Introduction
This by-ear learning video teaches a simple way to play the tune as a foundation to use for Monroe Style Improvising which is taught in the Noya Mountain Music Workshop Series "Monroe Style Jamming"
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Video
Hello, neighbors Howdy Folks, one thing that you might notice that it's a little bit different than usually is if you're watching these in sequence, it's a nice beautiful spring day and February, so February yeah, maybe it's just the end of February, all right, we're looking at sunny side of the mountain beginner Style, and this is very simple arrangement and uh.
We just need to get that Melody on our heads.
It's a great singing song Sound, something like this how's it going now.
Don't forget me little darling, while I'm growing, old and gray.
That's just a little thought before I'm going far away, I'll be waiting on the hillside.
Where, the wild red roses grow, On, the Sunny Side of the Mountain, where the Rippling Waters fall and we're not exactly sure why grow and fall are rhyme.
But that has little to do with our mandolin study today.
All right, we just want to get that melody in our heads.
Look at the cores real quick! So it goes okay! So that's a little tricky Six Beats on the on the E, that's the five chord all right! So at the very beginning we have two full bars of a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight d, eight beats four beats and a bar.
So that's two full bars of a all right.
Then we have a full bar of d d, two three, four, all right, so two bars a one bar D, and then we have the Six Beats of E, one two, three four five six and then back to a for four beats.
So you can think about that as a couple extra beats in E, if a usual bar is going to be four beats, this is Six Beats, so you can think about it.
As four beats.
One bar plus two extra beats it's a little complicated.
That's how the phrasing of the song goes and that's what we do, and so the second half just repeats that one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight d, three, four one, two three, four, five, six one, two three, four all right, so eight beats of a two bars four beats of d, one bar and then Six Beats of e, which is like one and a half bars or two extra beats on top of the four.
The full four beat bar okay.
Now, let's get to our Melody all right, we're gonna, be learning a basic Bare.
Bones.
Eighth note, Melody that we can theoretically easily trans interpolate to make up a word into sixteenth notes.
All right.
It's gonna sound something like this foreign stroke to all those eighth notes.
It sounds like this foreign okay and if you kind of mix it up with eighth notes and sixteenth notes, maybe a little Shuffle in there.
It can sound like this foreign okay.
So let's go through it.
One time, counting out with the eighth notes, all right.
What are eighth notes? Okay, so the eighth notes.
Basically, one way of thinking about it is where the bass plays and then where the mandolin shot plays, and it's the ones and the ands.
If you're, counting the quarter note getting even more complicated where the bass plays.
Okay, so one and two and three and four and those are your eighth notes: okay, one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and so on and so forth.
All right so counting through the simple eighth note.
Melody will be something like this one, two, three four and one and two and two and three and three and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three all right messed up the count a little bit.
At the end.
There that's because of that tricky Six Beats at the end, and some of this may be very complicated, especially to the folks who are just beginning.
But all of this is for the purpose of getting this melody in your ears.
Do it? Okay, that's the mandolin ease version of the singing Melody, all right, the vocal Melody! Don't forget me little darling, while I'm growing old and gray with the mandolin you're gonna put a little bit of the the shuffle in there.
Don't forget me little darling, while I'm growing, old and gray, just a little thought before and rolling far away.
Okay, so back to the Bare Bones Melody, the Melody has three pickup notes, all right, and so, if you're thinking about the pre-roll, which is the period of time before you start your break, it's gonna go like this one and two and three one: there is your downbeat.
Okay, it's your pickup notes, start where one and two and three on the end of three all right, so you're gonna be playing a little chromatic lead in pickup note situation from the fourth fret of the a up to the open E.
All right so you're gonna go four five, six, five six and then open E I recommend you start with your middle finger and then use your ring finger for the fifth fret and the sixth fret all right.
Those are all down Strokes.
These are all gonna, be down Strokes, because we're playing eighth notes all right.
So, let's check out our first line all right: it's gonna sound like this right.
One, one error, four beats there.
Okay, this is probably goes, don't forget me darling or whatever he says there: okay, so we're starting out on the open e one and two and some four down Strokes on the open e and then it's gonna go to the second fret of the e open e fourth fret of the a open, a all right, one and two and three and four, and that's our first bar.
If you put the pickup notes to it, it sounds like this and four and one and two and three and four and okay.
So if you haven't got that already stop the old video and work on it until you got that and one and two and now, let's check out our second line.
This can sound like this all right with the count.
It's like this one, two and okay, so we're starting out on the second fret, the e one stroke there open E down to the fourth fret of the a open, a all right.
Those your first four notes.
Second part of the E open, E.
Fourth fret the a open a and then we come back to the fourth fret of the a for two strokes down to the second fret of the a one stroke and then the open a right.
That's our full second line, count it out one and two and three and four and okay, so putting it together from the pickup notes.
It's gonna sound like this one, two, three and four, and one and two two and three and four and all right so make sure you got that before moving on okay and in the melody just to make sure that resonance is happening.
It sounded like this all right.
That's the all the a part, a chord part, eight beats in a now we're moving to the D chord gray.
This is a really long, vocal note, so we're just hanging on the open d one and two.
This is an easy part.
Okay, so you have eight eighth notes, one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, those are eighth notes, so that makes up one bar one and two and three and four and all right could be a whole lot more easier than that right there, okay, so taking it from the top one.
Two, three okay, now we're gonna go to the E chord.
Has six beats.
It's gonna sound like this, so you can count it as Six Beats or you can count it as four beads and then two more beats after it.
It's a little complicated it's one of the things that makes the song cool this part, where he's going just a little thump before I'm I'm going for uh, and then it goes back to the a chord way.
That's gonna be our next bar we're working on the E chord bar right now, an hour and a half or X, or two Beats, okay, so starting on the second fret of the a just, a little thought before I'm going all right.
So we got one and two and three and four and five and six and we'll count it with six beats.
It's gonna be confusing, either way all right.
So you start on your second fret of the a one and two and four strokes there up to the fourth fret of the a that's.
Your third beat three right back to your second fret of the A and four and all right.
So you have the four strokes on the second fret of the a one, two three four one stroke on the fourth fret of the a three more on the second fret of the a H all right, that's a little tricky because we're switching between how many notes you're counting and what the count is.
But let's let it all sink in soak in the most important thing is to hear it in your head various ways you can do that! You can go one two three four one one two three.
This is weird way, of doing it'll be counting The Strokes I like to do the count one and two and three and four and all right.
So now we're, up to the fifth beat of this six feet bar with the extra couple beats coming down to the sixth fret of the D foreign.
Basically, the most simple way you can think about is three Strokes on the sixth fret one stroke on the fourth fret all right.
This is coming in on the fifth beat of this extended bar five all right.
So this whole line just get this phrase in your mind, just a little thought before I'm going for oh it kind of times out nicely with the syllables all right.
If you come up to the fourth fret of the A on thought, just a little thought before I'm going for uh all right.
Let's take her from the top here.
We go! One two: three! So that time, I did the count starting over with one.
Instead of five and six, but hopefully, you caught it sorry about that that messed.
You up didn't mean to a promise: okay, so now we're halfway through.
So when you get down to that second fret of the D one and two and three okay, so one two three four five Strokes on the second fret of the D, then we start our pickup notes again all right.
The count is one and two they're coming in to the fourth fret of the a again on the end of three and four and lucky for us.
The next three bars are the same and here's where it changes slightly.
So when it goes to the E chord for the six, the bar, the vocal Melody changes and what are the words he's saying there.
So it comes back up to the a for the end of the whole Melody all right, so we got one and two and three and four and and here's your fifth and sixth beat sixth fret of the D, the second fret of the D fourth fret of the D sixth fret of the D and the open, a all right, one and two and three and four and five and six and one all right, and you can just end right there if you want to down- or you can have this little tag, Outlet all right, so open a fourth fret of D, second fret, sixth fret of the G second fret of the G in the context, I'd be like this.
That's where you start your rhythm again, all right! So that's the whole thing all right.
It's a whole thing.
Let's play it! You want two there we go one two three there all right: let's do one more time with the singing one, two, three just a little thought before I'm, going far away on the hillside, Where the wild red roses, Sunny Side of the Mountain s.
He could have easily changed that to flow to Toronto with rose or whatever.
Why would it grow? But he didn't that's the Bluegrass mystery right there.
Maybe you got it wrong.
Maybe you got it right, I, don't know what the prism version says.
Maybe it's the Jimmy Martin version too, which is how we learn it from Bluegrass.
Okay, so, let's add the upstroke okay, this might be complicated for some people.
This might be real easy for other people.
You know it's, okay, stick with it.
It's gonna sound like this, so we're just adding an upstroke to every single downstroke and you can do that with the pickup notes, play the pickup notes with eighth notes.
There we go one two three and a three e and a four E and A one is the most important thing again not to be from the Department of redundancy department, but just get that melody in here.
That, in a way, could be the most important thing about all of this.
All right get that little homie thing in your head, which I like to call speaking mandolin ease all right because you can't just go.
Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do we could, if you're playing the fiddle, you know that's how you could do it on the fiddle, but with the metal we need that little Shuffle in there or the run in 16th notes or the you know.
There are many ways up the mountain.
We need to be able to do them all and hold them all in our head at the same time, eventually, hopefully, maybe okay, one other option about playing this whole thing.
Is you put a little Shuffle to it? Thank you.
What the shuffle lick is basic sense is one quarter note divided into one eighth note and two sixteenth notes.
How confusing is that it's a little confusing if you're new to it, but it sounds like this down down up it's real simple, like that down down up, you can play a scale like that down down up down down up down down all right.
You can also count it like this and you could thread a shuffle through this whole thing with one and two and three and a four and one is okay, so that's even challenging for me to do to like keep that steady, Shuffle going, but really, ultimately, it's a feel thing in the best sense.
Okay, so you just gotta flow with that, where it feels good few little extra notes in there.
You might have heard those a little bit more on the uh Advanced side of town there, okay, so the key get that melody in your head play with drum machine.
Keep yourself straight.
Storm machine is a great app if you hadn't heard about it before so hope.
You've enjoyed this exploration of Sunny Side of the Mountain in the key of A, also good to take that same Arrangement up into G or down into G up into B flat B.
If you find it there, it's really good and that's more advanced.
This is a nice Bare, Bones, beginner Melody, for it that you can dress up in many ways, follow your ear.
If it sounds good, it is good and we love you appreciate, you we'll see you on the next one.
Okay, bye, bye.