Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Friend of the devil

#1

Hey Ben first off thanks I have become a better player all around thanks to you and your lessons best money I have ever spent

I was looking on the web and saw there were no lessons or anything for the song Friend of the devil by the Greatful Dead
and wanted to ask if you ever thought about doing a lesson on it???

maybe there are others out there like me who would like to learn it
for me its a bit more as my older brother who was a big fan of them passed this past year and even tho I know he’s dead I thought it would be nice to go to the grave site this summer and be able to jam it out with his other fav Ripple

either way if you can it would be great if not I understand you have a lot going be well and God bless in all you do and may all we do be for the glory of our Lord

Paul Taylor
:mrgreen:

#2

That’s a good song, Paul. Since it’s kind of slow and not too complicated, you might find another mandolin player here on the site who could help you out with some chords/tab if Ben can’t get to it.

#3

I’m not much of a mandolin player, but I tabbed out the first two verses and the first mando break for this video. I chose it because it’s pretty straight forward, uses 2 finger chords, and has a pretty good camera angle for seeing what she does. Maybe it will give you something to get started with. Since I just finished the tab there’s a good possibility of an error or two, so use at your own risk.

[attachment=0]Friend of the Devil - Mandolin.tef[/attachment]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE4PhxQ9OYU[/video]

#4

Well there you go. That was nice Larry!

#5

I hadn’t tabbed anything in a while so it was good listening practice for me. I’ll probably get more out of it than Paul will. It’s not exactly Banjo Ben (or David Grisman) quality, but sounds pretty good if you remove the bad notes from the video.

#6

Thanks very much for all the work and talk about quick
now for my lil finger to get the hang of it
in hopes of having it down by next weeks jam

once ore thank you so very much
Paul

:smiley:

#7

Hope it helps you get started with the tune, Paul, and like I said before, it’s good practice for me, too.

#8

It’s a catchy little mandolin melody. I just listened to it on this thread (I am not sure if I had heard it before) and yesterday I found myself kind of picking it out while I was just noodling around.

#9

Yeah, it’s nice how it follows right down the G major scale.

#10

I don’t want to discourage anyone by throwing this video up here but this song with Grisman and Garcia was one of the reasons I picked up the mando, so go to the source and be inspired. You could spend quite some time on what scale Grisman uses but G is a start and he seems to get modal like mixolydian D. Plus you get to watch a lot of beard and dark t shirts.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGpV7CkSz94[/video]

#11

I mentioned I was noodling on the mandolin melody from the first posted video in the thread… my wife walked by and asked “Is that a Pat Benatar song?” It took a while, but we figured out she thought I was playing the following:

**Edit: **I came to read the new post and apparently, this video has been blocked in the US… go figure:
Original video:

new video that isn’t currently banned:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M1mZz9-aJM[/video]

#12

Ha Ha! That’s funny, Mike. Similar notes, but completely different vibe. That’s some great 80’s hair that VJ is sporting.

No argument from me, verneq. I love that Garcia/Grisman stuff, but I think I like the faster studio version even more. I played that American Beauty album so much I had to retire it, but I still love hearing how the guitars, mando and bass intertwine on FOTD.