Thought I'd start a thread where the content might match the subject line. As of Saturday I have played a solo. Can't wait to do it again!
I end up playing a lot of solos with the harmonicas but haven’t done leads yet on the mandolin. You sounded great. I remember a few times playing harp along with songs I’d never heard before (a couple were originals) and suddenly the guitar player handed off a solo to me...that was a bit unsettling the first few times but anymore I sort of half expect it. As long as I can hear the chord progression and timing of the verse and lyrics once or preferably twice it’s pretty easy.
In the thread I started about "faking it," several have mentioned playing notes in the chords. I just can't make that connection as I'm playing. Gerald made it simple for me, telling me to plant first finger on the root, then play notes on any string in that same fret, as well as 2 frets up and 4 frets up. I'm a beginner at this, but this approach seems to work well for me.
That sounds like cheating! I gotta try that.
Don, Gerald tried to get me to do this months ago, but I didn't think i was ready. He played some tune (chords) and told me to play any notes in the pentatonic scale, that even if I wasn't playing the melody, it would sound good. I was amazed! BTW, along with the frets I mentioned above, you can play open strings if they're in the key. The piece on Saturday was in A, so I played open A, D and E. The theorists in our group will explain how all this works. In the meantime I need to try this with other keys. Problem: too many things to work on, too little time. John Kelly has been privately chastising me for going in too many directions. I attribute it to OCD (self-diagnosed). (So much for sticking to the subject!)
I’m proud of myself that I actually thought of the open strings before you mentioned it This place is super educational.
And Newbies don't step on your toes like can sometimes happen elsewhere.
Thanks for posting what Gerald told you, Sherry. I am going to try that too.
This guy, Eddy Kay, is obviously a bit of a newbie himself so his explanation is pretty simple. I think this is probably the same stuff Gerald was teaching Sherry ... a musician friend who gave me a few mandolin lessons taught me the same stuff, said he learned it from Adam Steffey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMzu08vKX9U&t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLL4p_0Yyf8
"Who has played a solo in a jam?" I have done it, and can attest that I'm no good at it yet Mostly what I do now is just play around with the pentatonic scale and try to make it interesting. I have done improv solos on recordings, though, and I used diatonic and pentatonic scales, both of the solos on this Bob Dylan tune were improv, "fly by the seat of your pants" and nothing great about them but I kept them anyway because I felt like they fit, in a weird sort of way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5YHyIErXag But what I really like to do is, rather than improv, create my own solo in the woodshed, try to refine it and learn it. Then, I can use pentatonics, arpeggios, etc. and get more creative. I did that for the solo in this video of Willie's Funny How Time Slips Away, I've often thought about making a newbies video for the Woodshed Group explaining how I come up with stuff like this. Again, not great, but workable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQlFjAbeG1I
Mark, that is some great stuff- both the instructional videos and your songs. You really have a great blues voice. And of course your models for the first video... wow! I liked your note choices for the first video but you’re right that the woodshed practice for the second one resulted in a lot better fit, mostly for timing more so than the notes themselves. I don’t get a chance to woodshed with the harps when I’m without the band but I’ve noticed my solos on gig songs have evolved over the years starting from pure improv to refinements of what fits better so basically the same concept. I’d love to play some harps with your blues mando, we could make some great tunes
Mark, I enjoyed your two videos (again). And the pentatonic lessons present the practical side of pentatonic mandolin in a way that makes a whole lot of sense. Thanks to Sherry for the instigation.
Don I’ll send you a PM soon, maybe we can do a long distance collaboration sometime
Great idea!
I, for one, would love to hear a collaboration between the two of you
Ditto!
I'm in the hospital after knee surgery and am having trouble getting through these videos! I've watched the first one, though, and can say this is the method Gerald showed me - except that he has not mentioned using 4th finger.
I hope everything went well Sherry! Did you bring your mando to the hospital after all?
Lol yes Eddy is pretty inconsistent on his finger choices but he’s got the basic concept
Best wishes for speedy recuperation, Sherry!
Don, the mando will not make it to the hospital. I'll spare you some of the gory details, but will say, due to a cat and dog sleeping in the master bed, I spent the 3 nights before surgery in the guest room. It worked out great, as I played my mandolin in bed as long as I wanted. I had no music stand, which I think was a good thing. Worked on crosspicking (love that technique!) and noodling around with happy birthday and amazing grace in different keys. Wish I were more comfortable/confident/desirous of playing chords, but that's a subject for another time and place.
Here's to a quick and effective rehab! Take it easy with the kick boxing for a few days.
Thanks, Mark and Henry. I meant to add to my earlier post that I'll be staying in the guest room when I get home and put my mando on the bed in anticipation of playing once I get home. Hopefully, I can move it back and forth between the bed and music stand when I can practice/play as usual.
Mark, I've just listened to your 2 videos. Your solo parts reminded me of my playing with Gerald. How fun is that! I especially enjoyed your singing. I hope you'll take it as a compliment that your singing reminds me of Leon Redbone.
I hope the surgery went well, and that you are recuperating well. You'll be home soon, with something besides mystery meat and jello to eat.
Surgery went great and I definitely will be glad to get back to my husband's cooking.
Have I ever jammed a solo? Well...sort of? My first festival was Grey Fox year before last, and I went to the slow jam tent which turned out to be a couple of folks doing a Wernick method workshop. So we were just getting used to playing in unison, creeping through a ragged version of Angeline the Baker, when the instructor out of the blue tossed it to me. And I was "uh...erp...what...chord tones! chord tones!" I managed to stagger out something that mostly root/3/5/3/root. So there was that. And I was supposed to attend a full Wernick camp earlier this month but I didn't make it (which is a whole nother story) and in prep for that I composed solos to a couple of songs but so far it's been just me and Strum Machine.
I really like strum machine. It seems to have different speeds from my metronome. Have you noticed that?
Do you mean strum machine sounds different at 60bpm than your metronome at 60bpm? Or how else would it sound different? It should be easy to check accuracy with a stopwatch.
Yes, that's what I mean. I just got home from the hospital, so I'll check when I can.
I've read a little bit on the wernick method and I believe the key is to never pass an opportunity to take a solo. It makes sense to me. In the before times I was going to a jam but skipping the solo. When we go back to having jams, I"m gonna take my solos. I may not be very good, but the only way to start is to start...
Between Sherry, BadExampleMan and SouthernMan, I'm feeling inspired. Hopefully I can find some people to play with this summer, and won't be too afraid.
I'd not heard of the Wernick method. I don't play bluegrass, but after reading a little about Wernick, it looks good. A camp would be fun.
Last night I got to play a few songs during our gig... I played Lyin’ Eyes, Country Roads, Son of a Son of a Sailor, and Blues Man as mando and vocals... unfortunately just as we got to our last half dozen favorite songs we got hit with a thunderstorm and had to bail out. But we had a great time for 2.5 hours I did lead vocals on another handful and harmonies on a bunch more. And of course harmonica on most of them
2.5 hours sounds like a long time to play. How long do you normally play?
Sounds like excellent fun! Old mando or new?
Our normal gigs are 3 hours, sometimes 3.5. The longest we ever played was six hours I played the old mando... for plugging in in a crowded stage setting I’d be leery of the new one getting knocked around. It’s mostly going to be a living room queen.
"...the key is to never pass an opportunity to take a solo." I've played music for most of my life, but I've never been spontaneous-lead guy. After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back to playing in a band with a couple other guys. Previously, I'd always decline when one of them asked if I wanted to take a solo, aside from a couple songs I had things worked out on. As of the last couple practices/jams, I go for it every time it's my turn. Most of them are crash-and-burns, but the burn is getting less severe each time.
Good for you, MM. I think working up the nerve is a big part of it. I read a little about that Wernick method, too. All you need to do is be able to move between G, C, D, and A and tune your instrument. I think a group like that would feel very safe.
When they send out the prep material for a Wernick camp, they suggest that you come with at least 3-4 songs you're familiar with and ready to play. For the camp that I wasn't able to attend because oops, war, I spent probably way too much time working out solos for How Mountain Girls Can Love and She Left Me Standing On The Mountain. In both cases I started with a Sarah Jarosz performance (if you're going to steal, why not steal from the best!) and simplified it down to where even I could manage to nail it most of the time at a stately tempo.
It was not a jam, but I did take a couple of opportunities to solo over songs in my class last night. We played Atlantic City and Ophelia. I played over both just using the pentatonic. I was not smooth (as I kept hitting notes not in the pentatonic, or losing timing) but when I was on, it sounded surprisingly good to me. I'm gonna work a little on figuring out some double stops and arpeggions for these. It was fun.
Wonderful, Southern Man! Consider recording your solos, at least while you're learning. So glad I recorded mine, which is easy if you use a music stand.
Resurrecting an old thread because I sat in on a bluegrass jam for the first time yesterday. I’ve jammed plenty before with a guitarist or two or my band etc, and played plenty with other bands with my harps, but this was the first time I’ve ever sat in with an established jam that included several good mandolin players (including Mandobart who is a long time cafe member, super nice guy and excellent player) and had a blast. I honestly didn’t do a ton of mandolin playing since I didn’t know most of the songs, but played a lot of harps and did quite a bit of vocals on songs I knew, and when it came around to me a few times we figured out some songs I play that they either had on their list or that they could follow. Super fun time.
Hah, I skimmed all the way to the bottom of this thread before I realized it was old. And then I went back and read more carefully and, oh look, I even posted in it . I played my first full-speed solo with other humans in October, at Adiaha's Bluegrass Camp in Bavaria. It sucked. I can't even remember what song it was, but I remember not being totally sure of the changes and my fingers getting tangled and ending up just kind of hanging on one note like I was The Edge or something. And most of the camp instructors were also in that jam circle. So just in case I wasn't intimidated enough, I was sitting across the table from Radim Zenkl. (Which is not to say that everyone wasn't super supportive and encouraging, because they were, but I wish I'd done better.) However we live and learn. What I'm doing now is taking songs I know fairly well and trying to find little variations for a phrase here and there, and then gradually expanding to be longer and longer excursions away from the melody. I'm still kind of stuck in first position, but le'at le'at as the locals say. Here's video of me working on this with Blackberry Blossom and Strum Machine.
That sounded great, BEM. It ended kind of abruptly, though, just when I was grooving along with it I had an experience similar to yours at the Fiddleheads camp last fall, except it was at a seminar and not even full speed. Actually, it wasn't even a tune, just a chord progression that everyone else in the group was playing over and over. I was happy that I got up the nerve to try it, though. Don, the jam you went to sounds super fun. You are fortunate that you are a good singer and harmonica player, so you've got those other two to fall back on.
Wow BEM that is some great picking!
Yessir, BEM done done a GEM. There's a bunch of features worthy of applause: good clean tones, good tempo, keeping the rhythm going, nice mando, etc, but what really impressed me was the variations - I think you have a real knack for coming up with interesting ways to express the main tune.
Thanks, y'all are really kind. It certainly didn't feel coherent or structured in the moment - most of it I felt like I was way out over my skis.
TRUE story: For 14 years I played bass in an acoustic trio. One afternoon I brought my mandolin along when we played a local little impromptu outdoor gig. Toward the end of the gig, I played mandolin on about 2 or 3 songs. After that - the band broke up. Coincidence?
I sort of glancingly mentioned this so I'll ask here: anyone know of any good techniques or lessons with good techniques for breaking out of first position when improvising?