PJMcGorvin’s twelve comments

I tend to feel that using the octave mandolin tuning makes it easiest to play the popular keys, that is how my tenor banjo is tuned and it’s almost intuitive. more…

A very very similar slipjig is #1116 by the same name in O’Niels. more…

Perhaps instead of “swobbling” you may have heard something like “squabbling” although the inferred meaning seems a bit less severe than the context leads me to believe. To my ear the word in question sounds like “hobbling”. more…

Classically the mandola is like the viola of the mandolin family it is tuned CGDA (like an ‘old-timey’ tenor banjo), one fifth lower than the mandolin, the octave mandolin is tuned one octave lower than the mandolin so GDAE but lower, more…

Is this is the same tune that Ewan MacColl sang? If so I would say it is a waltz and not a hornpipe. more…

I hemmed and hauled and never came to my point, in this song every first note of three is more or less evenly accented, like a waltz. In a jig ever OTHER first beat of three is more strongly than the other first beat of three. more…

The way I see it, 3/4 is the rhythm of a waltz no matter how fast or slow it’s played, or what it’s played on, or if it’s sung. more…

I don’t know how much fingering you can make out in a YouTube sized vid, but here’s one… more…

To my knowledge is it actually just called “The Civil War” and it plays on PBS every now and then. more…

While the change was so slow tjat I didn’t know it was happening at the time, my rather cheap (but solid wood) guitar has become quite boomy in the midrange and but is still downright quiet in the it’s high end. more…