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My instrument was made in England by Andrew Manson and has about the same scale length as a tenor banjo. I tune it like a mandolin an octave down. I’ve worked out the tunes and voicings and ornamental and accompaniment ideas I’ll include with these columns on my ax, but all should be fun with minor adjustments on mandolins, too. So where to begin? Let’s start with a jig, the most "Irish" of dance rhythms. Here’s a lovely double jig called "The Rambler," learned from the pennywhistle playing of Liam O’Flynn. Single jigs and double jigs are both in 6/8 time. They’re danced differently, but if you’re not playing for dancers, you can feel free to mix and match them in medleys. Slip jigs are counted in 9/8 and we’ll tackle them in a future column. When you’re trying to get as Irish as possible a pulse in a jig, you want to establish a strong right-hand picking direction pattern: DOWN up down DOWN up down. The 1 and 4 beats of the jig are the driving beats, so always hit them with a down stroke. "The Rambler" is a good exercise for this pattern, since it mixes quarter notes in with the eighth notes. This means that in the first full bar of the tune, you’ll be picking DOWN up down DOWN [blank] down. Your pick will be coming up on the 5 beat but not hitting the strings. And you’ll want to keep this internal move going all the way through, no matter where the longer notes are. I’ve also noted some places where you can add in triplet ornaments once you’re comfortable with the tune. The "T" above the note indicates a place where you might want to tuck in a triplet. Expert players rarely play tunes through exactly the same way twice. One way to keep a tune interesting is to move the ornaments around. So consider each "T" to be an opportunity, not a command. To get the proper timing for a triplet ornament on a quarter note, divide the note into four sixteenths and hit the first three of them. For great recorded examples of the Celtic triplet, check out Gerald Trimble’s cittern work on "First Flight" (Green Linnet) and Gerry O’Connor’s surgically-precise banjo technique on "Time to Time" (Mulligan). Next time we’ll start in on jig accompaniment. By that time you should have "The Rambler" down cold. Enjoy! |
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