Old World or New, Sacred or Profane

Saturday, November 11, 2006

A Place in the Heart

Well, thank you commenters for your kind words.

A Place in the Heart is a relatively recent tune composed by Bill Crahan for mandolin. I don't know the exact year but I think in the '90s. We've started working on it with our mandolin player and below I have a link to a recording of last week's practice session on it. It's an AABB structured tune. For the A sections, I'm playing pizz chords. For the B sections I've made up my own little harmony part. I know, the actual playing, especially intonation, still leaves a lot to be desired, but I think the cello line works out rather nicely in this piece.

I can't imagine not writing my own parts some of the time. It's not improvisation in the sense Eric Edberg advocates because I figure out what to play ahead of time, then change and work with it between practices. The choice of notes notes often remain a work in progress.

A Place in the Heart

8 comments:

Guanaco said...

I really love hearing the cello in pieces like that. It seems to belong. It's hard to imagine the tune without the cello part. I hope that one day I can play that kind of music in a group like yours.

Keep them coming, Terry.

Assuming you are using the blogger composer, all you have to do is highlight the words you want to be the hyperlink - for example select "A Place in the Heart" - then click the insert link button on the toolbar and copy in the actual url into the little box that pops up.

You might want to consider using Google's new on-line document processor [I am biased, my son works there], which includes both word processing and spreadsheets, and then lets you post it directly to your blog. It lets you put more bells and whistles in your posts - such as flyover notes for your links.

G

Terry said...

On the links, I get it now. For some reason I was selecting the url, then expecting to enter descriptive text. It's actually the reverse. Good grief, the B-C#-D in that recording sound so much worse the day after! Well, thanks to recording it, I know what to fix.

Terry said...

By the way, can you folks see the 2 graphics I have above the latest post?

Guanaco said...

I see them.

Anonymous said...

Nope no graphics :( AND I can't play the music exerpt either. But then, I'm trying at work where they censor like crazy. I'll try elsewhere.


Robin

Anonymous said...

So now I'm "elsewhere" and I heard it. Love it. I'm inspired.

The title "Whisky Before Breakfast" appeared on the media player. Is that the group?

Still no graphics other than the ones at the top that have been there.

Robin

Terry said...

PFS - I definitely want to discuss the specifics of writing harmonies. We'll get there.
Robin - Whisky Before Breakfast was the title of a previous recording I extracted and exported, with me washtub. Maybe I'll post that later, just for fun.

Anonymous said...

I kept listening for "Whiskey Before Breakfast" to start, before I realized that it WASN'T that tune. I really liked the cello in there. It makes me really happy to hear (and hear of) real people playing real music, and I think the cello adds a lot.

Theresa (coreopsis)