More musicgeeking
Oct. 22nd, 2003 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperI intend to OWN "The Swallowtail Reel".
Or the "The Swallow's Tail Reel", or whatever the hell it's called. It's a reel, and it involves swallow tails. ;) I want to learn it, and "The Swallow Tail Jig", and I want to put them together, possibly with "King of the Fairies" in the middle and call the whole lot of it "The Faerie King Goes Flying".
Having glanced a lot through my mandolin fakebook lately, I also have determined that I wish to learn "The Kesh Jig", "The Gaspe Reel" (which claims to be French Canadian and therefore reminds me of La Bottine Souriante), and that other thing I played that I liked the sound of but can't remember the name of right now. I'll have to find it again. And I want to see if I can find something else to go with "The Chicken Reel" so I can do a mess of tune-splicing and call THAT "Chicken Fight".
And I want to learn "Pigeon on the Gate" since the Fables did a pretty kickin' rendition of it.
I have played Autumn again lately, as she was being horribly neglected due to that bouzouki upstart Spring. This has reminded me that my reach seems to be too big for Autumn and too small for Spring! I kept overshooting the frets playing the A part of the reel last night as long as I was playing the big mand, and undershooting frets while I was playing the zouk. But at the same time I really like the responsiveness of the zouk's strings; I can get really nice slides out of them.
What I'd really like to do though is learn the "Swallow Tail Reel" well enough that I can play it hitting drone strings as well as the main melody... and take advantage of all these lovely strings on this here instrument. Well, either that or do what I did with "Judas Cart" and figure out how to sneak actual chords in there. The only problem with this plan appears to be that at one point in the melody I'm hitting a fifth-fret G on the zouk's second course when the chord line wants a G chord, and those things are too far apart for me to hit at the same time with my teeny hand. I may need to try a different G chord.
And I want to do the droning thing with "Salmon Tails Up the Water", too, which is apparently easier for my hands to do on the big mand than it is on the zouk, but the zouk has the octave tuning on its lower courses, so it just SOUNDS cooler.
And I need to work some more on the bridge of "Paddy Murphy" as well, so I can whip out the chords and then bust into the bridge in the middle. ^_^ Which would be especially cool if I could also SING it.
Or the "The Swallow's Tail Reel", or whatever the hell it's called. It's a reel, and it involves swallow tails. ;) I want to learn it, and "The Swallow Tail Jig", and I want to put them together, possibly with "King of the Fairies" in the middle and call the whole lot of it "The Faerie King Goes Flying".
Having glanced a lot through my mandolin fakebook lately, I also have determined that I wish to learn "The Kesh Jig", "The Gaspe Reel" (which claims to be French Canadian and therefore reminds me of La Bottine Souriante), and that other thing I played that I liked the sound of but can't remember the name of right now. I'll have to find it again. And I want to see if I can find something else to go with "The Chicken Reel" so I can do a mess of tune-splicing and call THAT "Chicken Fight".
And I want to learn "Pigeon on the Gate" since the Fables did a pretty kickin' rendition of it.
I have played Autumn again lately, as she was being horribly neglected due to that bouzouki upstart Spring. This has reminded me that my reach seems to be too big for Autumn and too small for Spring! I kept overshooting the frets playing the A part of the reel last night as long as I was playing the big mand, and undershooting frets while I was playing the zouk. But at the same time I really like the responsiveness of the zouk's strings; I can get really nice slides out of them.
What I'd really like to do though is learn the "Swallow Tail Reel" well enough that I can play it hitting drone strings as well as the main melody... and take advantage of all these lovely strings on this here instrument. Well, either that or do what I did with "Judas Cart" and figure out how to sneak actual chords in there. The only problem with this plan appears to be that at one point in the melody I'm hitting a fifth-fret G on the zouk's second course when the chord line wants a G chord, and those things are too far apart for me to hit at the same time with my teeny hand. I may need to try a different G chord.
And I want to do the droning thing with "Salmon Tails Up the Water", too, which is apparently easier for my hands to do on the big mand than it is on the zouk, but the zouk has the octave tuning on its lower courses, so it just SOUNDS cooler.
And I need to work some more on the bridge of "Paddy Murphy" as well, so I can whip out the chords and then bust into the bridge in the middle. ^_^ Which would be especially cool if I could also SING it.
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Date: 2003-10-22 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-22 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-22 01:58 pm (UTC)Sounds like fun, though! If a bit on the fowl side, of course. :)
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Date: 2003-10-22 02:41 pm (UTC)"Kesh Jig" is also in my fakebook. I'm digging the tabulature, though I'm also finding that it's mostly just useful for training my fingers what to do and does nothing to put into my brain what notes I'm actually playing. I have to think a moment to make my brain go "OH OKAY, the Swallowtail Reel starts off with G, F#, E..." In case I ever want to play it on the piccolo or flute instead of the stringed things, I need the notes, too!
"Pigeon on the Gate" is belted out at suitably fast speed by the Fables, indeed. :D
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Date: 2003-10-22 02:46 pm (UTC)Thanks for the links, hon! I'll have to check out "Morrison's Jig" too -- I KNOW that's another one that shows up somewhere on a Heather Alexander album.
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Date: 2003-10-23 12:16 am (UTC)Really?
When Bill Sutton (US filker) was over here in the summer, we went to a music shop in Glasgow, since he was after a zouk. Having tried several, we were pretty unanimously agreed that the unison-tuned Fylde they had in was so far ahead of everything else soundwise, including several similarly priced octave-tuned instruments.
Mike, wanting a unison-tuned five course cittern...
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Date: 2003-10-23 11:16 am (UTC)Now, that said... yeah, I think my zouk sounds cooler than my octave mandolin. This may be several different factors, though. #1, the zouk has a different shaped body and has no varnish on it, whereas my octave mandolin does. #2, the zouk has all steel strings, and the octave mandolin has only one course of steel and the rest are bronze. There's also that I've got a fairly cheap bouzouki and a fairly cheap octave mand, too! Student-quality instruments, I'd say, rather than professional.
My zouk's got a brighter, fuller sound than the octave mand does, so I tend to prefer it. Part of it is the octave courses, but part of it's also just because the thing's got more presence, at least in my amateur hands. :) But I also like the octave mand for certain things. So it sort of depends on what song I'm playing.
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Date: 2003-10-23 07:10 am (UTC)It's one of the few pieces that I know pretty well for whistle.
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Date: 2003-10-23 11:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 03:24 pm (UTC)I had actually written a Nokia phone ringtone for the second verse at one point.
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Date: 2003-10-23 03:34 pm (UTC)