmony to fit.

[Michael Bridges]

Good luck with the performance! Sounds like a wonderful time.

[Pasha Alden]

Hi Roger Moss, yes, it is a good one on strings. At Barry: Just look at them in D major and sigh-hi-I b minor and g major. One has to get the rhythm right there. So my word sigh is on B minor.


HTH

Pasha

[Pasha Alden]

Thanks Michael!

I am also doing a song Carlie Simon: Let the River Run. Love that song sung by her and in choirs.

[Pasha Alden]

cry is in d
don't you ever ask them why, why on g
cry on d major
just look at them and sigh-igh-igh b minor then to g on the long vowel then and know they love you and starts a major. they love you, d major for me.

Hope that helps. sigh

[Barry Wilson]

Good you understood. I have toyed with a couple chords at the sigh part. I've found using a vocal harmonizer makes me play different to get the vocal harmony to fit. The Bm made a strange harmony so I thought I was playing it wrong. I will go back and try and sing a different note on the lead part. Thanks

[Timbofood]

There's a vid of Charlie Waller doing it with Ronny Reno and I think Pasha is right, I have not seen it in a long time but, I'm pretty sure it's Bm.
Memory does not always serve, sometimes I have to go and get it myself!

[DataNick]

Played this tune a zillion times in my folk-rock days; the sigh part beat by beat chords as follows:

Bm-Bm-Bm-Bm-G-G-A-A

[Pasha Alden]

Agree on the sigh part DataNick, but I think Barry started at cry.
For me the sigh-igh-igh-gh b minor bminor bminor quite a long note then g major and the word and know they love you a and d.
I think Barry was starting at cry.

[John Flynn]

Years ago, I got steel guitar tab for the intro, break and outro, transcribed it to mando tab and learned it. It was hard to play, but using some hammer-ons and down slides for the note bends, it actually sounded pretty good. I could not do it now and the tab I created was on paper and long gone, but that steel guitar tab is readily available and someone could duplicate that process if they wanted to.

[Pasha Alden]

Thanks John.

[Pasha Alden]

Hi again and I meant to say to Barry, I hope all discussion around the song assisted and that you are happily playing "Teach your Children". One of my favourites from Crosby Stills Nash.

Happy playing all.

[Steve Ostrander]

Years ago, I got steel guitar tab for the intro, break and outro, transcribed it to mando tab and learned it. It was hard to play, but using some hammer-ons and down slides for the note bends, it actually sounded pretty good. I could not do it now and the tab I created was on paper and long gone, but that steel guitar tab is readily available and someone could duplicate that process if they wanted to.

That was Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel on that tune.

[Pasha Alden]

Thanks Steve.

[John Flynn]

That was Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel on that tune.

Yeah, I remember the tab I found had a note on it from the guy who transcribed it saying that and also commenting that a lot of steel guitar players hate that intro because it's probably the most recognizable steel solo ever and it was not done by a "serious" steel player and it among steel players, it's considered pretty simplistic. Not being a steel player, I think it's great!

[mandocrucian]

commenting that a lot of steel guitar players hate that intro because it's probably the most recognizable steel solo ever and it was not done by a "serious" steel player and it among steel players, it's considered pretty simplistic. Not being a steel player, I think it's great!

Yeah... so typical. (a reaction). The "real" steel players are more than likely annoyed that they didn't think it up. Some guy, who plays a different instrument, comes along, and without all those instrument-specific chops manages to come up with something that catches the audiences' ear using only a fraction of the notes (why...because he hasn't acquired all the flashy technique on that particular instrument), so compensates by making every note count!

I always dug Garcia's steel playing as much (if not more) as his guitar playing. The spacier the better....the Garcia album (with "The Wheel", "To Lay Me Down"), the first NRPS album, etc. Learned his "Dire Wolf" steel intro and licks (on mando) 35 years ago. Now, Jerry really wasn't a heavy string bender on guitar - not like players like Knopfler, Thompson, Clarence White. But on steel...the bending is in the mix. (BTW: those Tom Brumley pedal steel solos on the old Buck Owens/Buckaroos LPs make great electric guitar/mando breaks.)

A lot of the stuff I really dug most on mando wasn't played by "real mandolin players". It was just an extension of their primary or other instruments...and their thought process avoided the same old mando clichés. So perhaps their tone wasn't the greatest...they were coming up with things that took the instrument in different directions. (I used to hear that "Ry Cooder...he's not a 'real' mando picker" sour grapes, but thankfully not that much anymore.)

[Pasha Alden]

No steel player, I shall let those with authority speak. smile>