Peter Lang - St. Charles Shuffle tab?

[hat]

Does anyone have a source for the tab to St. Charles Shuffle as done by Peter Lang? I can't find much online about it...

[GBS]

There's not much tab for Peter's stuff in existence. Even from Peter himself, who shared what he had when I took lessons from him a few years ago. Most was done early in his career by John Stropes (stropes.com), who apparently doesn't offer reprints either - although you could contact him directly to see (St. Charles shuffle was not tabbed by him, ever, though). Probably the only way to get instruction is to contact Peter - try through the West Bank School of Music (http://www.wbsm.org/) where he taught until recently. They may be able to put you in contact with him.

FWIW, the Stropes web site does note that Peter plays this in standard tuning. But after watching his youtube performance, I'm a bit suspicious of that - it seems more like open "D", but I'm not that good at figuring that kind of thing out.....

[rick-slo]

You should be able to figure it out from the youtube video. Probably 30 seconds (if that) of material repeated over and over.

[JonPR]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sRsyEYfOW4
That's in C, so I'm guessing some kind of open C tuning. (I.e., open D down a whole step.)

I kind of agree with rick, it seems like a handful of stock motifs repeated ad lib. Nice, but not too difficult. (If I get some time, I might tab some of it, post it here.)

[GBS]

After looking at and listening to the video a few more times, I'm going to guess it's played in Open C - C2 G2 C3 G3 C4 E4
Peter noted to me that many of his early pieces came out of experimenting with various open tunings. He tried a lot of them, some of them pretty obscure! He, like Leo, later reduced the use of them, and concentrated more on standard and dropped D, although he still plays the early stuff as he first did.

[hat]

All good ideas. I haven't had much time lately to devote to new stuff, but the you tube link is a big help. There really isn't much at all on Peter out on the web.

[bbrown]

I've done some Lang stuff. Scroll down for a section on my site with Kottke and Lang covers...........

https://www.youtube.com/user/wfbrown1234

--Bill

[hat]

Originally Posted by bbrown

I've done some Lang stuff. Scroll down for a section on my site with Kottke and Lang covers...........

https://www.youtube.com/user/wfbrown1234

--Bill

That's some very tasty stuff. and the guitar sounds great! I assume it's your Collings you are playing in those?

[bbrown]

Thanks Hat. The Collings dread is excellent for this kind of fingerstyle: Fahey, Kottke, Lang, et al. I worked some of these out myself. I'm happy to share tabs. My big lack is recording - I usually use a Zoom H4 and most of my recordings really lack the clarity of my live rendition.

[Cessna7035Q]

Originally Posted by JonPR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sRsyEYfOW4
That's in C, so I'm guessing some kind of open C tuning. (I.e., open D down a whole step.)

I kind of agree with rick, it seems like a handful of stock motifs repeated ad lib. Nice, but not too difficult. (If I get some time, I might tab some of it, post it here.)

It's always interesting to me to see someone condescend towards a gifted artists absolutely brilliant moment of spontaneous creativity. Coming right out of their heart. That piece is so packed with exuberant joy. Short, yes. Difficult, not really. Beyond the creative abilities of those here who patronize it: Very likely.

It reminds me of the story of Columbus in a moment of criticism about the merits of his ocean crossing. He took an egg and asked if anyone could stand it on end. Several tried unsuccessfully. As the story goes he smacked the egg on one end and stood it on end to the cries of "anybody could do that!" to which he replied, "Yes now that I've shown you how!" You may be able to recreate the "stock motifs" but you will NEVER possess the creative muse it sprang from.