Andy Chase

I realized just now that the you-got-your-acoustic-music-in-my-70’s-rock band I had trouble imagining would pretty much sound like most of Led Zeppelin III.

Another good example of the internet falling short: Go to the Mandolin Cafe message board and search for the phrase left hand position. You’ll find lots of very informative and helpful posts, but you won’t be a whole lot wiser for reading them.

I’ve thinking (and [writing][1]) a lot over the last year or so about being in a band. I was fortunate enough to find a laid back, informal bunch of musicians to play with at the now-cancelled Black Sheep session; I had a lot of fun and improved my playing by leaps and bounds when I was attending regularly.

Apart from being adrift again for much of the summer, my one reliable musical outlet was taken away when the Black Sheep Deli abruptly cancelled the weekly old time session that had been held there every Thursday for a number of years. I wasn’t there on the night in question, but apparently several regulars showed up and were told unceremoniously that they couldn’t play there any more.

It’s been a hectic second half of the summer and between heat-waves, a bit of travel, and general stress I’ve managed not to play as much music as I did the first half… all it took was missing 2 or 3 sessions in a row at The Black Sheep and I’m treading water again. It’s really remarkable how much more I want to practice and learn new tunes if I feel like I can show it off at the following week’s session - or at least have the self-satisfaction of being able to keep up with the chord changes at speed.

Because there is, oddly enough, a glut of banjo players around here I've been thinking it would be nice to get comfortable enough with my mandolin that I can take it along to jam sessions and at least be able to hack along with the I / IV / V chords (and occasional bVII) that make up most of the tunes in the event that 3 or 4 banjo players show up.

It's also partly a matter of strategy; someday I plan to have a go at the fiddle, and since the fingerings are the same any work I put in towards mandolin should give me a leg up when I eventually get my hands on a decent violin and some instruction.

Plus there's the 4-string, mandola-scale cigar box guitar that I'm currently building. The tuning is one fifth lower (CGDA) but the interval from string to string is still one fifth, so there's a lot of carry-over there, too. Once I finish the thing I want to be able to play it well enough to get something recorded on it!

I haven't gotten much from my few mandolin books that I didn't already have from years of plectrum guitar; they're very tab oriented and gloss over theory as it applies to the instrument, or scales.

Thinking back to my teenage guitar lessons, one of the most useful things my teacher ever did was to teach me the blues scale, and touch on the basics of improvisation. Most importantly, as you diddle around the scale make sure you hit the root note of each chord as it changes. He diagrammed out a closed-position, pentatonic blues scale for me and wrote the locations of the I, IV, and V root notes, and I spent quite a lot of time working on just that. I got pretty good at cheesy blues jamming with my friend, who was taking lessons from the same guy. (Thanks, Chris - If I could track you down via Google I'd drop you an email!)

So, I decided to start working on the same thing for mandolin, starting with Deep Ellum Blues (AKA Deep Elem Blues). It happened to be played at the People's Pint last Wednesday, and got stuck in my head. I think it was in D, so that was as good a place to start as any. I do love how logical mandolin is; look at the way everything repeats one octave higher on the 5th string of each subsequent fret! (And two octaves higher on the 10th fret of the next string, etc.) I imagine it's quite a bit easier to master the fretboard than guitar or banjo.

And of course, I'm not about to put my banjo down either... although the old-timey stuff seems to have pulled me away from the bluegrass/melodic practice I was threatening to do all summer. Playing with other people is addictive like that.

Well, for all of my bluster a week and a half ago, I haven't really gotten on track with my three-finger banjo practice. I've been playing almost every day, but still in a fairly unfocused manner.

Early last month I wrote about feeling musically adrift, not knowing what instrument to concentrate on or what I really want to do with the skills gained by doing so.

Speaking of haunting love songs, The Blackest Crow is just about the prettiest/saddest such tune I've heard in the oldtime/traditional genre. One of these days I'm going to memorize and practice it enough to be able to do it justice. There's a great 3/4 instrumental rendition in Brad Leftwich's Round Peak Style Clawhammer Banjo book, but I think I like Arnie Naiman and Chris Coole's 4/4 version on their Five Strings attached with No Backing album even better (which for me is saying a lot, because I'm not a huge fan of oldtime/bluegrass vocals). You can listen to it at http://www.merriweather.ca/album.aspx?album=9&style=Banjo.

The most effective verses:

The Blackest Crow

The time draws near, my dearest dear
When you and I must part
And no one knows the inner griefs
Of my poor aching heart

I wish my breast was made of glass
Wherein you might behold
Oh, there you'd find your name lies writ
In letters made of gold

The blackest crow that ever flew
Will surely turn to white
If ever I prove false to you
Bright day will turn to night

Bright day will turn to night, my love
The elements will mourn
If ever I prove false to you
The seas will rage and burn