I came across this photo, circa August 1997, when I was cleaning out some old files. Howard (’Louie Bluie’) Armstrong was a mandolinist I admired enormously, from his early recordings with the unfortunately named Tennessee Chocolate Drops to his later work with Martin, Bogan, and Armstrong, and as a solo artist. His recording of State Street Rag should be required listening for every mandolinist.

Terry Zwigoff (of Crumb, Ghost World, and Bad Santa fame) made his first foray into film making with a documentary of Armstrong called ‘Louie Bluie’. Sadly, it’s not in print on DVD in the US, and VHS copies can be hard to come by.

The Stradivarius of mandolins is this Stradivarius mandolin, one of two known examples. It’s in the collections of the University of South Dakota. With ten gut strings and what appear to be oud-like frets, it’s a markedly different instrument from the contemporary mandolin, which is largely based on the work of Orville Gibson.

It’s signed and dated Antonio Stradivario in Cremona 1680, which would place it twenty years into his career as an instrument maker, but still almost another two decades before his ‘golden age’ of 1698-1720.

In addition to mandolins, he apparently made some fiddles.

True to form, Homer and Jethro take a simple comic song and turn it into an impressive instrumental showpiece. It really starts to swing about the 1:15 mark. From the Jimmy Dean show.

This is an uncommonly good piece of old-time mandolin playing. It is available on CD on the excellent collection Down in the Basement. According to that disc’s liner notes, the recording was by a pair of Knoxville musicians name Joe Evans and Arthur McClain. The two recorded for several labels under, as was the custom at the time, a variety of names. This was recorded for the Perfect label in May of 1931.

The relentless rhythmic drive and energy, the phrases that eat their own tails, this is just about perfect.

Old Hen Cackle (MP3)

Courtesy of Archive.org

This is some great vintage footage of Clarence and Roland White playing together in 1973. There are some clear shots of their left hands, so you can get a pretty good sense of their playing mechanics.

I wrote this piece as part of the introduction to my book, The American Country Music Tunebook, to help my students become more comfortable with transposition. I’m posting it here for the same reason — with a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of practice, anyone can become comfortable transposing songs and tunes on the fly.

Although the capo is referred to derisively as a “cheater” in some circles, it can be a valuable tool–handy for the guitarist, almost essential to the banjo player. Capos are also available for mandolins and other stringed instruments (even dobros), and these might prove handy for beginning players. When buying a capo, avoid the cheap elastic variety, as they can be hard to use and tend to pull the instrument out of tune. I prefer the “one hand” spring-action capo, such as a Keyser, for ease of use, although there are a number of well-made capos in different styles on the market which will do the trick for under twenty dollars, Dunlop and Shubb being two of the more popular brands.

The reasons for using a capo are quite simple. You may need to transpose a song to accommodate a singer’s range. You may find yourself playing with folks who play familiar tunes in unfamiliar keys. Most commonly, however, you may find that you need access to notes on open strings to play a tune comfortably.

In guitar playing, the ideal flatpicking keys are C and G. These are also the two easiest keys on the five-string banjo in standard tuning. The trick to using the capo, then, is using it to play tunes in other keys as though they were in C or G. The process is quite easy once you get the hang of it. Just count up from the nut in half-steps. To play in D, capo on the second fret and play as if you were in C. To play in A, capo on the second fret and play as if you were in G. To play in B Flat, capo on the third fret and play as if you were in G, and so on.

Most old-time songs use a limited number of chords–a “tonic” or I chord, which represents the home key; a “dominant” or V7 chord which tends to show up near the end of phrases and is used to lead back to the tonic; and a “subdominant” or IV chord, a whole step below the dominant, which is used to add some variety to the mix.

Here are the I, IV and V7 chords for the most commonly encountered keys:

Thus, if you want to play a tune in D as though it were in C, capo on the second fret and play C, F, and G7. With the capo in place, they will sound as D, G, and A7. With a little bit of practice, a capo can make your life a lot easier.

Mandolinists always need more volume. Our instrument is not a loud one, and trying to keep up with banjos, fiddles, and guitars can be like tapdancing in a buffalo stampede. The tone-gard is a simple aftermarket way of increasing your volume. It clips onto the back of the instrument, pushing it away from the body and allowing the back of the instrument to vibrate freely. David Grisman, Ricky Skaggs, and Roland White are using them, which is as good a recommendation as any.

Many old mandolins, especially my old Gibson A-50, put as much sound out of the back of the instrument as they do the top. When recording my Gibson ‘A’, I sometimes have the engineer put a microphone behind the instrument as well as in front of it. My F-2 behaves similarly — it’s noticeably louder and fuller sounding if I let the sound come out of the back as well as the top of the instrument.

With that in mind, I’ve ordered a tone-gard for my F-2 from Tony Pires, and should have it in a few days. If it works well, I’ll likely use it when we record our next record. We prefer to track almost all the instrumental tracks live, and I’d much prefer to use my sweet-sounding F-2 rather than anything else.

I’m testing out some new mandolin strings made by a Canadian company called Fire Wire. I strung up my resonator mandolin with them for a two-set show tonight.

The wound strings are a little darker than the nickel strings I’m presently using. The gauges run from .010 to .036. I sometimes like to use a slightly gauges on the wound strings (.026 and .038), but that’s not that big a deal.

The strings settled in very quickly. Like DR’s, the Fire Wire strings are ‘pre-stretched’, so they stay in tune well right out of the package. They have a reputation for long life, though I won’t be able to verify that immediately, obviously.

So far, I’ve had none of the freaky problems I was having with Ernie Ball strings.

I still haven’t done anything to replace the tailpiece on my mandolin. My initial impression of it is that it was designed by sadists. After using the mando for the better part of eight months, and restringing it many times, I’ve found nothing to contradict that. It’s a brutal design. See my earlier post for more info. I’ve been using a cheap paperclip to hold the loop end on while I bring the string to tension, and that’s helped somewhat. I think the ideal solution is to buy a large quantity of cheap rubber washers with a very small inner hole and slide those over each of the pegs.

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