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Blind Mary - a beautiful
traditional ballad in Dropped D tuning.
Two versions are included - one simple,
the other with some frills.
Click here
to download Blind Mary (expanded)
Click here
to download Blind Mary (simple)
Nuages - the jazz classic by
Django
Reinhardt
Click here to
download Nuages
Monk's Mood by Thelonius
Monk.
Click here to
download Monk's Mood
Silent Night is an easy arrangement
of the Christmas classic.
Click here
to download Silent Night
Eu So Quero Um Xodo is a Brazilian
"cowboy" song. In Portuguese, the title
means, "I'm Looking for a Sweetheart."
When you think of Brazil, maybe the
jungles of the Amazon come to mind.
Perhaps you hear a samba from the Carnival
in Rio or have a vision of the Girl from
Ipanema in a lush, tropical clime.
But this song comes from
Northeastern Brazil. It's typical of a
musical genre called "Nordestino" centered
in the NE State of Pernambuco. The capital
of Pernambuco is Recife, home to several
unique rhythms, such as baiao,
forro, and maracatu, which are
different from samba and bossa nova
There's a vast dry brushland in the north
called the Sertao,
home to cattle and leather-clad cowboys.
The most famous of them all was Lampiao,
a Robin Hood figure who led a popular band
of outlaws called cangaceiros
in the 1920's and 30's . (Maybe a little
like a Brazilian Pancho Villa? or perhaps
a Nordestino Subcomandante Marcos with a
bit of John Dillinger thrown in.)
Anyway, this song is played in a style
popular in the Sertao. It was written by
the renowned composer, singer and
accordionist known simply as Dominguinhos.
I was introduced to this song by a great
guitarist from Recife, Nilton Rangel. We
both worked together in Mandala, in the
late 1980's, a band led by Mary Ann
O'Dougherty, an intrepid Irishwoman who
ran a famous nightspot in Recife for many
years.
Nilton was also a member of the Cuerdas
Dedilhadas de Pernambuco, a
Mandolin/Guitar orchestra which
specializes in arrangements of traditional
Nordestino music.
The rhythm of my arrangement of "Xodo" is
called baiao,
(pronounced Bi-yow) which has a
staggered bass line, a crucial
difference from samba and bossa where the
thumb stays on the beat and the fingers
syncopate.
It may help to first aquaint yourself with
this thumb pattern. You can play the first
two measures of the song in repetition.
You can also play through the chord
changes until you get comfortable with the
rhythm.
There is also a melodic scale which gives
this northeastern Brazilian song a special
flavor. It is a mixolydian mode with a
raised 4th. If you start on the 4th degree
of A melodic minor you will have this
scale in the key of D.
This tab has two parts. After the melody
and bridge, there is a third section which
I adapted from one of Nilton Rangel's
arrangements for the mandolin
orchestra.
You can hear my version of Xodo on
One
String Leads To Another (Acoustic
Music Records, 1999, Best. Nr.
319.1177.242). This version is a duet with
Dean Magraw, who also did a rendition with
Steve Tibbets, featured on Broken Silence.
Dominguinhos, Gilberto Gil and Caetano
Veloso have all recorded beautiful
renditions. The Brazilian anthology Beliza
Tropical, organized by David Byrne,
features Veloso's version and is easy to
find.
Click here to
download Eu So Quero Em Xodo
Tanst, Tanst Yidelekh was
originally recorded by the Abe Schwartz
Orchestra. Strains of this song can be
heard in a number of recordings, all with
different titles. The earliest is "Ma
Yofis", recorded in Bucharest circa
1908-1910 by Belf's Rumanian Orchestra.
The Klezmorim recorded a version titled
"Yashke Yashke". More recently, is a
rendition called "Der Rabbe", by Andy
Statman and David Grisman. There's a bit
of each of these in this incantation. -
Liner notes, Tanz
Playing a Fingerstyle guitar rendition of
a Klezmer tune feels like a bit of a cross
between flamenco and ragtime. This tune is
a great example of how well a flamenco key
and chord voicing can embody a Klezmer
tune. The key is B, with B dominant 7
flavor. The first notes of the melody play
off this typical flamenco voicing of a B
dominant 7 with a flat 9 :
B-F#-C-D#-B-E.
The scale expressed by this arpeggio is
B-C-D#-E-F#-G. It's a modified Phrygian
Mode. Klezmers call it "Freygish," you
will probably recognize it as the "Hava
Nagila" scale, also known as "Hijaz" in
Turkish and Arabic lexicons and as "Ahava
Rabboh" or "Abounding Love" in the
traditional system of liturgical scales
used by cantors.
For more info see The
Main Klezmer Modes, by Josh Horowitz
for a very informative explanation of
modes used in traditional Jewish
music.
Click here to
download Tanst, Tanst Yidelekh
Cancion Mixteca and Sandunga
are two arrangements by Tim of traditional
Mexican pieces. Click
here to read about how Richard Malmed
first heard Tim's arrangement of "Cancion
Mixteca". Click
here for Richard's story of Sandunga
and a festival visit on the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec.
Click
here to download Cancion Mixteca
Click here to
download Sandunga
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