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To the bluegrass players out there - could you recommend some artists and youtube videos for me to listen to/play with ?
Also - if you use BB/RB during a performance - which styles have served you best ? (and could you share links to your own videos / mp3's that use BB/RB ?)
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ALL of 'em.
Bluegrass is a great way to work on the Ionic mode chops in soloing. Yep, all the Major Scale patterns on the neck will usually easily apply and here is the one real place where open strings in scaling counts. Of course, being able to play the entire solo in 1st or 2nd position only is the big plus.
Also, because the chord changes are typically few and easy, great for the ear training to play along with Bluegrass shows on the radio, where you don't know what's next, but aren't likely to have something that is in need of being repeated four times before ya got all the chords in the change, man.
I'm sure the Bluegrass aficionados will be along with their favorites to recommend, will be interesting to see who they name.
Until then, Doc Watson.
And Don't Let Your Deal Go Down,
--Mac
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I also have a few favorites (but I'm of course looking for more, hence the post). The obvious ones besides Doc Watson:
Bill Monroe
Tony Rice
Earl Scruggs
Del McCoury
The Dillards
John Denver
Osborne Brothers
Ricky Skaggs
Tony Trischka
A more obscure (at least it was to me) name whose playing really knocked out/surprised me when I first heard it:
Larry Keel
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Notice that Bluegrass is most often played on the backbeat.
Swing was king and the Bluegrass players even recognized that.
They would even imply that backbeat on Even feel tunes, just dropping the triplet feel subdivision for the even 8ths as necessary.
Many of the mandolin comps are nuthin' but the backbeat.
--Mac
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Bill Munroe - Mandolin (The father of Bluegrass)
Mike Auldridge - Dobro(R) picker extraordinaire
John Starling - Vocalist (and real-life MD)
Jerry Douglas - Dobro(R)
Norman Blake - F/P Guitar
Bela Fleck - Banjo
Mac Wiseman - Bluegrass Tenor
John Duffy - Mandolin
Phil Rosenthal - Guitar and Vox
Alyson Krauss - Fiddle and Vox
Bryan Sutton - F/P Guitar
Mark O'Connor - Fiddle and Guitar
Steve Martin - Banjo (Yes, the comedian)
Homer and Jethro (both Julliard grads)
Don Ross - F/P Guitar
Tony Rice - F/P Guitar
Doc and Merle Watson - F/P Guitar
Aly Bain - Fiddle
Russ Barenburg - Guitar
Clarence White - F/P Guitar
F/P = Flat Pick
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You don't like Lester and Earl, Don?
Earl Scruggs actually was granted a patenton his signature method of pickin' the five-string banjo.
--mAC
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Mac, I was jus' gittin' started when the batteries in my mouse krap't out. I wuzguna start inta naming bands/groups. I suffered cerebral vacancy that you described yesterday. I was snagged in tryin' to 'member Steve Martin. Had me high-centered purtnear an hour. Also had brain fade on many Bluegrass guitarists.
This mouse don't get nearly the mileage that my other one does, but I drenched it in milk. I packed that'un in a ziploc full of rice. Still not working.
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never heard of Run C&W . Wow - Tommyc - I love that video - very exciting performance and outstanding musicianship. thanks for sharing. I think I'll learn that tune. But then - I need some people to play it with. Though PG/BB is the next best thing (perhaps you have a good .mid file to share), it's nothing that will come close to the ensemble sound in that video. C'mon PG - work on your bluegrass humanizers.
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You might check out banjo virtuoso (and multi-instrumentalist) Mean Mary James -- more 'old-time' than bluegrass, perhaps, though she plays in Scruggs style. https://www.youtube.com/user/meanmary80
the Insolent LadEnough small empty boxes thrown into a big empty box fill it full. ~Carl Sandburg
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My Dobro(R) picking friend of 45 years, Mike Auldridge, died on Dec 29th, 2012. RIP Mike. I had known that he had inoperable cancer for several years. I will miss him. Always the gentleman. Here's "Seldom Scene" doing one of my favorites, "Out Among The Stars" (wherein Mike steals an extra Dobro(R) break) which is more Americana than Bluegrass but follow the links to many of their Bluegrass hits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaojfdxYsK4Ben Eldridge on banjo, Phil Rosenthal on guitar, John Duffy on mandolin/harmony vocals, Dr John Starling on guitar/lead vocals.
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I didn't know that Mr. A had passed. He WAS dobro, and the Seldom Scene was great. R.I.P. Mike. For Bluegrass guitar, don't forget Dan Crary! http://www.dancrary.com/
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Quote:
I didn't know that Mr. A had passed. He WAS dobro, and the Seldom Scene was great. R.I.P. Mike.
For Bluegrass guitar, don't forget Dan Crary!
http://www.dancrary.com/
Yeah, Mike told me in an email several years ago that he had inoperable cancer but he was quiet about it and didn't say much about it. I surmised it was his prostate and guys don't like to talk about the affects of chemo treatments. Mike was 74.
When a PSG player on this forum, Howard Tate, became terminally ill, Mike played his favorite requests on his Dobro and sent them through me. They were treasured up to Howard's death. That was the loving, compassionate man that was Mike Auldridge.
Yes, Dan Crary is another that I was trying so hard to remember. Also fiddler Vassar Clements, he could play any genre. There are so many greats that I struggle to remember.
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Actually - I should have asked for fiddlers too - after all, Doc Watson always talks about how he learned to play guitar the way he did by trying to play fiddle tunes on the guitar.
Quite frankly - I often love the sound of the fiddle, but don't know any fiddle players, but I do know other guitar players. One of the reasons I bought a Roland GI-20 was so that when jamming bluegrass with another guitar player, I could occasionally belt out a fiddle solo. But after hearing and playing around with the synth sounds, I can't imagine finding a sound that is any substitute at all to my own ears (mostly because of the expression the bow creates in the attack, and the variations and expressoin a human imparts to the fiddle during a melody or solo).
I know Mac suggested a great youtube video with a synth play doing a good job with a fiddle sound (or was that a violin sound) - and Mac suggested the very smart idea of knowing what NOT to play if the synth sound is cheesy with certain types of sounds, and that the idea might be to give the audience the effect of a real fiddle player - still for me, all I love about the fiddle is largely lost when played through the guitar synth.
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