“Sam Brown Hill” comes from the great guitarist Duke Levine, who recorded it on the octave mandolin on his album The Fade Out. It’s a simple melody with three parts, in the key of E, played out of D position with a capo at the second fret, but it’s a good example of how octave mandolinists flesh out melodies with chords and double stops. Joe walks you through the A part of “Sam Brown Hill” in this video, showing you some typical octave mandolin voicings as he goes. He also shows you the slurred hammer-on/double pull-off/hammer-on ornament that Duke plays and gives you advice on sounding all four notes with one pick stroke.
