Comment by thereallyniceman on July 13, 2012 at 18:41

Here is a piece that I have been working on recently and it has almost been the cause of me taking an axe to my stupid banjo over the last few weeks!

 

It is based on a transcription I made after listening to the Fred Van Eps recording in the site JUKEBOX. It is probably the most difficult piece that I have ever tried to play, so please excuse me tripping over my fingers occasionally!

 

My wife says that I am getting better in front of the one red-eyed monster (video camera) and don’t show too much paranoia at the really difficult bits, but the look of abject relief on my face when they have passed still give the show away !

 

I find Fred Van Eps’ playing really impressive and just love this arrangement and I hope that you do too :-)

All sing along !

Comment by Mike Moss on July 13, 2012 at 19:40

Well done! So you've emerged victorious in your struggle with the mighty Top of the World... I think I can see the ghost of Fred Van Eps nodding in approval!

Comment by Alan Sims on July 13, 2012 at 20:06

brilliant Ian, you have come fighting in all four corners with this wonderful tune i knew you would come up with something special. your face says everything . A better smile than Jolson .

Comment by Sylvia on July 13, 2012 at 21:46

and that single finger tremolo is perfection.

Comment by Steve Harrison on July 13, 2012 at 22:07

Brilliant!..have you done the dots yet so we can all have try?

Comment by marc dalmasso on July 14, 2012 at 6:45

Great tune & playing , Ian  *****

Comment by thereallyniceman on July 15, 2012 at 8:00

Thanks everyone for the kind comments on my video. When I was editing the MP3 recordings for the site JUKEBOX this Fred Van Eps piece just jumped out at me and I immediately wanted to try to play it. Unfortunately I could not find the score arrangement for it anywhere so I decided to use “The Amazing Slowdowner” software to play the file. This software lets you slow down (or speed up) a piece without changing the pitch.

I tuned my banjo to Van Eps’ banjo and I then spent AGES and AGES, banjo on knee, listening to the very slow playback and working out the chords and positions on the fingerboard. Those who have tried this will sympathize with me and will recognize what a tricky job it is finding, not only which note is being played, but at what string and fret on the fingerboard!

 

I cannot guarantee that the way I play it is Fred’s way, as I know a few of my chords differ from his to make it easier for me to play.  The trouble with the piece is that is has repeats of phrases, but they are never quite the same, so as I wrote the score it became longer and longer stretching to 11 pages!  I have not produced a notation score, as Steve requested, as it would be another month just entering and annotating it. 

 

The next problem was that we didn’t have a piano part for it, so Lynn set off arranging, passing to me for editing, re-arranging until we finally came up with a piano part that was “close enough”.

Excuse the errors as this is only a draft, so notes and accidentals are all over the place !

 

Thank goodness for my Gvox Encore notation software that allows me to move notes about on the score and playback sections while I play along!

 

I will work on producing a notation for the library, but it may be a while as I am working on other things for the site at the moment.

 

Ian

 

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