Pilsen Jig - Mother's Day - Bates no. 18

Pilsen Jig (mp3) (pdf)
Mother's Day (live version mp3) (pdf)
Bates no. 18 (mp3 pt.1) (mp3 pt.2) (pdf score)

The photo above was taken on Friday afternoon from a scenic pullover overlooking the mighty Mississippi River, driving south on the Wisconsin side, somewhere in the Maiden Rock-Stockholm vicinity. We were taking the leisurely route back to Decorah after enjoying an inspiring matinee concert of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra at the Ordway in St. Paul featuring Pekka Kuusisto, Sam Amidon, and Gabriel Kahane.

Friday also saw the official release of my new Mel Bay publication Playford for Mandolin. This release was accompanied by a spot on the front page of the Mandolin Cafe (thanks Scott!). You can check out some sample pages and the lengthy table of contents at the Mel Bay site.

Of course today is Mother's Day and I am including a link to a live Contratopia recording of my Mother's Day waltz above. I used this a couple of years ago also but I still like hearing it. Here is part of what I wrote back in 2014:

"I believe this recording was made on the Sunday morning of the Spring Dance Romance weekend in April of 2003 and I believe it was the first tune we played that morning. So it's a little ragged as we settle into our seats and loosen up our hands but it's a nice example of Contratopia at play in a relaxed mode. Somewhere in the middle I play the tune in the upper octave of my mandolin and there are a few humorous moments where I am clearly trying to figure out where the next note might be in that less familiar region of the fingerboard. Still, the good notes make up for the bad."

This week's new tune was finished up on Monday, which was being celebrated as VE (Victory in Europe) Day. As I searched for a title, knowing that the tune would appear in this blog on Mother's Day, I thought of my Dad. On the actual VE Day he would have been a very happy man. He was serving as an MP with the V Corps Headquarters and they had recently arrived in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia as part of the U.S. 3rd Army. Having survived a march across Western Europe I am sure that my Dad and his buddies had a fine celebration that day, they might even have danced a jig.

Today also celebrates the completion of my project to record all 18 of the duettinos published by William Bates around 1770. I have certainly enjoyed making these recordings and I hope that some readers have downloaded the score and spent a little time playing these pieces also.

I wanted to find a way to make it easier to find all of the recordings in one place and I decided that the simplest way would be to pull them together as an album and publish it on Bandcamp. So, if you would like to stream, for free, all, or any portion, of my Bates recordings you can go to this link. Of course you also have the option to purchase the album at a low, low price, which gets you access to high quality files that you can download, etc. 

This is a digital only collection and I have no intention of printing physical CDs. Much like my earlier Mandolin Tunes CD, these recordings were created primarily for this blog and collecting them this way was an afterthought.

Finishing the Bates collection also led me to update, ever so slightly, my Mandotopia page; both the home page and the Bates page.

Finally (is this the longest So Many Tunes post ever?) I realized this week that I forgot to include my Java John's setlist from 10 days ago. It's helpful for me to have these lists included here as I work on choosing pieces for each new solo mandolin gig. So below is the setlist from May 4, 2017:

Java John’s solo mandolin, May 4, 2017

Set 1

1. Swarbrick Sends a Tune to Iowa (Goodin) / O’Neill’s Favorite (trad.) / Flowers of Edinburgh (James Oswald, 1710-1769)

2. Oswald: Airs for the Seasons / The Frier’s Cowl

3. Goodin: Deer Track, May 19, 2013 / The First of May (trad.) / May Day Green

4. Goodin: Butterfly Prairie

5. Bach: Bouree I (from French Ouverture for Keyboard) (J.S. Bach, 1685-1750)

6. Playford Tunes: Buskin / Blackheath

7. Oswald: Airs for the Seasons / The Cowslip

8. Ave Regina Caelorum (plainchant)

9. Goodin: Old Annapolis / Sessions: Annapolis Friends (Erik Sessions)

10. Goodin: Deer Track, April 2017-1 / No Argument at All / Tolley’s Jig no. 5 / Conway to Lincoln

                                                           Set 2

1. Sauli: Partita VI for Mandolin (Filippo Sauli, c. 1710)

2. Bach: Bouree (from French Suite VI)

3. Oswald: Airs for the Seasons / The Pyracantha

4. Goodin: Deer Track, May 30, 2013 / The Orsinian Waltz

5. Alman II (Robert Johnson, c. 1583-1633) / Chestnut (Playford collection)

6. Goodin: Pines West

7. Goodin: Deer Track, May 8-9, 2012

8. Bach: Allegro (from Flute Sonata, BWV 1033)(possibly by C.P.E. Bach)

9. Goodin: Toledo Moon

10. Oswald: Airs for the Seasons / The Crown Imperial

11. Goodin: Shelter Dogs / Motion Detector

If you have read this far I think it's about time you should get out your instrument of choice and play some music!