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Thread: Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

  1. #1

    Default Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

    In the folk music I play I've occasionally heard a player play a few random notes/chords (? not really sure) before breaking into the tune. I've included a link I came across on this forum earlier today - the very first musician does it before breaking into a beautiful tune. I've always just pumped tunes but I'd really like to be able to do this. Can anyone help me out with where to start on learning to do something like this?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgkabydSIOI

    Cheers!

  2. #2
    Registered User Simon DS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

    D-d,Dud; D-d,Dud; shifts emphasis as it becomes -ud; D-D, -ud; D-D, -ud
    Is that what you mean?
    -but of course that’s accent on the rhythm, not so much chords.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

    Yeah that's it, just in that first 10 seconds before he actually breaks into the tune. But he plays up the neck a fair way too.

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    Registered User Roger Adams's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

    I hear that kind of thing frequently in old time music. A Fiddler friend calls it "Potatoes." It's a way of getting everyone in the groove for the tune.
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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

    Same as Lawrence Welk's "A-one-a-and-a-two-a."
    Jim

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    formerly Philphool Phil Goodson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

    Yep. "Potatoes". Very common.

    Often uses a slide (or hammer-on) from the note below the root into the root as a series of eighth notes (or perhaps other rhythms).
    This slide and then series of root notes is often repeated 2 to 4 times to display the rhythm and the key.
    Phil

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    Lurkist dhergert's Avatar
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    Default Re: Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

    One of our band's former mandolin players used to do this, it provided 3 things:

    1) it told him if his technique could support the tempo that he was trying to meet.
    2) it provided a potential rhythm lead in for the band to follow.
    3) it confused the heck out of the rest of us in the band most of the time.

    He was a great player and we liked him a lot... Because I was working on mandolin I could get what he was trying to do with the rhythm most of the time, but it was really hard for the non-mandolin players in the band to follow.
    -- Don

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    Default Re: Any tips on this technique before breaking into a tune?

    My old private teacher would call the intro you're referring to in the video as "vamping" on the opening chord before jumping into the melody.

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