I started playing guitar the day my Vagabond guitar arrived. Within a week of getting it I was already starting to pluck out a new melody on it. By 9/29/18 I had written this melody and named it Polecat On A Mission.
Here's a non-edited phone recording of this tune I made a few minutes ago. I played it several times through.
I'm so glad I got this Vagabond Travel Guitar. Luthier Kevin Smith makes them in left-handed and it only took a couple weeks to arrive. It needed no setup out of the box and it has taken really well to the all fourths tuning - EADGCF from low to high.
Having never played guitar before, I'm not comparing this guitar to the sound a feel of a normal sized acoustic. To me it feels really good and is a lot of fun to play.
I've been playing tenor banjo for over ten years now. Tenor banjo is tuned in fifths, either CGDA or GDAE. This tuning is very symmetrical, but the fifth interval between the strings means that notes in closed positions don't really fit under the fingers. To remedy this and yet retain a similar symmetry, I've been thinking that an all fourths tuning would be fun to try.
The day before yesterday I received a left-handed Vagabond guitar made by Kevin Smith of StringSmith.com and tuned it EADGCF. Note how the two highest strings are tuned up a semitone (from B to C and from E to F, respectively). One of the first things I did was try and play the major scale across all six strings and as expected it fits very well under the fingers all up and down the neck.
After quickly familiarizing myself with where notes one through seven of the major scale are located, I then analyzed one of my tunes called Frosted Cherry and wrote out the melody in terms of where the notes fall on the major scale. This is something I learned from David Reed's book Improvise for Real. See image below, where the numbers begin 3 6 1 3 2 2 2. In the Cmajor scale this would equate to the notes E A C E D D D. In the Amajor scale these notes would be C# F# A C# B B B. And so on.
With the Perfect Fourths (P4) tuning on guitar, you can play all of the notes of the major scale anywhere on the neck. This also means that in this tuning the above melody to Frosted Cherry can be played in any key, in any position on the neck without ever having to use open strings. This type of lead sheet replaces both guitar tab and sheet music and transcends key.
To make the recording below I found a random place on the neck to play the major scale. I then figured out where the notes to Frosted Cherry would fall within that scale and played the tune. As mentioned above this tune starts on note 3 of the major scale. I don't even know what key I was in while playing it. It was about playing out of a position, not a key.
Here's another sound sample. A tune called Bye Bye Sol. Recorded 09/23/2018.
That's all I have to say about this right now, but the possibilities seem endless.
Back on June 10th I posted about a year of writing tunes. In the three months since then I've added 8 more pieces to my catalog, bringing the total to 70. That matches the number of compositions published by Thelonious Monk. Just sayin'.
Time for a rundown I suppose.
Number 62: Emily Redoux, written on 6/24/18
For the A-part of this one I believe I took some of the notes from the written vocal melody to portions of Phish's album version of the title track to Story of the Ghost and re-arranged the rhythm and pacing to match a sound I had in my head. Then the B-part seemed to just play itself. There might be a tag at the end that was totally stolen from a melody that came up on Spotify.
Number 63: Show Ponies, written 6/28/18
I had the name Show Ponies before I had the tune. So I had to write a melody to fit. I gained inspiration by listening to Gitkin's 5 Star Motel. However, one part of this tune may actually be completely original that I came up with on my own!
Number 64: Beach Breeze Motel, written 7/5/18
This piece was written to commemorate a vacation to Nova Scotia. Played here on K-Board using the SampleTank app "Alto Sax" sound. Ideas in this have been borrowed from or at least galvanized by Eamon O'Leary's song The Second Bottle.
Number 65: Yam Cakes and Ackee, written 7/23/18
Beginning with Yam Cakes and Ackee, I got on a little three-tune Caribbean kick. I came up with this tune after listening to some St. Croix Quelbe music and the reggae group Black Uhuru. It was fairly effortless.
Number 66: Bye Bye Sol, written 8/9/18
I had a head full of ideas after seeing Phish for three nights in Alpharetta, Georgia in early August 2018. Bye Bye Sol and its sister tune La Luz are both composed almost entirely of sounds I heard (or thought I heard) in the music played during those three nights. I couldn't wait to get home and get these ideas onto paper.
Number 67: La Luz, written 8/9/18
As mentioned above, tunes 66 and 67 were both distilled from music played by Phish on their stunning Summer 2018 tour. With a name like La Luz, it's likely this tune owes its existence to the version of the song Light played by Phish on 8/7/18 in Camden, NJ. Hot off the press.
Number 68: The September March, written 9/3/18
Sometimes for a song written by someone else, if I really want to know what the notes are, I'll request a transcription from Built to Last Music Notes. I did that a few weeks back for a ragtime sounding number from the year 1916 called Guatemala-Panama March by the Hurtado Brothers Royal Marimba Band. However, soon after sending that for transcription I decided to come up with my own melody based on the sound of that Hurtado Brothers composition. Four days later this had become The September March. I'm curious to see what the actual notes are when I get the transcription. That'll help me know how "original" this one is.
Number 69: Not a Care in the World, written 9/12/18
For some reason this week I thought of and then felt like listening to the album of O'Carolan music released by mandolinist Butch Baldassari back in 2007. The very first track - a set of two tunes for Young William Plunkett - caught my ear and made me want to write a melody just like it. So I did. Maybe this is too much like it! What I ended up with was a notey, three-part, repetitive tune. It's called Not a Care in the World because I was writing it on the Wednesday before Tropical Storm Florence was supposed to arrive. I like that major to minor transition which happens between the two tunes in Baldassari's setting. Something similar happens here but it is between parts A and B.
Number 70: Little Cat Nicholas, written 9/12/18
On the occasion that a melody comes to me out of the blue, I'll usually try and hum it into my phone's voice recorder for later use. Forget about that for a moment. Earlier this week, late in the evening just before bed, I was putting away my banjo when I pulled it back out and began improvising a quiet, pretty, waltzy melody on the instrument for a few minutes. I didn't record it. I put the banjo away and went to sleep. A day or two later - this would have been 9/12 - I decided to recall that melody. I'm pretty sure this is that. I called it Little Cat Nicholas: our temperamental cat Nicholas is approaching 20 years of age and is not long for this world, so this tune is dedicated to him. Anyway, after all that I noticed a recording on my phone titled generically as "hummed melody" and it's pretty much this same tune. So this was floating around for a little while and needed documenting.
Biting Cat Nicholas having a typically lazy day. September 15, 2018.
Somewhere around mid-to-late August I learned that two of my favorite musicians, guitarists Mary Halvorson and Bill Frisell, had released a duo record called The Maid with the Flaxen Hair. That's past tense. Made. Released. As in available as of July 2018 and therefore already out now at this very moment. Why was I just then finding this out? Weeks earlier I could have been listening to it, if only I had known. Maybe you are finding out right now, as you read this. I instantly went in search of this music.
It wasn't easy to instantly find. Spotify didn't have it. (The album is on the Tzadik label, whose stuff isn't usually on Spotify.) It also wasn't on Bandcamp. Fine, I'll order it on vinyl, I thought. Nope it's not available on vinyl. That sucks. It is on CD, but who buys CDs any more? Still I wanted to hear it ASAP so I was willing to purchase the CD and then convert it to digital upon delivery (the only CD player I still have is on an old laptop). But then, luckily, after first searching and not finding it, I found it on Amazon ready to be downloaded. Finally, instant gratification.
And it's as awesome and refreshing as I had hoped it would be!
Instead of each contributing original material, Frisell and Halvorson meet on middle ground by covering music associated with the sophisticated and dare I say easy listening 1950's era guitarist Johnny Smith, whom they both admire. I'm not that familiar at all with Johnny Smith, nor am I that well versed in the jazz canon, so most of these melodies outside of Shenandoah were new to my ears. Not complaining, but how many times does Bill Frisell need to record Shenandoah?!
I like the idea of interpreting songs from the golden era in a project like this because these standard(?) tunes bring with them very strong melodies. Having that classic structure in place can give two adventurous musicians plenty of material to work with and build up from.
Now to the listening part. Would it be cliche to say that Mary and Bill contribute exactly equally? By that I mean neither guitarist outshines the other. If anything they attempt to out humble each other. This is not the multi-generational competitivebattle of virtuosity or egos that it could have devolved into. No, the two guitars blend in a delightfully cooperative way that is way more meditative, and far less noisey, flashy or "out" than one might expect.
It's not always easy to tell who is playing what, but if I had to guess I would say it sounds like Bill is playing more lead stuff and Mary is doing more accompaniment, but I'm not sure if those traditional roles even apply here. And who knows, I could have it backwards.
I definitely know it's Mary when I hear her signature pitch-shifting. She has yet to ever stray too far from that, no matter what the setting is. In Bill's case he seems to play things fairly cleanly, but there is the presence of the delay/looper effects he is known for. Hearing these innovative guitarists' immediately recognizable and iconic individual characteristics being played in tandem, as on Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair, is quite satisfying.
Frankly, I'm not really listening to hear who is doing what...instead I'm just bathing in the calming sound this beautiful work induces. I'm so happy this music now exists and it came out better and more tasteful than I could have ever imagined.
Luckily I was home this morning when my Travolin mandolin by Silverleaf Instruments arrived a day early! The Travolin is a high quality travel mandolin made by Steve Hallee in Maine. Mine is a custom 4-string left-handed version (normally they have 8-strings just like a regular mandolin).
For reasons unknown I woke up this morning wanting to learn the Monty Norman song Under the Mango Tree from the James Bond movie Dr. No. When the Travolin was delivered I had just about gotten the tune of it so Under the Mango Tree was the first thing I played on the Travolin. That islandy song seems well suited to this instrument. Here's an overdubbed recording I made today with the Travolin as lead melody, my Romero tenor banjo for the chords, and a metal scraper on a metal patio table to "approximate" the sound of a snare drum.
This 4-string version of the Travolin is 20 inches long and 5.5 inches wide. It has a scale length of about 13.25 inches. It's the best feeling, sounding and playing travel mandolin I've had, and the most compact.
John Prine - Tree of Forgiveness
When John Prine puts out a new album chances are good it's going to mesh extremely well with his existing body of work, like a new chapter in an unfinished story. Tree of Forgiveness sits on equal terms with John's best albums from the 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's and 2010's. Prine has given us a tremendous gift with this addition to his legacy. Listening to Tree of Forgiveness is like a musical meditation.
Eamon O'Leary - All Souls
He may never be well known, but Eamon O'Leary is a musician's musician - someone who is just as likely to be playing in an Irish session as he is to be on stage at a folk festival. On All Souls Eamon has fine-tuned his brand of self-penned melancholy ballads and distilled it into a near perfect ten song package. There's a seductive edge to these songs. O'Leary is a charmer and this a record to be listened to on a moonlit night with your lover, a couple bottles of wine and an illegal smile.
Jimi Tenor - Order of Nothingness
Spotify has been helping me hone in on the sound I'm looking for and now it probably knows what I'm going to like better than I do. Jimi Tenor is one of those that popped up on my new release radar. I started with the songs My Mind Will Travel and Quantum Connection. Those made it to a summer playlist I've been putting together and primed my taste for this album of full-on trippy and soulful Euro funk jazz.
Gitkin - 5 Star Motel
I have no idea what this is. I just like it. The music is a global smorgasbord, reminiscent of Akira Satake, Laika and the Cosmonats or Khruangbin. The grooves are heavy and the melodies are up front and catchy, just the way I like them. This could just be some guy in his bedroom playing all the instruments. I don't know. The track Cancion Del Rey fits perfectly on a summer playlist, although really anything here could have made the cut.
The Congos and Pura Vida - Morning Star
I only recently became aware of the 1977 album Heart of the Congos, considered to be one of the best reggae albums of all time. So it was good timing to find out that The Congos were teaming up with Belgian Rasta musician and producer Pura Vida to put out a new album called Morning Star. I've probably listened to this album about ten times in the last week. It's fresh and rootsy. Nothing beats the falsetto vocals of Cedric Myton sprinkled throughout.
First time visitors to Nova Scotia may feel compelled, like I did, to drive 1,000+ miles and try and see as much of the maritime province as possible: the South Shore, the Bay of Fundy, the Northumberland Shore, Cape Breton, the Eastern Shore, the Halifax metro area, et cetera. Second time visitors are probably ready to focus on one or two places. For me those two places would be Lunenburg and Wolfville.
Lunenburg is located on Nova Scotia's South Shore, about an hour and twenty minute drive from Halifax. The walkable town is positioned on a hillside overlooking a harbour and its main section is three or four parallel streets lined with bed and breakfasts, inns, local restaurants and shops. For a small town of about 2,300 people, Lunenburg is rich in amenities designed to welcome and charm visitors. Despite being touristy, there's also an element of lived-in authenticity that gives Lunenburg an edge over its more bland neighbor Mahone Bay.
Lunenburg
With its location on the Lighthouse Route - the province's scenic drive along the South Shore - you're assured of meandering waterside roads whether you head east of Lunenburg toward Chester and Peggy's Cove or west toward LaHave, Petite Riviere and beyond. The twisty coastal road between Hubbards and Mahone Bay might have been my favorite stretch in all of Nova Scotia. There are many beaches nearby as well. Three well known ones are Hirtle's Beach, Crescent Beach and Risser's Beach.
If you're looking for an even smaller seaside town that's a little bit closer to Halifax, consider Chester. I only stopped in Chester for lunch but it made me wish that I had planned to spend at least one night there. From Chester you can take a ferry to the Tancook Islands and spend a few hours exploring.
My other favorite place in Nova Scotia was Wolfville. This college town is about an hour north of Halifax, making it very accessible to travelers. While the town itself doesn't have the quintessential attractiveness and layout of Lunenburg, Wolfville does back up to the Bay of Fundy's Minas Basin where the world famous Nova Scotia tides go in and out every six hours. From Wolfville it's a short drive to places like Evangeline Beach or Hall's Harbour where this phenomenon can really be observed.
Wolfville is smack dab in the middle of Nova Scotia's wine region - the Gaspereau Valley. Several wineries are within a 30 minute drive and the wine is surprisingly good for somewhere so far north. Perhaps because of the wine draw, Wolfville also has an elevated food scene. Some of the best dining in the province outside of Halifax is located here. Nearby Port William is also worth checking out for its food and drink.
Nova Scotia's Wine Region
Evangeline Beach, Cape Blomidon in distance
If you visited Wolfville just for the wine and food alone that would be enough, but there's also excellent hiking not far away. Cape Split and Blomidon Provincial Park each offer very challenging rambles for the hiking enthusiast. It's also very bike-friendly (as is Lunenburg).
Being a college town, Wolfville is not so tourist reliant, so there's a progressive buzz going on there year round, complete with bookstores, an arts scene, and an awareness of healthy living options. The thinking seems to be that if the residents are happy, then the visitors are sure to be as well.
