Comments on: bumper breakdown from Thorough School

By: Lucas Gonze

Lucas Gonze — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:09:24 +0000

There’s an aspect of music making that’s purely about charm. You really don’t know before you do the piece how charming it will be. Sometimes you sweat a lot and get something great, sometimes sweating it out makes it worse.

I loved what your God Bless Our Land piece did with americana. Could easily see the Fayetteville source having the same dynamic.

By: gurdonark

gurdonark — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:50:44 +0000

I agree. it’s the simplicity that makes the piece. There’s a fellow over on magnatune who did piano tutorials, and that works, like this one, in the same way. I think, too, that the use of guitar rather than banjo helps steady and simplfiy the melody as well here.

i thought I’d try to sequence the Fayetteville piece into my synth, notes above the treble staff and all.
It looks pretty jaunty.

By: Lucas Gonze

Lucas Gonze — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:30:56 +0000

Thanks man. I was skeptical of this piece when I saw it because it looked too simple to be for real, I thought it would be boring and monotonous, but actually the simplicity is the attraction.

From a quick look at that Fayetteville Polka thingie, I think it’s a happy dance tune like you’d hear in a riverboat gambling salon. You could easily rescore that piano writing for a banjo and violin just by giving the part on the bass stave to the banjo (or guitar/mandolin/etc) and the treble stave to the violin. I’m not finding a higher res version of the scan, though, and that one is a bit small.

By: gurdonark

gurdonark — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:59:48 +0000

This was great.

I saw this piece, by Jenny Lind’s backing violinist from 1854, and thought of your project:

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/media-detail.aspx?mediaID=6700