One time I was attending a bluegrass fest with my family when the dobroist from one of my favorite local bands asked me if I'd fill in for their missing mandolinist. Unknown to him, their guitarist had asked a different mandolinist to do the same. So we both wound up on stage playing mando. We were excited, cuz we're friends and finally got to play mandolin together on stage, but the way we split up duties is he played chop chords and I played "Mrs Haley style," big open chords and I followed the vocal lines with my right hand. Without my buddy playing the chop it wouldn't have felt bluegrassy, but what I was doing added a something else that everyone seemd to like. After that experiment, I've tried to to it a little more often. It fills out the vocals in a way that's hard to explain if you're not paying attention to the mandolin. What I also found is you have to know the songs quite well (like anthing else). If you don't know the vocals, you can't "fake" the vocal rhythm.
My only experience with Mrs. Haley's playing, though, is the tater interview and listening to the samples of a Ed Haley reissue at a record store until I got asked "you gonna buy that?" Twenty bucks, had to say no, unfortuneately. erik On Jun 18, 8:28 am, Mark Halpin <[email protected]> wrote: > Some of my favorite Tater ventures have to be on 'The Speed of the Old > Long Bow' and t'other John Hartford old-time-fiddler-tribute albums... > i dont dance much but i knows they do make for fine jogging musics. > > From one of the old Co-mando interviews Mr. Tate tells that John > Hartford was looking for something along the lines of what Ela Haley > was doing on mandolin. Hers how its put in the interview > > 'Haley's wife Ela played taterbug (or roundback for you yanks) > mandolin on the recordings. She played simple chords with a heavy- > handed rhythm and that's what John said he really wanted me to do. I > thought it was a very primitive way to play mandolin until I started > to notice Ela seemed to be playing the melody line, but with chords. > In other words, her right hand played the melody, her left played > chords. It's sort of the same thing tap dancers do I guess.' > > Now, given that those Ed Haley recordings seem to be both rare and > pricey i have'nt much of chance to hear what exactly is going on with > the original recordings, i'm actually just going through the some mp3 > samples at the moment and i'm beginning to hear the sound i associate > from the Hartford albums. > > Now i'm wondering if anyone here, not just Mr Taterbug though it'd be > interesting to hear his views, have paid much attention to Ela Haley's > playing or have tried to adapt it into their own playing? > > If so, what attracts you to that style of playing, any observations > about it, in particular i'd wonder how do you think it sits with the > Monroe style? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en.
