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About Part 4
Part 4 is about looking into different famous songs that contain mandolin as one of the main instruments.
I have found another blog, from the same people who made the blog I used for part 3, who have listed the 10 best rock mandolin songs of all time. I have chosen 5 of them to look in to and I will choose one of them to learn and record.
Battle of Evermore - Led Zeppelin
This song was originally released in 1971 and is a folk song based on Lord of the Rings. The mandolin was written by Jimmy Page who had never played a mandolin before this.
The mandolin in this song is very complex and there are many different layers of the instrument in it. This just shows how talented Jimmy Page is considering he had never really played the mandolin before this.
Maggie May - Rod Stewart
This song was also released in the early 1970s and is about a relationship between a boy and older woman. As mentioned in the previous section, the mandolin in this track was written and recorded by Ray Jackson.
The mandolin in this song isn't as complex as that in "Battle of Evermore". It does sound as though there is only one layer of mandolin in the song. Having said that riff at the beginning is not as easy as the rest of the chords for the majority of the song.
Losing My Religion - R.E.M
Released in the early 1990s, "Losing My Religion" is REM's most popular song to date. Having just bought his first mandolin, Peter Buck was messing around and came up with the iconic riff at the beginning of the song.
The mandolin in this song is relatively simple yet not boringly simple. It is a good balance of interesting complexity with keeping it relatively easy to play. Even the mandolin solo in this song is relatively easy as it just goes down step by step.
Boat on the River - Styx
Tommy Shaw was in a similar situation to Peter Buck when he wrote the mandolin to "Boat on the River". He was fed up of always playing the guitar and wanted to learn something new. He then wrote the song whilst still learning how to play the instrument.
The mandolin in this song starts off really easy as it just plays chords, however, once it gets to the mandolin solo towards the end of the song, it instantly becomes a lot harder it starts to play a lot faster.
Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
This song was released in 1988 and is a song that combine the storytelling commonly found in country music, with the chords and style of a rock song.
The mandolin in this song is really easy. It just follows a simple chord progression for the entire song. There is no complex mandolin solo in the song either so the entire song is quite easy to play.
Conclusion
Out of the 5 songs I've looked into, the best one to learn in the amount of time I've got would be "Copperhead Road" by Steve Earle. However, even though I like this song, I would quite like to challenge myself further and try and learn "Losing My Religion" by REM because this song isn't too much harder but is just hard enough to give me the challenge that I want.
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