This is the twentieth installment of the Coronavirus Session, a home concert series by Ron DeLano dedicated to the exploration of fingerstyle guitar's "Golden Age". According to this history, a revolution in how the instrument is played as well as musical explorations began in the 1980s with the ground breaking recordings of Alex de Grassi and Michael Hedges. This concert features one of the finest contemporary guitarists, Dylan Ryche, whose command of the modern school of fingerstyle guitar is an exemplary example of the innovations of fingerstyle's "Golden Age" This will be the last Dylan Ryche piece that will be presented in this series (at least for a long while) and as such I saved perhaps his best composition for this special occasion. "Mulberry Street" is a fingerstyle virtuoso test piece as he weaves a texture of string slaps, harmonics, melody and bass line into a rich tapestry that fully utilizes the potential of the steel string guitar. Stylistically, the music is definitely countryish with a little swing lilt to it. He starts with a very simple bass line statement and builds into a complex musical idea that is very catchy and far from being too egghead. I did take a few liberties with this piece, especially in the section he calls "Breakdown" which I'll discuss below.
Before leaving Ryche's music, I would encourage any serious student of contemporary fingerstyle guitar to learn these pieces. His tablature is very well done with no mistakes that I found and the exploration of the many modern performance techniques will be a thorough education for any fledgling fingerstyle guitarist. There are many more famous guitarists out there but it is hard to find a collection of music that is this good and this well notated.
Performance notes: This piece uses the following open tuning: FACFCF, essentially an F major chord. Note how many possibilities there are with this tuning to play octaves on the same fret. He takes full advantage of this throughout the work. As mentioned many times in past notes, Ryche's trademark is the use of the percussive slap on the low string and again this is the case here and again it is on the offbeats. In the third variation of the opening theme, you will hear a melody played exclusively with conventional harmonics. But wow, there is a bass line, string slaps and a subtle rustle on muted strings all skillfully interwoven. I am a string bass player also and it is common practice to pluck a muted string as part of a typical walking bass line. So listen closely to the plucking of muted strings in the upper strings, this is not a common fingerstyle technique though it is very similar to Oshio Kotaro's nail attack. Good to see American guitarists catching on to this important innovation. This section is followed by an ascending bass chord line that I added palm thumps for percussive effect. The line ends with beautiful open slap harmonic on the twelfth fret. In the next section where the real melody id presented, he again uses the little wizz bang accent sliding the finger high on the low bass string.
Musical Analysis: The basic harmonic structure follows pretty closely in the rails of a major key. The one big exception is at the end the chorus where he plays a Bb minor scale when there should be a major. This is a very deliberate decision and adds a spicy, poignant accent. Rhythmically, he has a slight swing feel to the piece and his use of fourths, and other stylistic touches cements the country feel to the piece.
My small contribution to the arrangement is to spice up the "breakdown" section. This is the hypnotic section where the same figure is repeated while the bass line moves. I decided to embellish the bass line considerably and in the second presentation of the breakdown I tried something much more adventurous. In the last repeat, I modulate keys and begin drifting around, deliberately sounding like its going to fall apart before returning to the chorus full strength. I think it works but would appreciate your comments either way.
