Bluegrass and mountains; Mandolin in old time music

It is. Welcome to bluegrass and program of all time American music. Today's programme of old time music is devoted to one particular instrument. The mandolin. It's an instrument of considerable antiquity at least several hundred years and it may be distantly related to the. Old European mandolins had a full round resonant chambers and all referred to today as pot belly or potato bug mandolin was the American instrument has a

flatter body and either f scrolls or a sound hole cut in the recurved top of the resonant chamber. The mandolin has the highest pitched instrument used in American string bands and is valued for two qualities. First with its double strings it's capable of making a variety of chirping or bubbling chortling and winding tremolo sounds. And second it can be played extremely rapidly which makes it ideal for adding syncopated harmonies trails Torrens and other embellishments to simple melodies. Our first mandolin to detune today is called Jackson stop in it the mandolin mimics the gates of horses at a racetrack. The chords in the tune are in a blues progression with a catchy and very pronounced beat. Let.

Me. Let. Me. Anything.

With. Anything. I mean. The New Lost City Ramblers playing Jackson stomp the strings of the mandolin and the violin are of the same length and are tuned in fifths.

Thus the number of fiddle tunes are amenable to performance on the mandolin with few if any changes. The fiddle sustains tones by bowing but all a mandolin player can do to hold a note is to pick rapidly and repeatedly across a pair of strings to produce a tremolo effect. Already Rose is the mandolin player in the next selection Rodney's glory. The melody is ancient as you can hear from its modal composition. It's most likely an old Gaelic fiddle tune adapted for mandolin. The style of mandolin We've been listening to highlights the mandolin player skilled by leaving the entire

melody line to the mandolin. The guitar accompaniment just keeps time fills in a few chords were necessary and throws in a few bass runs for harmony. The charm of such pieces is almost entirely in the melody itself. Here's another such song by the old reliable string band called Cherokee shuffle which has much the same arrangement. The mandolin shares the limelight with other instruments and some types of songs most notably various

rags. The next song we're going to hear is the Dallas rag by the New Lost City Ramblers in which the banjo also gets a chance to show off an interesting part of the arrangement is the teasing use of brakes and hesitations and the rhythm of the melody. To upset your expectations about the beat of the song I. Eh. Eh eh eh

il et. Al to. The end. To end. To end. In the end. To end. To end. Thanks. The simpler styles of

mandolin playing underwent quite a transformation in bluegrass music. The whole temple of playing was speeded up even super charged as some people say the mandolin and bluegrass has no time to emphasize individual notes but instead specializes in playing partials of chords scales and runs with all the passing notes. Since the mandolin is such a high pitched instrument to begin with the even a faster tremolo is and flights of notes and bluegrass music give the mandolin an air of perpetual excitement. If you were going to compare musical instruments with animals and the mandolin bluegrass music would have to be a small animal with very short legs which constantly scurries around trying desperately not to get stepped on by the more ponderous guitars and banjos. An excellent example of Madalyn virtuosity in bluegrass music is Bill Monroe's version of a song called Rawhide eco eco.

IMO any such a Each except you and I was.

Explain. Explain. At. The end. At. The end. Bill Monroe's version of rawhide concludes today's program of bluegrass and mountains which

feature a mandolin next week's program highlights the home are now. Al. Blue grass and mountains a program of old time American music is produced at the University of

Michigan. Sanford files speaking this is the national educational radio network.