![]() ![]() Niles H and Larry Rice, Crystal River, FL, 1982 There have been a few clawhammer mando pieces in The Mandocrucian's Digest issues, as well a some Oldtime Fiddle on mando columns by Judy Hyman of the Horseflies. ![]() In Hot Solos For Bluegrass Mandolin, there is a clawhammer version (and clawhammer harmony) for "In The Pines" before it goes into the single-line solos. There are some "clawhammer mandolin" arrangements in The Mandola Sampler book. I should add that there's a substantial similarity to the across-the-strings mandolin and mandola playing of Andy Irvine on those Planxty albums. I've occasionally run into some people that also played clawhammer banjo as well as mando who applied the banjo right hand technique, but that gives you something different than what Larry and I were doing. He was on a similar track as me, but ahead on the banjo sound. ![]() An if you wanted to rock on mando without sounding ridiculous, all the signature guitarists from Jimi to Garcia, BB, RT, Angus Young, Allman, etc.Īt the time the only other mandolin player I ran into doing oldtime banjo style stuff on mando was Larry Rice., with whom I did some playing/recording with in 81-82. In oldtime, this would be fiddle and banjo in Cajun, it's button accordion and fiddle in Tex-Mex 2 or 3 row button accordion ala Flaco Jimenez. My opinion was that if you wanted to bring mandolin into a genre where it was absent or minimally used, one needed to model your vocabulary and dynamics after the one or two dominant instruments of the genre. The other approach was to try replicating the bowing and slurring of oldtime fiddle. This was late 1970s and early 1980s when I was also putting Mississippi John Hurt fingerpicking, Clarence White solos, Richard Thompson guitar transcriptions onto the mandolin. (At first I used flatpick only, but later switched to pick+middle finger which I think sounds better and smoother.) I had (still have) the Art Rosenberg "Old-Time Mountain Banjo" book on Oak and spent a lot of time adapting those tunes/tabs onto the mandolin, paying special attention to keeping notes on different strings (if that was how the banjo did it) and all the slurrings/slides/hammers/pulloffs. The banjo approach is more of an alternative style of crosspicking. Mandolin can be played in a manner where it does sound oldtime, but it requires a different way of playing, either emulating clawhammer/frailing banjo or oldtime fiddling. The problem with playing oldtime tunes/songs on mandolin is that too often it comes off as sounding bluegrassy. ![]()
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