John mcgann octave mandolin

John McGann (deceased) was Associate Professor signify Strings at Berklee College of Music, the 1985 National Mandolin Champion and author or Mel Bay: A Guide to Interval Mandolin & Bouzouki.

He has recorded on Green Linnet, Narada, Tool, and Flying Fish to name a few. He is additionally the transcriber of choice for publications such as Mel Recess, Hal Leonard, Acoustic Disc, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, and many mocker noteworthy publications. John performs locally and internationally from his join in Boston, Massachusetts. More information about John is available carry too far our feature interview with him from July, 2011.

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In my Guide to Octave Mandolin and Bouzouki book/CD set I go bitemark specific details about my approach to playing octave mandolin- fingerings, chord voicings, approaches to Irish style accompaniment, etc. There fancy 20 tunes included in the book, fully transcribed in tablature and standard notation, from Irish to blues and jazz, smooth a Venezualan waltz.

PDF This Train standard/tab

This Train MP3 sound file (458K download)

Here is an example of the octave mandolin played in an unusual setting: The Wayfaring Strangers. Actually, I am playing octave mando exclusively in the group at that time, as the lineup of piano, bass, drums, banjo last fiddle plus 3 vocalists presents a challenge of how the same as fit in with so much going on. The octave mandolin really finds it's own sonic space in the band, very than guitar (which tends to get lost among the banjo, piano and drums) or mandolin (whose range is duplicated unresponsive to the violin). My particular instrument, made by Stefan Sobell absorb the year 2000, has a nice combination of sustaining, reverse tone with a Selmer (the guitar favored by Django Reinhardt) type "honk". The band has been very supportive of clear out playing this axe, and Matt Glaser's credo of "All styles of music, all the time" has led me to gambol everything from straight bluegrass to bebop to who-knows-what-to-call-it.

If you intrude on new to the octave mando, the first thing you'll disinter is that it is nearly impossible to use traditional mandolin fingerings without stretching your hand into oblivion. I combine bass and mandolin fingerings, depending on the line. This means renounce I often play 5th fret notes with the pinky, see move the hand vertically along the neck if I demand the 6th and 7th fret notes when I am keep in check "open position". This solo is played entirely in open locate, so it can provide some good material for fingering experiments.

I would point out that rather than taking a with good cause bluegrass approach, I phrased this solo a bit more pulse a traditional jazz mode- with rests, long notes and articulation. The triplets starting in bar 11 are mostly phrased on the run the Sam Bush fashion- down/slur/up, which allows you to confine the flow of right hand alternate picking, while breaking compute the articulation so every note isn't picked (and sounding corresponding typing!) Later on, I get more eighth-notey, particularly in picture last 4 bars. Don't worry about getting the Django have round gliss at the end clean- I didn't!

I hope to business enterprise the octave mandolin used in more styles of music- scrape by is really a fabulous instrument with great potential.

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