Emory's Crossing

Emory's Crossing (mp3)(pdf)

This week's tune is a fairly straightforward reel in Am. The title is intended to refer to a crooked old road that runs between the oldest part of my hometown of Clarksville, Indiana ( that is, the foot of Harrison Ave. at the Falls of the Ohio, where George Rogers Clark built a cabin home and the Lewis and Clark expedition began) and the old highway from modern Clarksville into New Albany, Indiana. As a boy this stretch of road (properly named Emery Crossing) was a little piece of near wilderness, certainly not a place to go after dark.

I've had the tune for a few years and it's been played, off and on, by Contratopia during that time. Currently it's without a spot on our setlist so I thought I'd give it a little airtime here. Recorded in short order with just guitar and mandolin last Saturday.

Shenandoah Bound

Shenandoah Bound (mp3)(pdf)

Without looking it up in old notebooks this title suggests to me that I must have written this tune while riding on the Capitol Limited train somewhere near Harper's Ferry, WV. (Thanks to photographer Mark Fickett for generously sharing this panorama under a Creative Commons license.) Crossing the railroad bridge on the right side of this photo, where the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers meet, is always one of the high points of the trip for me.

The tune itself, a country kind of waltz with a little blues in the B section, was recorded last weekend. I only used guitar on this one and I indulged in a little improvisation the second time through the tune. You can hear that I was enjoying myself so much that I forgot to smoothly segue from improv to melody when going back to the head. We had one of our regular Decorah contra dances last Saturday night so I brought the tune in for the Western Home String Band to play and I think it went pretty well.

See if it works for you.

Not an Option

Not an Option (mp3)(pdf)

This entry marks the 5th weekend in a row that I have posted a tune to this blog. A rare, if not unprecedented, event in the history of So Many Tunes. Our tune of the week is also rare in that it was composed and recorded, I believe, on the same day last weekend. (Usually tunes sit around for months or years before I decide to use them here.)

The title was a problem (see last week's entry). I had given this tune a completely different title last weekend but I made the mistake of checking this morning to see if that title had been used for other things. It turns out there are songs, albums, books, even movies, using the other title so I figured I should try something else. "Not an Option" is a commonly used phrase, which is good, but it doesn't appear to be used as a title for songs or tunes that often. So, for now, this little jig has this name.

Recorded quickly and simply with just two mandolin tracks using the built-in mics of the DP-008.

Return to Dream Acres

Return to Dream Acres (mp3)(pdf)

Where do the titles come from? People sometimes ask this question, often referring to a particular tune or piece of music. I also sometimes wonder what, if anything, the composer means when they give a name to a musical composition. Many of us like to think that a certain place, person or event was instrumental (pun intended) in the creation of the music.

In my case, most of the time, the title is chosen shortly before the music is shared with other musicians. "Return to Dream Acres" is a typical example. Above is a copy of what this tune looked like when it was first written down in my music notebook. The 11/26 in the upper right hand corner is not an interesting time signature but an indication of the day when I wrote down the notes below it. I know it was November 26, 2009 because it's in a notebook that covers that time period.

The GL (shorthand for Great Lakes) in the upper left hand corner tells me that, at some point, I was considering using this tune as part of a mandolin orchestra piece I was working on for the Kalamazoo Mandolin and Guitar Orchestra. At the time (and this is the exception that proves the rule under discussion) we were using a working title of "Great Lakes Suite" for this piece in progress. (In the end the Kalamazoo commission was titled "The Pleasant Peninsula" and the notes above were not part of that piece.)

I probably wrote the whole tune on the same day although sometimes I come back at a later date to finish or improve tunes. At some point this tune would have been entered into my Sibelius music notation software and I would have given it the title "November 26, 2009." I may or may not have printed it out and shared it with other musicians between then and summer 2012. (My bandmates in Contratopia have stacks of my tunes with dates for titles. This often causes confusion.)

Finally, this summer I had a gig playing for a wedding dance up at Dream Acres farm in Minnesota, a special place that I've been fortunate to visit a number of times over the years. I was gathering some tunes to distribute to the first-rate band for the evening (Bill Deutsch, Rob Hervey & Ehler Orngard) and I decided to use "November 26, 2009." Since I would literally be returning to Dream Acres for the dance, I gave this jig that title.

The recording offered here is from last weekend. As I was recording it I started thinking "this is almost more of a tarantella than a jig." Dance however you wish.

From Artist's Point

From Artist's Point (mp3)(pdf)

We had a chance to spend a few days at Grand Marais, MN, up on the western, North Shore coast of Lake Superior this past August. We stayed at a modestly priced motel right on the beach and this tune got its start while sitting on the balcony looking out at the water. Later, after a windy, rainy morning we walked out to Artist's Point and enjoyed watching the waves beat up against the rocks.

The recording here is another attempt to adapt to the new Tascam DP-008 recorder. This time I used an AKG C1000-S mic instead of the built Tascam mics.

Walk On Dry Leaves

Walk On Dry Leaves (mp3)(pdf)

This little tune was written a week ago, on Sat. Oct. 13, sitting in the same chair I'm sitting in right now. In my mind it's a clear imitation of the kind of tune that I mentioned in the previous post; something that Norman and Nancy Blake and Peter Ostroushko might have played through once or twice at a long ago session.

I recorded the tune on a new Tascam DP-008 recorder using the built in mics. Instruments were an old Gibson oval A mandolin and a recent Martin OO-15M guitar. The tempo is comfortable but the tune is also fun played at a dance tempo. Contratopia played this last night at our dance in Northfield, MN at a much faster speed and it worked fine that way as well.

Hope you enjoy it.

Bighorn River Sunset meets Mandolin for Dummies

Bighorn River Sunset (mp3, from Contratopia's Smitten CD)(pdf)

In January 2003 Contratopia played at the Wintergreen dance weekend in Bozeman, MT. Erik Sessions & I decided to drive from Decorah to Bozeman and back and, along the way, we saw some beautiful scenery. We left Bozeman for home on Sunday afternoon and for a long stretch, after Billings, we were driving south along I-90 while a spectacular sunset unfolded in the west. Later I wrote this little piece.

This is another of those tunes that I almost didn't write down because the melody is so very simple. I'm glad I did because it turns out that lots of people like the tune and it gets played quite a bit. Since it only uses a few notes it is also a good tune for teaching. The Contratopia recording, linked above, is really pretty. Patrice plays a beautiful introduction and, later, a perfect little solo. The string section is not some synthesizer, it's Erik doing a multi-track string arrangement. The whole thing, in my memory at least, was really easy.

My friend Don Julin has just published a wonderful book, Mandolin for Dummies. He has done me the honor of including his chord melody arrangement of "Bighorn River Sunset" in the book (p.147) and he's recorded that arrangement as well. I highly recommend Don's book, dummy or no, because it's full (nearly 400 pages) of good ideas and musical examples. Every mandolin player can learn something from this tome and it's fun to boot.

This time last week I was immersed in the wonderful world of the annual Classical Mandolin Society of America convention. This year it was held in Minneapolis (well, Minnetonka to be exact) and that meant that both Don Julin and one of my other favorite players, Peter Oshtroushko were in attendance.

Peter O. is fundamental to the existence of this blog and the music that I create. Three of my favorite composers for the mandolin are Peter and Norman and Nancy Blake. Many of the best tunes that I have written, some that have appeared in this blog, have started out as an attempt to write one like Norman, Nancy or Peter. The work they did together on the Blakes' Original Underground Music From The Mysterious South is still some of the best mandolin music ever recorded. 

It was a great pleasure and inspiration for me to be able to watch Peter play at close hand informally, in workshops, and in concert with the great Dean Magraw. As usual, I returned home from the CMSA convention with lots of ideas for tunes and projects.

St. Francis and the Birds, duet

St. Francis and the Birds Duo (computer mp3)(pdf)

This tune probably was written sometime in the 1980s and appeared in this blog as a single melody line with chords back in October 2007. Following last week's resurrection of St. Anthony and the Fishes as a duo I am including a two-part arrangement of St. Francis today.

Once again I'm letting a computer-generated duo of flute and English horn play the tune. This time there are definitely no notes in the top line that go below middle C.

If you are not familiar with the story you can read a nice version of the tale from the Johannes Jorgensen biography of St. Francis here, courtesy of Google Books.

My partner Erik Sessions and I (don't forget to check out our recent CD, Notes from the Farm at CD Baby, iTunes, etc.) have a couple of church music gigs coming up and I though we might want to consider playing these saints-related tunes. We'll see if that happens or not. In any event I now have these nice duos to share.

St. Anthony returns

St. Anthony and the Fishes Duo (computer mp3)(pdf)

This tune first appeared in this blog back in the summer of 2008. It returns today with a newly written second part suitable for any two treble clef instruments, so long as one of those instruments can play down to G below middle C. This would be fine for two mandolins, mandolin and alto mandola, two violins, flute or soprano recorder [except for the low Bb in measure 29 of the top part - thanks Ellen!] and violin or mandolin, etc. Guitar would sound good on the bottom line also.

The computer generated recording (which sounds pretty good to me) features imitation flute and English horn.

I enjoyed writing out this second part and I can imagine it being included in a sequel to my Midwestern Mandolin Duos book. Find a friend and see what you think.

Riff City in Portland

Riff City (pdf from portlandcollection.com)
Badlands All Night / Riff City (pdf from Contratopia Tunebook)

When Erik Sessions and I started playing music together, first around Decorah and then joining up with Pat and Patrice in Contratopia, I was suitably impressed that Erik had a tune (the killer "It Ain't the Heat, It's the Humidity") published in the first Portland Collection book. Portland 1 and, later, Portland 2 are almost always in the bag of necessities that I carry to every contra dance gig.

So I was very pleased to receive an email from Susan Songer a while back reporting that the Portland Megaband had recently enjoyed playing my tune "Riff City" and asking my permission to include a copy of the tune on her New Contra Dance Tunes webpage. Of course I said yes. While not the same as being printed in a Portland Collection book this is a big honor for me and I'm happy to hear that the Megaband folks thought the tune was fun to play.

I'm also including a copy of "Riff City" as it appears in our Contratopia Tunebook. Since it's on the same page with my tune "Badlands All Night" (a combination of two of my favorite Springsteen song titles, "Badlands" and "Prove It All Night"), I'm including that also. One thing to note about "Badlands" is that Contratopia has been playing the A section up a fifth in the key of D for the last few years. It seems to work fine either way.

April, May, June, it's July already. You'd think I would have found a few minutes to write a blog post sometime during the last three months but I didn't. I'm not including a recording of "Riff City" this time as an experiment to see if I find it easier to add new tunes if I only include the printed music. We'll see how that works out.

Hope you enjoy the tunes!

Summer's End, 2005

Summer's End, 2005 (mp3)(pdf)

Before heading out this morning on a journey to see the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. (and play a few dances this weekend) I thought I would post this slightly quirky waltz. As the title reveals, it was written a few years ago and never really had a title until recently. I'm not sure I would recommend playing it at a dance but it's a satisfying exercise on the mandolin and could make for a relaxing listening piece.

If you are in the Philadelphia area on Thursday night (March 22) and feel like dancing, our band, Contratopia, will be playing for the Thursday Night Contra in Glenside. Similarly you can find a good dance with Contratopia and caller Ted Hodapp at Glen Echo Park on Friday and Sunday and in Frederick, MD on Saturday night. Here's a link to our schedule page that it includes links to more info on each of those dances. Stop by and say hello.

Yazoo Ramble

Yazoo Ramble (mp3)(pdf)

Riding on the City of New Orleans last June, with a mandolin in hand, I discovered a bunch of tunes. Many, maybe most of them, seemed familiar. Here's a simple blues in fiddle tune form, captured somewhere not far from the Yazoo City train stop.

Cumberland Mission

Cumberland Mission (mp3)(pdf)

The Amtrak Capitol Limited passes through Cumberland, MD around 9:30 in the morning on the way into DC and around 7:15 p.m. on the trip back west. It always stops for a few minutes and this tune was mostly composed there during one of my trips in 2011. I'm looking forward to riding through Cumberland again next month on my way to a series of Contratopia dances in Glenside, PA, and Glen Echo and Frederick, MD between March 22-25.

I recorded this tune a few days ago which is notable to me because it was the first time I had gotten around to recording anything new for So Many Tunes since last August. Since then I've done a couple more. We'll see if this is a trend or an anomaly.

Rainy Island Sunday

Rainy Island Sunday (mp3)(pdf)

It's neither rainy nor a Sunday today and I'm not on an island. But back in June 2011 I had just returned from a few hours on lovely Madeline Island, in the rain, on a Sunday, when I wrote this little tune. It's clearly related in key and feel to "Trailer in the High Grass" that I featured back in August. I had forgotten that I recorded this one also around that time and just re-discovered it this morning.

Further evidence of my lack of originality can be found on the first track of our Notes from the Farm CD. The second tune there, "Cold Market Morning", is another mid-tempo tune in Em with some real similarities. Maybe someday I should record a whole CD full of E minor tunes? Maybe not.

Notes from the Farm

 (photo courtesy of David Cavagnaro)

The Kitchen Waltz (mp3)(pdf)

Following production of the Mandolin Tunes CD my Contratopia colleague Erik Sessions and I got together in December to record our first duo CD, Notes from the Farm. This was done very much in the spirit of this blog, recorded in a very simple way with no overdubs and fancy digital editing. We set up a couple of mics in Erik's living room, turned down the furnace for quiet, and played a bunch of tunes. Some we have been playing together for years and some were relatively new to us.

There are 15 tracks with 23 tunes. Seven tunes by Goodin, three by Sessions, two by the great James Oswald (a mandolin/violin duet version of The Junquill from his Airs for the Seasons) and eleven traditional. As you can imagine we are both excited to have completed this project and we encourage you to check out our page at CD Baby for more information.

In addition to being available from CD Baby the new CD should also be for sale soon at the iTunes store, emusic, Rhapsody, Napster and the other usual suspects.

The Kitchen Waltz has been around for a few years now and we often play it with Contratopia. I wrote it on the guitar but in the band I usually play it on mandolin while Patrice Pakiz does her piano magic. So this recording is a rare opportunity for me to play it on guitar. It's one of the tunes that I almost didn't write down because it seems so simple but, over the years, it has developed more character. The mp3 here is the version that appears on the new CD.

Speaking of Contratopia, we'll be playing at the Tapestry Folkdance Center tonight for a contra dance. Stop by if you have the chance. We'll have plenty of copies of Notes from the Farm available.

Mandolin Tunes CD

I believe that this is the first posting on this site that doesn't include a link to a new tune. Instead, this is a PR blog (marketing not being one of my strong points) to let readers of So Many Tunes know that I have put together a collection of tracks from this blog and created a CD that I've titled Mandolin Tunes.

The CD contains 23 of my favorite tunes from the nearly 100 that I've recorded so far for the blog. None of the tunes appear on any of the three Contratopia CDs and they were all recorded here at my house using a no-frills approach. I didn't re-record anything but I did go back to the original wave files and remix a few things. So, if you invest in a copy (either physical or digital) of Mandolin Tunes you won't be buying the product of a high end studio recording environment.

When I started this blog I didn't intend to ever offer these particular recordings for sale. The idea has always been to feature the tunes in a simple way. The standard approach has been for me to record a basic guitar track and then play the melody, without much embellishment, two or three times through so that the listener might be able to learn the tune if he or she finds it interesting. Some of the tracks have harmony parts and once or twice I play a short improv bit.

Why a CD now? Well, last summer the idea of collecting some of my favorite tracks just popped into my head. I enjoyed the process of picking out the ones to keep and putting them together in different orders. I also wanted to experiment with doing a low budget CD production with an eye towards a couple of other projects that I have in mind. I also know there are a lot of folks who have no idea that this blog exists who I thought might enjoy this music.

The companies that manufacture CDs these days, especially Oasis and Disc Makers, have a variety of less expensive options and I chose to have Mandolin Tunes produced in a small quantity as "Pro CD-Rs" rather than more expensive replicated CDs. Pro CD-Rs are duplicated at 4x rather than the 24x (or faster) rate that you and I might use when burning a CD-R at home. This theoretically creates a product with virtually no errors. (So far, no one has contacted me with any playback issues.) I also chose to have the CDs packaged in full-color jackets to lessen the carbon footprint and to take up less space in my house.

Eventually I'll get around to writing some more formal notes about each of the tunes but for now I just wanted to let readers know that the CD is available.

Available where?

CD Baby
Amazon
iTunes
emusic

CD Baby is the best place to order a physical copy (unless you want to contact me directly) and it looks like emusic has the best mp3 price of the bunch. I also like the way that the emusic page also links to some YouTube video performances of some of my other music.

Of course you could just look up each of the 23 tunes here on the blog and compile your own CD. I guess it depends on how much time you want to spend. Feel free to comment here or, even better, leave some reviews at the various online vendor sites.

I'll get around to posting some more tunes one of these days. I've got a bunch waiting their turn.

Trailer in the High Grass

(photo courtesy of Horia Varlan's public photostream)

Trailer in the High Grass (mp3)(pdf)

This simple tune in E minor comes from earlier this summer, written during a brief visit to lovely Bayfield, Wisconsin and nearby Madeline Island. The "arrangement" is just mando and guitar on the first pass joined by a second mando playing an octave down on the second time through. Another guitar is added playing the melody on the final round.

Dodge the Plow

Dodge the Plow (mp3)(pdf)

This tune comes from sometime last winter when there were plenty of snow plows out keeping our roads clear and safe for travel. I added a bit of harmony on the second time around and overdubbed another mando playing the melody (mostly) an octave down on the third pass.

The Old Basement Piano

The Old Basement Piano (mp3)(pdf)(harmony pdf)

Most of my life there was an old upright piano in the basement of my parents' house. It was very much like the one pictured above, although it was painted a different color. I was always told that it had been waterlogged in the historic 1937 Louisville, Kentucky Ohio River flood and that, as a result, it was not very good. But it sounded great to me.

I never spent much time trying to learn how to play piano, I was too much under the spell of the guitar after the Beatles, but I certainly spent many hours picking out little tunes and learning how chords are made. One of the pieces of sheet music that was always on that piano was a simple version of "Sugartime", composed by Charles Phillips and Odis Echols.

The opening measures of this new tune of mine are very similar to the tune of "Sugartime." I noticed this almost as soon as I started to play the melody but I thought I would go ahead and see where it led. I'm glad I did because I've enjoyed playing this new tune quite a bit. The 8th notes are meant to be bouncy and not straight as you can hear on the recording.

I don't know where that old piano is now but I sure hope that it's bringing pleasure to another generation of budding musicians. Maybe that tattered sheet music is still with it.

A Northern Exposure

A Northern Exposure (mp3)(pdf)(harmony pdf)

Back on June 15 we here in Decorah were treated to a visit from the new Finnish-American duo Kaivama and their Finnish touring partner, the legendary Arto Jarvela. A brief "northern exposure."

In the afternoon Arto led a workshop for about 20 fiddlers, mandoliners, guitarists, bassists and a pennywhistler. Being a big fan of Arto's work, both as a player and a composer, I was very happy for this opportunity. It was, as I expected, both educational and inspirational.

After a short dinner break Kaivama and Arto presented a great concert with some solos, some duos and some trios. They even invited the workshop participants to come up and play one of the tunes we had worked on that afternoon! This was my first chance to hear Arto play in person and he was great. I was also very pleased with Sara and Jonathan. They featured great playing, beautiful tunes and expert arrangements. The trios with Mr. Jarvela were especially strong. I highly recommend the new Kaivama CD and Arto's new Cross-tuned CD as well.

The highlight of the night for me was when Arto played my old blacktop Gibson mandolin on one number during the show. I've never heard it played better.

I will benefit from this exposure for years to come in terms of inspiration but the immediate payoff came the next morning when today's featured tune popped out of wherever tunes come from into my fingers as I played my mandolin. I'm guessing maybe Arto left it behind when he played it?