Sierra Hull signs with Rounder

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 Teen mandolin ace Sierra Hull signed a record deal with Rounder with a CD due out in early May. "Secrets" drops the 16-year-old Hull May 6. The 13-song disc incorporates hard-driving bluegrass and ballads. At the age of eight, Hull became a respected young picker in bluegrass. At 11, Hull made her Grand Ole Opry debut, when she was invited to play with her heroine, Alison Krauss. Since then, Hull has competed in and won numerous mandolin and guitar championships, showcased at The International Bluegrass Music Association's World of Bluegrass and was a featured performer on the Great High Mountain Tour, which included an all-star bluegrass lineup (with Krauss and Ralph Stanley), that performed songs from the soundtracks of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Cold Mountain." Hull also hosts her own bluegrass festival (The Sierra Hull Bluegrass Festival) in her hometown of Byrdsville, Tenn. Recorded in Nashville in 2007, "Secrets" was co-produced by Hull and Ron Block (Union Station) and features Block, Dan Tyminski, Barry Bales, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Tony Rice, Jim VanCleve, Rob Ickes, Chris Jones, Jason Moore, and 17-year-old banjo whiz Cory Walker (who is in Sierra's band, Highway 111). Hull wrote or co-wrote three songs. "It's amazing to listen to her precision and agility at the young age of 16. If that isn't enough, check out her guitar playing on 'Hullarious' and the excellence of the self-written composition," said fellow mandolinist Sam Bush. "Sierra's vocals are effortless and straight to the point, while keeping the focus on melody. Her mandolin playing is smooth, in time, and downright slippery. This CD is hullacious!" Songs are: 1. Secrets 2. From Now On 3. Two Winding Rails 4. Smashville 5. Everybody's Somebody's Fool 6. Pretend 7. If You Can Tame My Heart 8. That's All I Can Say 9. The Hard Way 10. Hullarious 11. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder 12. Only My Heart 13. Trust and Obey

NEW TABLATURE POSTS COMING SOON!!

If you're coming back to check for new tab postings, don't fret... You should know that more will be coming out by the end of February. Check back periodically for postings for Beatles tunes, simple classical music melodies and traditional Latin American music!

Basic Music Lessons?

This site on music theory offers a very clear explanation of musical basics which should be helpful to beginners and those interested in a refresher. It's developed by Ricci Adams.

An excerpt of the thread from the last post on Guitar-to-Mando Tab Conversion...

The mandolin generally occupies a different role in harmony than the guitar. However, if you have a chord chart for the mandolin, you should be able to just play chord of the same “name” on either the guitar or the mandolin. Because the mandolin’s strings are tuned in ascending 5^ths and the guitar’s are tuned in ascending 4^ths, you’ll probably end up playing a different inversion of the chord, meaning that the intervals of the notes in the chord will be arranged differently. Example: on the guitar, the notes in a major D chord, in ascending order, are D A D F. On the mandolin, the notes are in ascending order as A D A F. To play a guitar melody on a mandolin, you can just play the same note values. I’ll see if I can translate the first few phrases of your linked song:

-----0-2-0-2----------6-7-6-7-7-9--------------2-4-0-------------------

-2-4--------------7-9-------------12-11-9------------6-4--4-9-7-7-6-6-2

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

This may be wrong. I don't have either my guitar or mandolin in front of me. posted by ijoshua at 7:40 PM on April 3 It *seems* like there should be some easy way to convert between tabs (every note on the guitar has a similar note on the mandolin, more or less), but the problem is that fret x on the guitar does not equal fret x on the mando. As others have explained here, the difference in tunings between guitar and mando means that there are different intervals between strings. Thus, if you tried to "auto convert" a guitar tab you could well end up with fingerings that at best don't make sense, and at worse are impossible to play, on the mandolin. People advising you to just learn the music, or figure it out by ear, are of course offering good advice, but I know that's not what you're looking for. You just want to try and pluck out this tune on your new instrument. (I read music and play several instruments, but the first thing I did when I got my new banjo was pull up some banjo tab so I could start hacking away!) ijoshua has the best advice so far - you'll have to convert the tab yourself. I imagine the best way to do this is to compare the guitar tab to a diagram of the notes on the guitar frets. Write the notes out on the guitar tab. Then look at a map of the notes on the mandolin neck, and mark off the equivalent notes, converting *that* into tab. It won't be easy, but you should learn a bit about the notes on your mandolin. Once you're happily plucking out your tune, you can start thinking about learning chords and scales. posted by Banky_Edwards at 8:02 PM on April 3 Okay dhruva, here's how it would work. Take the first six notes of the guitar tab:

-0-2--5-7-5-7

(all on the B string). If you check out the guitar neck at a site like this, you can convert the frets to notes. -B-C#--E-F#-E-F# Then take a peek at the notes on a mandolin. Start on the A string (closest to the B string your guitar piece starts on). That same progression of notes would look like this on mando tab:

-2-4--7-9-7-9

You'll just be writing down the fret number of the notes that you converted from the guitar tab. Of course (and here's why an auto-translation wouldn't work), when you hit the E note you don't need to keep going up the neck, you'd move up to the E string. So your mando tab would look like this:

------0-2-0-2
-2-4---------

Exactly what ijoshua came up with. Does that make sense? posted by Banky_Edwards at 8:15 PM on April 3 Banky_Edwards summarized my translation technique pretty well. Here’s a shortcut: All the notes on the high E string on the guitar can be played on the same fret on the E string on the mandolin. Moving down one string, you have a B string on the guitar and an A string on the mandolin, so all the guitar notes on this string would need to be transposed by adding 2 frets on the mandolin to achieve the same note value. Down another string, you have a G string on the guitar and a D string on the mandolin. To play the same note on the same string, add 5 frets on the mandolin. Finally, notes on the D string of the guitar can be played on the same frets on the D string of the mandolin, or on the G string of the mandolin by adding 7 frets. As Banky_Edwards mentioned, this direct translation will probably result in some awkward movements up and down the neck. You can fix this by finding the same note on different strings by adding 7 frets and moving up one string, or by subtracting 7 frets and moving down one string. For example, the B note on the 9^th fret of the D string is the same pitch as the B on the 2^nd fret of the A string. posted by ijoshua at 5:23 AM on April 4 Example: on the guitar, the notes in a major D chord, in ascending order, are D A D F. On the mandolin, the notes are in ascending order as A D A F. Nitpick: that's D minor. D major has an F#. And dhruva, trust me that it will take you much longer to go through some process of converting tab to music to tab than it will for you to learn enough music to figure it out that way. You just need to think of what you're playing in terms of notes or intervals rather than just frets. It's pretty trivial. Every fret is a half-step, on guitar or mandolin. There is a half step between E and F and one between B and C. There is a whole step between all other letter-named notes. So you get C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A#. Alternatively, C# (C sharp) can be written as Db (D flat), and so on. Which is technically correct depends on what key you're in and some other obscure things which you don't need to worry about. So if you know that and the names of the strings you can figure out the pitch of any note on the guitar or mandolin. You can also think in terms of intervals: major seconds, minor thirds, perfect fourths, and so on. Check out the lessons at musictheory.net for an introduction. A given interval will involve a different fingering on the two instruments because of the different tunings, but it will sound the same. Learning a bit of this stuff also provides the benefit of a far easier time communicating and playing with other musicians. posted by ludwig_van at 9:20 AM on April 4

Converting Guitar Tabs to Mandolin Tabs

This link will lead you to a good discussion of opinions regarding conversion of standard guitar tab to mandolin tab. The short version: it ain't easy...

Vintage Mandolins: Made in USA

If you are interested in a history of vintage American-made mandolins, this website will float your boat. It contains historical and technical discussions as well as photos of mandos that are more works of art than musical instruments.

Blank tablature sheets

Basic, blank tablature sheets for the mandolin are available to print out here, in pdf format

The mandolin fret board

This diagram should help beginning players develop tabs from standard notation. It's taken from the wikipedia entry for the mandolin.

Tablature for the "Ave Maria"

This is not the usual Ave Maria commonly heard at weddings and funerals. That's Schubert's version. This version is attributed to an anonymous author from the 13th century. Standard notation for this version can be found in Cantate et Iubilate Deo, along with many other traditional and Gregorian music that go well with the mandolin.

------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------0-------0---0-------------------0----0---

-3-------0----0--------8------------5----3----5-------------

------5-----------------------------------------------------

A – ve Ma - ri – i - i – a, gra – ti – a ple – e – na

------------------------------------------------------------

-0-------------------------------------0--------------------

------5-----3----5-----0-----5----5----------5---3--2--3----

------------------------------------------------------------

Do - mi - nus te – cum. / Be – ne – dic - ta tu i - in

------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------

--5----3---2---0--------0----0-----2-------0----------------

--------------------5------------------5---------3-----3-----

mu - li - i – e – ri – i - bus / et be – ne – dic - tus

------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------

---2-----3---5------2---5----3---2--------0----0----3-------

--------------------------------------5---------------------

fruc - tus ven - tris tu – i - i, Ie – e – su - us

------------------------------------------------------------

---0----------0----3---2-----------------------0---0--------

---------5-----------------5-----5----3----5----------------

------------------------------------------------------------

Sanc - ta Ma – ri - i - a, Ma - ter De - e – i,

------------------------------------------------------------

-0----------------------------------------------------------

------5----3---5---0----0----3----3---2----0----2---0-------

----------------------------------------------------------5--

o - ra pro no – o - bis pe – ca – a – to – o – ri – bus

-------------------------------------------------------------

------5--------------------------------------0----------------

-0-------0---3---3---5----3--2-----3---5---------------------

--------------------------------------------------3--2---0-0--

nunc et i – in ho – o - ra mor - tis no – o - strae. Amen.

You might notice that the tabs did not align well with the lyrics: blogger can be quirky that way. Basically, each syllable of the words corresponds to a note. By shifting the words a little to the right, they should each line up with the tab notes.

Translation

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women,

et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus. and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei. Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, Holy Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us, sinners,

nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Step-by-step guide to building a mandolin...

Kathy Matsushita, an amateur luthier, shows us how she built an F-style bluegrass mandolin. Do try this at home!

Mandolins on a budget...

For a spontaneous discussion on selecting a mandolin for those on a budget, see this interesting conversation from the Acoustic Guitar Forum!

Wondering how to start a luthiery? Here's how Jennings Chestnut did it!

A fun article from Sandlapper Online, a South Carolina publication, tells the story of Jennings Chestnut and Chestnut Mandolins...