RickJohnson - Posted - 09/20/2020:  18:40:25

Any help would be great. Thanks.

Edited by - RickJohnson on 09/20/2020 19:00:41

Mandodennis - Posted - 09/22/2020:  10:11:43

Good song! I am not sure what you are looking for, the chords, the melody or a specific version on mandolin. I know of at least 20 versions of the song by different artists/groups. All have a different take on the tune. None that I can recall are on mandolin. So if you are looking for something specific tell us more.



The original recording , AFAIK, was played in E on guitar with a bass accompaniment. The guitar was tuned in an open E tuning E-B-E-G#-B-E. There are a lot of guitar tabs available online for that arrangement. It's an easy song to play that way. It also made it agreeable with slide guitar players.



The song can be played as a basic blues chord progression. It can be your basic I-IV-I-V,IV-I progression. So in E that'd be E-A-E-B,A-E and repeat. Where the chord goes up to the V, the B, some descend the chords from B to A to G#m to F#m to E. Others will do a blues turn around at that point.

Quite a few performers will play the song in open D - easier on re-tuning the standard guitar string set.  So the chords would then be D-G-D-A,G-D  a bit more mando friendly I suppose.



Here's a simple chord chart with the lyrics.  guitarsongs.info/DYLAN/bob-dyl...-rain.htm

The Wood Brothers do a version on a resonator guitar which is very straightforward where they start on the root chord, say E, and progress E to E6 to E7 to E6 to E - your very garden variety blues thing - then to A and back to the E thing.  Pretty straight forward.

youtube.com/watch?v=trmVVBxys3A

Other performers will dress the song up quite a bit - here's one on finger picked acoustic guitar.  But the basic chord movement is the same - chord variations provide the color differences.

youtube.com/watch?v=CvtWS6q1HyA

Or you could go back to the Bette Midler version (with Bob Dylan) sometimes referred to as Buckets of Nuggets. Still a I-IV-V blues.

Hope that helps some.  Tell us if you are looking for something more specific.

Dennis

RickJohnson - Posted - 09/22/2020:  12:00:41

Thanks, this will a help alot. I'll have find Dylan sheetmusic, and hopefully, I should be able translate to mandolin.

Mandodennis - Posted - 09/22/2020:  15:18:35

Well, you don't need to go buy the sheet music. But if you read music there are a lot of website with downloads - you can just read off the examples they'll provide. But ...

It's a simple song. Pick a key. Let's say you play it in the key of D on the mandolin. Then look at the chords. The chords, at their simplest will be D, G and A.

The song starts with the D chord. The notes in the D chord will be the root note D, the third note in the D major scale, that'd be an F# and the fifth note in the D major scale, which is an A note. Those are the notes you want to start with.

The tune starts on f#. Lets start on f3 at the fourth fret of the D string. The lyrics "Bucket of Rain" are played f#-d-f#-a. So on the D string you play f# fourth fret, d open string, f# fourth fret, a open A string.

The next line "Bucket of tears" is also f#-d-f#-a. But that A note is an octave lower, the second fret of the G string.

Try that. Then we'll change to the G chord. The notes of the G chord are g-b-d. Fool around with those and you'll find the notes for the words.

And on it goes.

RickJohnson - Posted - 09/22/2020:  19:47:28

Thanks again.

TSSN - Posted - 09/24/2020:  04:12:09

You might try here as well:

tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/b...s-1463073