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!
Here are the parts:
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.
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.
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