Bluegrass Tips?

[Howard Emerson]

Originally Posted by OliveCorduroy

Hello All,

So I’ve learned a lot from many of the comments that I have received from my recent posts, with one of the comments essentially saying to just jump right in and see where it goes; while others have simply said to play and have fun. So with that, that is what I am going to do.

In one of my posts, I indicated that I was interested in bluegrass music, and I received a couple of suggestions recommending a book - The Bluegrass Fakebook. I also have Bert Casey’s Acoustic Guitar For Beginners book. I like this one a lot in that it is a book with music notation, instructional videos at different tempos, and play along tracks at different tempos for all its songs which are all traditional bluegrass/folk standards. The book uses these songs exclusively as a teaching method.

My plan is to learn technique by learning songs; that seems like a fun way to do it. Are there any suggestions that I might want to take into account with this style of music?

Thanks,
George

George,
My friend Jeff Troxel is an excellent player and teacher, AND has just released a bluegrass book on Mel Bay!

https://www.melbay.com/Products/3094...wvtHr6BEu2DGRo

Regards,
Howard Emerson

[rllink]

My advise would be to learn to start out doing rhythm guitar. Learn to do the boom-chick first. The boom is the first or the fifth, G/D, C/G. Pluck the first, strum down, pluck the fifth, strum down. Just alternate the first and the fifth with a strum in between. Boom-chick-a is adding an up strum on to the mix, but that is later. Do it to a metronome if you can. If you can do a boom-chick and hold the tempo you can sit in on a bluegrass jam with no problem and go from there.

[Kyle215]

I’d say get a free trial subscription to Jamplay and run through Tyler Grant’s Bluegrass Rhythm Survival guide. He’ll get you playing through the basic forms quickly, and more importantly get you to a point where you can recognize them when others play them. You’ll also learn a few runs in different keys and where to put them in the song, how to do some basic walking bass stuff, and some basic jam etiquette.

Plus he has a ton of play along jams on his Facebook page. The slow jams are great if you want to get a little seasoning before you jump into an in-person thing.

Once you get a feel for the rhythm and how the songs work, definitely learn some fiddle tunes. No better teacher then Bryan Sutton at ArtistWorks. Even if you never get them up to performance speed, it’s a great way to build up a vocabulary for arranging your own breaks. But definitely rhythm first.