…I don’t know about the arrangement. It’s a tune we all know, you be the judge: http://www.folkofthewood.com/page1263.htm
What do ya think?
Loren
I think the actual sound of the mandolin is quite nice and seems appropriate enough. The arrangement and/or performance seems to me to be sort of disjointed and doesn’t flow. For example, when it first starts out the first phrase (not sure that’s the right word) sounds good, a nice flowing unsappy phrase. Then things start not working very well. He changes to a new style of playing after a halt to find the chord (and there are many halts like this). The timing seems way off to me. I lose the melody in some parts. I think the piece is not ready for performance yet, so the arrangement is hard to judge. I could be totally wrong.
Yeah, obviously a lousy performance, I just meant the arrangement in general. The tune could obviously sound pretty good on mando, I don’t think this works though.
Nice mandolin though, I’d love to get my hands on a Beartooth or Absoarka one day, but I’m going to have to make and sell quite a few whistles and flutes first, lol!
Loren
one of my major frustrations with those FOTW video samples is that he insists on fingerpicking every mandolin – when pretty much every other mandolinist in the world uses some kind of flatpick… and when he does use a flatpick, he crosspicks everything.
i think most mandolinists, if they are going to listen to samples, want to know how the instrument sounds when flatpicking:
-open-position chords
-chop chords
-single-note melody (usually fiddle tunes)
-both alone and with a guitar (to get an idea of how the instrument projects)
if he went through every mandolin in stock with just those few objectives, i think it would be a much better experience for the customer than just having to click on endless links to vids of Mickey noodling or trying to sell his cross-picking book or whatever.
of course, last i heard the store is having a lot of trouble staying in business, so the point is moot.
Yeah, I’m with ya on all that RH. Fortunately he does seem to keep it more simple and traditional on SOME of the oval hole instrument samplers, which is nice to hear, in terms of how the instruments sound. But still, lots of out there noodling…
Anyway, much better stuff to listen to in the Cafe MP3 section, eh? Has anyone there checked out that young punk Josh Pinkam’s clips? Kid’s only been playing a few years and he’s already a monster - and with taste to boot.
BTW, Anyone heard from MandoPaul lately? He hasn’t posted in quite some time, as far as I can tell. I wonder if he’s still involved with Rigel? I’d love to check out the shop sometime, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in New England.
Loren
Not a good arrangement in my opinon. To many Double stops.