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About Part 3
Part 3 focuses on the thrid bullet point of the project plan. This means this part will be about looking into different famous mandolin players and their techniques.
I have found a blog that lists the best rock mandolin players of all time. I am using this article as I am more interested in rock than most other genres. I have read through the blog and have chosen 5 players to talk about.
Ray Jackson
Ray Jackson is well known for mandolin playing abilities. He is well known for writing the hook to one of Rod Stewart's popular songs, Maggie May. Interestingly, he only made 15 pounds from writing that hook as he only got paid for the session.
Ray has a unique style for playin the mandolin as well, as he is one of the only people to use their thumb to play/mute the top strings, whereas not many people do this. I have found a video of him playing Maggie May, where you can see this style.
Tommy Shaw
Tommy Shaw is mainly a guitarist at heart so when he plays the mandolin, he takes a lot of his technique from there and plays it very much like he would a guitar. This isn't a recommended technique, but for those who have previously played the guitar, it can work well. He is one of the main songwriters from the band Styx and he wrote Boat on the River when he got his first mandolin.
In this video, he talks about how he went to a music store and couldn't play the mandolin, so he took one home and was determined to learn it. While he was messing around with it he wrote Boat on the River, took it to the band, they put it on the album and it became a hugely successful hit.
Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page is one of the creative masterminds behind Led Zepplin and was famous for adding in some very enexpected instruments into their music. One of his main ones he liked to go to was the mandolin. His most famous example of mandolin was in the song "The Battle of Evermore".
Jimmy also has his own way of playing the instrument. He tends to clamp down on the neck using his thumb, which is often described as a bad technique. He also rests the mandolin on one of his legs rather than between his legs, which again is an unrecommended technique. Even though his technique would normally be discribed as bad, he is still one of the greatest mandolin players.
This video is taken from a documentary, where you get to see Jimmy playing "The Battle of Evermore" on the mandolin.
John Paul Jones
One of the more underrated members of Led Zepplin but still hugely talented is John Paul Jones. He is able to pay many different instruments and, like Jimmy Page, he also liked to add these different instruments to the music he wrote. Another one of his favourites was of course the mandolin. He is sometimes seen playing "The Battle of Evermore" in Jimmy's place and also seen singing Sandy Denny's parts.
In this video John and Paul Gilbert Perform "Going to California" together and you can really see how talnted John Paul Jones is on the mandolin. He has a very standard, what people would call good, technique but uses this technique with absolute precision.
Peter Buck
Although REM were mostly known for their outgoing lead vocalist, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck was one of the creative minds behind the band. He was mainly their guitarist but occasionally like to change things up and therefore there were entire songs based purely around the mandolin. The most famous example of this is "Loosing My Religion", which you can see them play live in this video. The main riff for this song was actually written whilst Peter was just messing around with his mandolin.
In terms of Peter's technique, he is very similar to Tommy Shaw in the sense that he is mainly a guitarist, so plays the mandolin similar to how he would a guitar. This is not a recommended way of playing the mandolin but for people transitioning from guitar, it can help make it feel more natural for them.
Conclusion
As I am already able to play the guitar I might prefer to use the technique of Peter Buck and Tommy Shaw. However, as this is not the technique that people tend to recommend, I will try to relearn and use a more "preferred" technique like that of Jimmy Page or John Paul Jones.
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