John Reischman Mandolin Transcription Books
If there was a bluegrass mandolin hall of fame, there is no doubt that John Reischman would have a plaque on the wall. He is not only an extremely innovative player, but his clean notes, rich tone, fluidity and expert use of dynamics are what every serious mandolin player strives to achieve. He has set the bar high. On top of that, he is a master crafter of tunes. Listen to any of his solo albums and you will not only be amazed by his inventiveness, but also the wide range of musical variety and emotion portrayed in his work. On every album he has demonstrated his ability to craft everything from slow waltzes to swampy blues to burning breakdowns to feel-good frolics.
If you are a mandolin player, a deep dive study of the work of John Reischman should be on your mandolin to-do list. Checking off that to-do list item has become a bit easier thanks to John and his friends, the late John McGann and David Benedict. McGann and Benedict helped Reischman transcribe all of the mandolin breaks that are on two of John’s solo albums—Up In The Woods (1999) and New Time & Old Acoustic (2021).
The Up In The Woods transcription book begins with an introduction written by John about how the book came together. The work was originally started by John McGann and then, after he passed away, was finished by David Benedict. John then talks about the story behind each of the tunes and provides some notes about the recording sessions for the album. From there the reader is presented with transcriptions of the tunes in both standard music notation and tablature. The book also includes a number of photos of John and his mandolin. The New Time & Old Acoustic book has a similar layout. John talks about the tunes and then the tunes are presented. Many of the photos in this book are taken from the recording sessions. So, you get to see the other artists who recorded with John on this album. David Benedict did all of the transcription work here.
Transcription books are always straight forward. Knowing the transcribers on this project, I have no reason to doubt that all of the transcriptions are accurate. I’ve played through a number of the tunes while listening to the album and slowing down the solos and, to my ear, I found no inaccuracies.
In working with these tunes, I found that—for me—the main reason to work with this material is to try and duplicate the tone, dynamics, clarity of notes and fluidity that John is able to express. It is a master class in listening—both to what he is playing and what is coming out of my mandolin—and working to do whatever I can to make the two sound the same. Additionally, I found that there is a lot of technique that John uses on the various tunes that I need to work on mastering by following John’s examples. It wasn’t just about his note choices or his specific licks and phrases. Those are great to learn and certainly add to any players repertoire of usable licks and phrases. But to listen to the way John expresses slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, tremolo, up-the-neck phrases, dotted eighth and quarter notes, ghost notes, double stops, etc. made me want to dive deeper into my execution of those techniques and work to improve them.
To me, the final lesson to take away from working with these books was that what is most important about learning all of the right and left hand technique is to try and capture the feeling and emotion that John puts into these tunes. Each of these tunes takes you for a ride and sinks deep into your bones. John knows how to use his instrument to get your feet and body moving, lift or melt your heart, sink down into your gut, or bring your brain into a bluesy funk. He makes music that you feel. Listening to John’s music and then learning how to play the notes, grasp the technique and inserting the right groove and feel is a very tall order. However, these two books make that tall order a bit more manageable, and they are well worth the time and effort.
These books are available at johnreischman.com.
