Request for a few standards for jams

[KennyBTX]

I accidentally started playing mandolin recently, 25 years after having bought a mandolin to play solos in a few country songs with a family 'band'. At the time, I was the last in the family to pick up an instrument and wound up becoming a beginner-level jack of many trades and master of none. I made the happy mistake of admitting to owning a mandolin at church after moving to a small town, they asked me to bring it to a practice, and everyone loves the tone that it adds. Even if I just play chords, little fills and bits of tremolo where it fits with the pop-rock style being played. But now I want to play some actual mandolin music!

The problem is that nearby jams are kind of few and far between, and the catalog of bluegrass music is pretty big. So I'm asking for two or three song suggestions that you'd expect to hear, play or fit in at a jam. Hopefully a couple of songs multiplied by several proponents of both pure bluegrass and hardly strictly bluegrass will give me some good homework!

[Aaron Pomerantz]

Whiskey before breakfast
Red haired boy
Big Sciota

Good place to start. 3 different keys as well

[UsuallyPickin]

Those are three good un's. For your learning experience, think about purchasing The Amazing Slowdowner program for your computer. It slows down music without changing the key, among other things. Secondly, listen to as much of the style of music you want to play as you can. If you can hum the melody you can pick it out on a mandolin. Enjoy the journey. R/

[Mark Gunter]

Kenny, those are certainly three good fiddle tunes to learn! Big Sciota is also a great vocal tune.

Here's some advice that may be helpful, take or leave it as you will ~

First, if you want to play in a certain style, like Bluegrass, it is important to listen to a lot of it. Also, if you do that, you'll find a lot of Gospel music in that style, and may even find some songs you'd like to bring to the table at your worship music practice, for possible inclusion in the worship service. I'll share a short story about that at the end of this post.

Second, I would suggest that you do what I did in the beginning; that is, go to the site www.mandolessons.com where cafe member Baron teaches numerous fiddle tunes. Since I was unfamiliar with those fiddle tunes in the beginning, as I assume you are, my approach was to click on some, have a listen to his initial play-through of the tune. When I found one that appealed to me, I would focus on learning it. Rinse, repeat.

Third, add some Bluegrass to your personal playlist and listen, listen, listen. Oh, sorry, I already wrote that in #1. Hope you get the point.

The story: I'm more of a blues hound than a grasser. I worked out a cool mandolin version of Reverend Gary Davis's Keep Your Lamps Trimmed And Burnin' and I enjoyed playing it so much ... at the time, I began playing mandolin in a small worship band that led the music at church, mostly contemporary Christian music. I brought the tune to practice and they loved it. It was a much requested song for many worship services.

Have fun! Greetings from the northern tip of the Hill Country!

[TX2AK]

I love the fiddle tunes mentioned above - Whiskey Before Breakfast and Big Sciota are especially favorites of mine, but I don’t hear them at many bluegrass camps or the local jams around here (north Texas/Red River Valley). For me, like Mark, the gospel songs are a safe bet for church, actual bluegrass jams, and country or anything goes type jams. Standards I think of are “I’ll Fly Away,” “Long Journey Home” is a bluegrass standard that is almost identical to “This Little Light of Mine” and similar to “Do Lord, Oh Do Lord,” (so you get almost a 3 for 1 there), “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “Uncloudy Day” are also very similar and equally at home in church or a bluegrass circle. So, that list is 3 different melodies, but if you modify 2 of them, you get bonus songs without much effort.

[EdHanrahan]

It would be hard to go wrong with this one, for only $10-12 or so:
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/c...d-Liam-Purcell

... and to be aware of Pete Wernick / Dr. Banjo in general, organizer of many regional BG jamming introductory courses, plus a series of 3 play-along videos, available from Homespun Tapes.
(Obviously, Homespun's name =Happy Traum's company= is now 4-5 decades old!)

[fatt-dad]

download, "Tabeditviewer" and search this very site for, "TEF" files.

The viewer lets the computer speaker play the tune. That informs the ear. Folks don't like tab, so if that you then you can just display the standard notes. I like tab.

Songs I enjoy playing are tunes like, "Campbells farewell to red gap," "Angeline the baker," "Drowsy Maggie," "New five cents," and all those endless fiddle tunes.

Liberty, Arkansas Traveller, Red Haired Boy, Roanoke are all good tunes too!

Enjoy the journey!

f-d

[FLATROCK HILL]

I love the fiddle tunes mentioned above - Whiskey Before Breakfast and Big Sciota are especially favorites of mine, but I don’t hear them at many bluegrass camps or the local jams around here (north Texas/Red River Valley). For me, like Mark, the gospel songs are a safe bet for church, actual bluegrass jams, and country or anything goes type jams. Standards I think of are “I’ll Fly Away,” “Long Journey Home” is a bluegrass standard that is almost identical to “This Little Light of Mine” and similar to “Do Lord, Oh Do Lord,” (so you get almost a 3 for 1 there), “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “Uncloudy Day” are also very similar and equally at home in church or a bluegrass circle. So, that list is 3 different melodies, but if you modify 2 of them, you get bonus songs without much effort.

Kenny, there are some good suggestions for fiddle tunes above but if you're looking for Bluegrass standards where you get "bonus songs without much effort", (as suggested by TX2AK) try these. While not exactly the same, they're very similar. Learn one and you've basically learned three. And all three good, solid BG standards. Then all you have to do is learn the words...

[KennyBTX]

Many thanks to everyone for the detailed suggestions, kind words, and for providing some good concrete starting points! Fortunately for everyone else, less so for my ability to lead tunes, I am in no danger of becoming a singer.

[jaycat]

Long Journey Home, Blue Ridge Cabin Home, John Hardy, The Old Home Place, are a few of the ones that get played to death around these parts.

[mingusb1]

Greetings, Big Mon (A), Goldrush (A), and Billy in the Lowground (C) are three good ones I'd say.

Cheers,
Z

[Bill McCall]

Learn to sing like you learn to play. Bluegrass is more vocal than flashy fiddle tunes. Big gospel influence. 9 pound hammer, Bury me Beneath the Willow, I’ll fly away are all good places to start. Pick out the melody, add doublestops and sing. Singing in a group is great fun.

Have fun with all of it.

[tmsweeney]

Aaron Pomerantz:
Whiskey before breakfast
Red haired boy
Big Sciota

jaycat:
Long Journey Home,
Blue Ridge Cabin Home,
John Hardy,
The Old Home Place

mingus1:
Big Mon (A),
Goldrush (A),
Billy in the Lowground (C)

Fatt Dad
Angelina Baker

All very common tunes played at many a jam I would throw in


Roll in my sweet baby's arms
9 Pound Hammer
East Tennessee blues
Salt Creek
BlackBerry Blossom
Hand me Down My Walkin' Cane
Banks of the Ohio
Sittin' on top of the world
Rocky Top
Little Sadie
Little Maggie


for a little variety

minor swing
EMD

[Stopstop]

In the pines
Rank Stranger

also maybe
White Dove
Drifting too far from the Shore

[EdHanrahan]

(double post, sorry!)

[EdHanrahan]

... I am in no danger of becoming a singer.

FWIW, I was a marginal singer for decades, sometimes almost on key. Then when it got to reading notation on mandolin, I'd play the notes while SINGING the names of them, easily referenced against whatever note I was fretting. That was also about the time I digested "Singing for Dummies", which tends to blur the "chicken-vs-egg" comparison.

My current singing acumen is all the way up to "generally approaching tolerable"!