Simple, Short And Sweet: A Song History

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"Simple, Short And Sweet" is a brief mountain dulcimer tune by Butch Ross, released on May 9, 2009, as the ninth track of A Long Way From Shady Grove, which Ross calls his all-instrumental breakthrough album.[1] Ross wrote the piece, and he says it was "so named because it took longer to play it than it did to write."[2] His first impulse, he recalls, was to throw it out as too plain, but he decided that not every tune had to be hard, only for the bridge he wrote afterward to make it demanding after all.[2] The album credits Steve Seifert with electric dulcimer on this track.[1] Ross says he then added harmonies on top, mainly as a way to learn Seifert's lines.[2]

Tall clear glass candy jar with a pointed lid on a footed stem

Firm of Christian Dorflinger, Candy Jar, glass, 1869–1880. Shown, in fun, for the sweetness in the title; it has no connection to the tune.

Ross's book A Long Way From Shady Grove, a sheet music and tablature transcription drawn from the CD and published by Fingers Of Steel, gives this tune in DAD tuning along with a separate transcription of Seifert's electric dulcimer solos.[3]

Our book that contains the song "Simple, Short And Sweet"

Sources

  1. Butch Ross (Bandcamp): "A Long Way From Shady Grove".
  2. Butch Ross (Bandcamp): "Simple, Short and Sweet".
  3. Fingers Of Steel: "Butch Ross, A Long Way From Shady Grove".
  4. Image: Firm of Christian Dorflinger, Candy Jar, glass, 1869–1880. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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