A Trout Toward Noon: The Case of the Missing C

[dhalbert]

I have started learning Leo Kottke's A Trout Toward Noon. I have been listening to this piece for thirty years on CD, and always thought the very first phrase was nicely syncopated. However, I just got a copy of Mark Hanson's book, Leo Kottke Transcribed, which I consider pretty authoritative. It transcribes the first phrase as follows:



What I thought I had been hearing is reflected in the anonymous web transcription below; the second C in Mark Hanson's transcription is transcribed as a rest:



So I listened carefully with with the Transcribe! slow-downer to Kottke's original, and sure enough, there is a second C in there. Here are some uncompressed audio clips of that phrase:

Full speed
20% speed

The C is just audible in slowed-down version, and eventually you might hear it in the full-speed one as well. This phrase is repeated many times throughout the piece, and I can hear the C in each of them. It does add something, but it almost disappears at full speed.

I've collected a bunch of YouTube covers and the original Kottke rendition in this YouTube playlist. Some have the syncopation (without, or better, with the C), and some play the C "straight" and lose the syncopation.

So my question is: what is Leo doing when he plays the C but makes it almost swallowed up? I don't think he's just playing it quietly. Maybe he's muting it almost immediately? If you've played this before, what do you do to make it sound like the original?

[Wyllys]

Not everything is intentional, not every rendition is identical.

It's music and the possibilities are infinite.

[GBS]

He's probably fretting the note, but not picking it. Not hammering it, but hard enough so that there is some contribution. OR that there is some sympathetic vibration from the other strings.

I'm no Kottke pro, but did go to John Stropes workshop last year. In those pieces there were a number of cases where it was emphasised that there were left hand fingerings that had notes that were not picked. Leaving them out "flattened" the music considerably.

[rick-slo]

Leo plays it both ways throughout the tune.

[dhalbert]

Originally Posted by GBS

He's probably fretting the note, but not picking it. Not hammering it, but hard enough so that there is some contribution. OR that there is some sympathetic vibration from the other strings.

I'm no Kottke pro, but did go to John Stropes workshop last year. In those pieces there were a number of cases where it was emphasised that there were left hand fingerings that had notes that were not picked. Leaving them out "flattened" the music considerably.

Thanks a lot -- that's very helpful! I did some more websearching and found a discussion of maybe sort of the same thing (or not quite) in this annotated tab of Airproofing II; the author talks about a hammer-on that is more just fretting.

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Leo plays it both ways throughout the tune.

Thanks, I will have to listen for that. Hanson's tab does not show any dropped C's, but I haven't played every single repetition at slow speed yet. I'm not trying to be a carbon copy, but there clearly is something going on with that C.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by dhalbert

So I listened carefully with with the Transcribe! slow-downer to Kottke's original, and sure enough, there is a second C in there. Here are some uncompressed audio clips of that phrase:

Full speed
20% speed

The C is just audible in slowed-down version, and eventually you might hear it in the full-speed one as well.

I hear it in both, quite clearly. It's more damped (staccato) than the other notes, but clearly there.

There is one live version on youtube where it's definitely missing first time, but there afterwards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUCqYZ2POBM
- that opening sounds like a mistake to me.

Originally Posted by dhalbert

I've collected a bunch of YouTube covers and the original Kottke rendition in this YouTube playlist.

You mean this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Cuj-q2VuM

Originally Posted by dhalbert

So my question is: what is Leo doing when he plays the C but makes it almost swallowed up? I don't think he's just playing it quietly. Maybe he's muting it almost immediately? If you've played this before, what do you do to make it sound like the original?

I think he's just fret-muting it immediately - it sounds picked, but (having tried it) it works well as an unpicked hammer-on too, so that could explain why it's quieter as well as shorter.

My guess as to how and why he played it like that is that the note couldn't ring for long anyway, because he has to get that finger off the C and across to the G. So (I'm thinking) he decided to make it a feature, by deliberately shortening it even more, to give the rhythm that nice jumpy element at that point. He uses similarly extreme staccato and careful muting at a couple of other points.
On the live version he just overdid it first time, and missed it altogether!

[dhalbert]

Originally Posted by JonPR

I hear it in both, quite clearly. It's more damped (staccato) than the other notes, but clearly there.

There is one live version on youtube where it's definitely missing first time, but there afterwards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUCqYZ2POBM
- that opening sounds like a mistake to me.
You mean this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Cuj-q2VuM
I think he's just fret-muting it immediately - it sounds picked, but (having tried it) it works well as an unpicked hammer-on too, so that could explain why it's quieter as well as shorter.

Thanks for pointing out the first one (live version) - I didn't really listen to that one, and mistakenly thought that was the same as the second. The C is a lot more audible in the live version. The second is the version on A Shout Toward Noon, which is the CD I have.

I tried fret-muting and a hammer-on, and I also got it to be very staccato. Not quite as syncopated-sounding as I want yet, but getting there. Thanks for the suggestions.