The Coast is Clear

The Coast is Clear (mp3) (pdf)

A friendly hornpipe in D from September of 2005.

Early Fall is always beautiful here in Winneshiek county (except when it's muddy). I'm pretending that the sun was shining and the trails were dry on the day I wrote this tune.

First Snow

First Snow (mp3) (pdf)

Another waltz from another January. The nineteenth day of 2004 to be exact.

I remember running through the tune with Patrice and Erik a couple of years back while we were setting up in Shepherdstown, WV but I don't think we've ever actually played it during a dance. Maybe someday...

The guitar chords are all played out of standard tuning but I let the high E and B strings ring open most of the time.

Backbone

Backbone (mp3) (pdf)

Back in June of 2005 we spent a couple of nights at a pleasant cabin in Iowa's Backbone State Park. This tune came from that visit. I probably was thinking, as I often do, of the wonderful mandolin instrumentals composed and recorded over the years by Norman and Nancy Blake. Especially the nearly perfect tunes that appeared on the LP Original Underground Music from the Mysterious South in 1983.

It's been two weeks since the last entry but it's been a busy two weeks. Lots of snow shovelling in particular. Plus a fun Contratopia dance (the Winter Stomp) in Northfield, MN last weekend. I recorded four tunes yesterday so I've got some stuff "in the (digital) can" and that should help me stay on track for at least the next couple of weeks.

The Wedding Broom

The Wedding Broom (mp3) (pdf)

This is a simple tune that I've played to myself many times over the last couple of years. It falls under the hand easily on the mandolin and has a certain haunting quality for me. It's never been played out in public. I was quite surprised when I looked it up in an old notebook from 2005 and saw that it was dated February 18.

I only had one pass at recording the guitar track because ten seconds after I finished it our neighbor fired up his snowblower. It hasn't snowed here for a couple of days and his sidewalk is as clean as a whistle. I was tempted to give the tune a title related to that annoyance but instead settled on a title in honor of our old broom that we bought decades ago at Shakertown in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. We've got a newer one now but this one has character. Kind of like our neighbor I suppose.

Sebec Fair, Smalltown Downtown

Sebec Fair (mp3) (pdf)
Smalltown Downtown (mp3) (pdf)

Summer 2003 during our visit to Maine we spent an idyllic afternoon at a fair in the village of Sebec. We heard some lovely music (the band played in the gazebo in the photo) while relaxing in the sun and this tune followed a day or two later. I wrote it to be played at a relaxed pace but yesterday I recorded it at more of a contra dance tempo. Probably because I just played at our local dance the night before.

Every year about this time I have the pleasure of accompanying several of Erik Sessions' violin students during their student recital. We have a rehearsal at the studio where Erik teaches which is on the second floor above Kephart's music store in the heart of downtown Decorah.

Two or three years ago I wrote a waltz (now titled "Aubrey and Andrew's Wedding") during the breaks between students at this rehearsal while looking out of the window down onto Water Street. This year another waltz popped up which I'm calling "Smalltown Downtown".

Both of these tunes were recorded on Sunday morning, Feb. 11 using my Pomeroy mandolin.

Two Lieutenants, Sledding at Walnut Ridge, The Madison Road

Two Lieutenants (mp3 medley) (pdf)
Sledding at Walnut Ridge
The Madison Road (pdf)

Three tunes in a set that I recorded a couple of years ago for my bandmates in Contratopia. We've played this set some since then, although lately we've substituted a different tune for Madison.

Two Lieutenants gets its title from one of my Dad's favorite World War II stories involving his work as an MP with the V Corps in Europe and his encounter with two inebriated officers.

The lovely Walnut Ridge Cememtery in Jeffersonville, Indiana was our favorite sledding site when we were little kids. There were a couple of very nice unpopulated slopes and it was always quiet.

The Madison Road runs from Decorah to just outside of Ridgeway and is one of several possible ways to begin a journey to Cresco. It's really a very pleasant drive.

Rocks in the Sun

Rocks in the Sun (mp3) (pdf)

This week's tune comes from a trip out to Maine in the Summer of 2003. Acadia National Park is one of my favorite places and we always try to spend at least a few hours on Mount Desert Island whenever we can.

We usually fight the traffic into Bar Harbor and visit the Song of the Sea music shop. Then we drive up Cadillac Mountain for the incredible view and follow that with a leisurely spin around the Park Loop Road.

Near the Gorham Mountain Trailhead is a long stretch of rock-lined coast where you can sit on boulders and watch the Atlantic Ocean tide come and go. When the sun is out this is a very pleasant place to perch and pretend that you're a gull or a seal.

The actual tune that we have here was composed a day or two after our 2003 visit to these rocks and was originally known by a different title that my Contratopia bandmates were reluctant to embrace, so "Rocks in the Sun" it is.

Ekin Avenue

One tune this week:

Ekin Avenue (mp3)(pdf)(harmony pdf)

My grandparents on my mother's side lived on Ekin Avenue in New Albany when I was a boy. Just a lot away from the cross street (13th?) with a railroad track in the middle. I watched many a long train go by at very slow speed sitting on the curb there.

Years later, in the late 1970s, friends Paul Moffett (now editor/publisher of the Louisville Music News) and Ray Major hosted mighty jam sessions at their Ekin Ave. villa on Monday nights. Lots of good music happened in that big front room.

This tune was written, apparently, on Feb. 22, 2005 and was recorded sometime in the last year. I've used the Ekin Ave. title for a couple of different hornpipes in the last few years so if you have another tune from me with the same title scratch it out and call it something else.

Winter Leaves, New Blanket

Here are two more tunes:

Winter Leaves (mp3) (pdf)
New Blanket (mp3) (pdf)

Winter Leaves is a tune from about a year ago that in some way reminds me of the great tunes composed by Arto Jarvela and Timo Alakotila for the brilliant Finnish band JPP.

New Blanket is a waltz that has had a couple of other titles before this. Titles are often the hardest part but I think this one will stick.

A couple of people have asked what I'm using to do this. These first tunes have all been recorded on a recently purchased Zoom H4 Handy Digital Recorder. I want to keep this project simple so I've been using the built in condenser mics with no effects or EQ. I'm recording here at home so you might sometimes hear cars going by or household sounds. I download the mixed tunes to my computer and chop off the intro noises using an old version of SoundForge and save to mp3.

I'm pleased that I managed to get this next entry added just a week after the first. We'll see how often I manage that in the future. Let me know if you have any problems with the files.

Shelter Dogs, Needle in the Sawdust

Here are two tunes:

Shelter Dogs (mp3) (pdf)
Needle in the Sawdust (mp3) (pdf)

I write a lot of tunes. Along with tunes that get played at contra dances or by mandolin orchestras I have a big backlog of things that only exist in notebooks or that have been played once or twice for various occasions. Plus I keep writing new ones. My plan is to post a tune or two to this journal once a week or so. I'll see if doing this gives me the sensation of working through this backlog.

Unless stated otherwise, all music posted here is composed by John Goodin and, while under copyright, is offered to all visitors under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license.

Please let me know if something doesn't work or if you have a question about the music.