A Tribute to Peador O'Donnellhas been a mainstay of the Jerry Douglas live repertoire for many years.
I was going through some stuff and I found a copy of the two page TAB for this piece. I don't recall if I have shared this in the past but if I have, here it is again to bring it to the top.
David Hamburger tabbed it out for Acoustic Guitar Magazine after Jerry's Restless on the Farm CD came out in 1998.
It's a great one for working on those Open D skills. Click on the PDF below.
This is the corrected version. In my original post the notation on both pages was identical.
Thanks for posting! Great stuff and good for my study of D-tuning... Inspires me to take a closer look at Weissenborn. I have never met someone play one and neither seen one for sale here in Sweden. I might be the first ;0)
I obviously didn't bother to read the second page. Here is the corrected version. Page 2 was buried a few pages down in the manila folder with a bunch of other sheet music.
The real second page is in larger print and landscape rather then portrait mode. I don't recall why - but this is from a magazine in 1998 - no chance of remembering - but then I don't even have any idea where my car keys are this morning.
We've shared this video in the past. Jerry doing a promo for the FreshGrass Festival in 2013.
"Out standing in his field."
Many of us here have seen Jerry play the tune live, and on multiple occasions. This is a circa 1935-36 Regal-built Model 37 that was given the "hot rod" treatment by Paul Beard, including a Legend cone.
I love the sound of prewar Dobros with the original cone, but there is something to be said for modernizing some of the innards. The guitar sounds wonderful.
JD adds a lot more embellishment than is in the tab, but It's a good start to learning the piece.
Well sure - Just about any Douglas tab I've ever come across might be "dumbed down" a bit because it's next to impossible to get all the embellishment and nuance on a sheet of paper.
It was either from The Great Dobro Sessions or Skip, Hop & Wobble tab book where the late Stacy Phillips joked that he needed a sitz bath after tabbing out some of Jerry's material.
Who's Your Uncle? it ain't - that's just crazy sh#t - but Peador has a lot going on even though it's a relatively slow tempo piece. I think David Hamburger's tab does a solid job of getting one comfortable with the melody, the positions on the neck, and anticipating the chord changes. And he does get some of the subtleties in there as well.
Apologies for hijacking this thread,D...thatt seems a good place to ask my open D question! I've had a continuing problem with my home-built reso conversion, the donor body wasn't strong enough to hold open G (in spite of extra bracing). It kept dropping pitch ever so slightly. I cured (?) the problem by switching to open D thankfully. A surprise bonus has been how much I'm enjoying the switch, but I find the sixth string a little sloppy and hence I find myself avoiding it too often. I was wondering if I could bring all the other strings over, ie: 5th to sixth, fourth to fifth etc, leaving a space where the first was. I'd then add a string at the top. If that worked, what would be a suitable new first string note? My tuning lo-hi would be A D F# A D....then ?
What gauge is your #6 string? I’ve used a 56 with no problem for Open D on various makes. That said, all makes are different. I’d try a 58 or 59. I think Pearce still makes a .016-.059 set, or just buy one individually. I use GHS Tim Scheerhorn .017-.056. The #6 flops a tiny bit, but I’ve made the minor adjustment in playing style. I simply don’t press as hard. I have a bunch of videos posted in Media section if you care to see/ hear it in action.
If you want to make a go of Open D, you REALLY want that low D. IMO it really helps defines the sound. I can’t imagine doing Celtic, Blues, Folk, etc. without it. YMMV.
Your proposed tuning could work, but it’s gonna’ give you something WAY different sounding than traditional Open D, being way up that high in register. Adding an F# at #1 gives you a 5-1-3-5-1-3. I’ve never used that, but it should work.
I should add to my reply above...I HAVE used both an E and a F# on top 2 strings for 8-string versions of Open D. That is the “Pete Grant” tuning. I just wouldn’t do this at the expense of having the low D.
Also, doesn’t JD still use a standard 6th string gauge for Open D? I thought he did/does, including for Tribute to Peador O’Donnell.
Thanks James, for your detailed and informative replies. Having read them I might just stay as I am, with the regular D tuning. I don't want to increase the gauge of the sixth string in case it results in the de-tuning (excuse the pun!) problem returning. I'm sure I can get used to the sloppy sixth, adjusting my bar pressure to suit, as you did. Thanks again, stay safe, regards from Ireland.
Jerry uses a D'Addario .056w 6th string for everything.
He has stated on more than one occasion that he does find it a little "floppy" when tuned down to D but it doesn't bother him.
A bunch of years ago I ordered a couple packs of John Pearse strings with the .059w 6th. My main guitar for years has been a Clinesmith, and I had Todd build it with Sperzel locking tuners. You find Sperzel lockers most often on electric guitars, but they work just fine on many acoustics. Electric players of course don't use strings with gauges like a squareneck dobro, they are typically significantly lighter.
I went to mount the .059w 6th string on the guitar during the next string change and lo and behold - it didn't fit through the hole on the tuning peg. I thought to myself, "I could very carefully ream this out to slightly enlarge the hole" except I didn't have any tiny round files in my semi-endless assortment of tools that I've accumulated over the decades.
I would have meant a trip to the hardware store to purchase a small set of round files - so I said "screw it - it's not that important to me to have a 59 for a 6th string." And also to now own a set of round files I may or may not ever use again.
So whenever I tune down to D, I just go with the Jerry Douglas approach. It seems to have worked out okay for him.
Yeah Mark, I once ran into a tuning peg hole limitation on an electric lap steel, of all things. Can’t even remember which guitar ( since a victim of herd thinning...) but I recall it was a .060 string or thereabouts. I thought that odd.
You know what’s funny, I play so much Open D on my square necks that tuning #6 string up to G feels way too taut for me. I like feeling some “give” with a .056w tuned to D.
Thanks for the good wishes, James. Hi Mark.... I have to ask...did you discover the sixth string wouldn't fit first, or after the other five were already changed?
I'm pretty sure it was first, because when I change strings - no specific logic behind it because I always change one string at time to keep everything in place - for whatever reason I almost always start with string #6.
And it wouldn't have mattered anyway since I used the other five strings in the pack.
When I realized that the 59 wouldn't fit, I raided another pack I had on hand to grab a 56 after deciding I didn't want to go to the hardware store to chase down tiny round files.
