A videographer showed up on Sunday and decided he wanted to record some tunes. He happened to get a recording of Dinny O’brien’s and Islay Ranter’s Reel from the earlier session, and a song from the later session.
Notice the lighting. We did happen to have a number of mandolin family instruments at the first session. Most of which were playing during those tunes.
and…
Two nights ago, at the White Horse in Black Mountain, NC, we played these two tunes together. The Old Bush and The Maple Leaf.
(Ye) Old Bush <–tab
The Maple Leaf <–tab
For you guitar flatpickers, here are those same tunes tabbed out in standard tuning and DADGAD.
(Ye) Old Bush Standard Guitar The Maple Leaf Guitar
(Ye) Old BushDADGAD The Maple Leaf DADGAD
While I’ve always found the “chopped off head” youtube videos kind of strange, this is the best one I could find at the time for The Maple Leaf.
In the Mandolin II class at Celtic week, with David Surette, we learned a few tunes by ear, a few by tab, and also focused on how to make accompaniment with the mandolin interesting. I had to leave “the gathering” earlier today, to visit the in-laws, and so have had some time in the car to tab a few of the tunes for you. Click on the links below for the mandolin tablature for the irish tunes of (reel) Devanney’s Goat, (reel) Poor Old Woman, and (slip jig) Hardiman the fiddler.
Dorm Room at Celtic Week 2011 - Guitar, Mandolins and Kettlebells, what else do you need?
Mandolin (tab) tablature & standard notation
Now that I’ve found myself exploring the guitar again, I’ve also created flat picking tablature for the tunes above. Here they are:
Guitar (tab) tablature and Standard Notation for Flat picking
Devanney’s Goat in Standard Tuning
Poor Old Woman in Standard Tuning
Hardiman the Fiddler in Standard Tuning
We also learned a great tune called The Reverend Brother’s Jig (called the Monk’s Jig on thesession.org) and a number of Breton Tunes. Great class, good teacher, learned a lot.
This week I’m at the Swannanoa Gathering near Asheville, NC. It’s my third year. Year one, I volunteered, and took some great classes. Year two, I just showed up for the late night jams. Year three, this year, I was gifted a full package of classes, food and lodging. Each year, the experience gets even richer.
Today is Wednesday. The atmosphere here is heaven for musicians. Walking through the halls you hear whistles, guitars, fiddles, etc playing tunes older than anyone here.
At night, moving through the campus, the sound of cicadas, crickets, irish and scottish sessions float in the damp air. I’d like to get my recorder out, and just walk through the campus one evening, and record the sounds as they move in and out of focus while strolling down the road.
More to come…
Last week our local piper at the early session at the Jack of the Wood, encouraged me to back him up on a jig and a slip jig. They are great tunes, so I spent some time researching and creating a chord arrangement to for rhythmic backing.
Here are the chords I found from VCP Sheet Music for “the Choice Wife”. They work nicely.
Next up are some chords I’m playing around with for “Muireann’s Jig”.
A
Bm- BmEm BmEm BmEm B- BmEm Bm- BmEm
B
Em- F#m- G- Am Em- F#m- G- Am
C
Bm- D- D- DEm Bm- D- D- DEm
D
DBm DA D- DEm DBm DA BmA DEm
I feel it can still use some tweaking, but it works well enough at the moment.
If you’d like to play along, use the videos below.
The Choice Wife is also called O’Farrell’s Welcome to Limerick
I’ve got a few new tabs I need to put up on the tab section, but here is one that can’t wait.
Give Me Your Hand Standard Notation with Chords
It’s a tab of one of my favorite tunes, “Give Me Your Hand”.
Give Me Your Hand Mandolin Tablature Tab
I remembered how much I enjoyed this tune after hearing a piper at the Tuesday Night White Horse Session in Black Mountain, NC.
I used to play it with a fiddler here in Asheville quite a bit in the fall of 2009.
Enjoy!
PS- By the way, while searching for an image with the chords to “Give Me Your Hand”, I found this great site:
http://www.thewhistleshop.com/slow/session.htm
It has slow and up-to-speed recordings of many irish tunes.
Asheville Mandolin 