Comments on: Beginners, are you ready to jam? http://banjosrule.com/blog/beginners-are-you-ready-to-jam/ Banjo Blog Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:34:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: admin http://banjosrule.com/blog/beginners-are-you-ready-to-jam/comment-page-1/#comment-14 admin Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:22:52 +0000 http://banjosrule.com/blog/?p=48#comment-14 As far as the old standards, at least for instrumentals, you'll want to learn songs like Foggy Mtn. Breakdown, Salt Creek, Gold Rush, Soldier's Joy, Lonesome Road Blues, John Hardy, Clinch Mt. Backstep, Old Joe Clark, Cripple Creek, Blackberry Blossom. For vocal pieces (and you'll want to learn the banjo leads for vocal pieces even if you aren't going to sing) you'll want to tackle Love Please Come, Old Home Place, any of the "cabin" songs (Little Cabin Home On The Hill, etc.), Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Fireball Mail...I'm drawing a bit of a blank right now, and many of the area pickers who read this will be screaming at their computer screens when they read this: "You idiot!! What about (insert song here) or what about (insert song here) or how about (insert song here) etc. etc. The best advice would be to frenquent some jams sessions and see what the pickers are picking, then get that set of songs learned! It's interesting to note that you find regional differences when it comes to the song titles you are likely to encounter in the jams. If you go to a different region of this country and attend some jams there, you'll find they play some of the same songs as we do in Michigan, but perhaps a whole new set of songs that you hadn't considered and that we normally don't do too much around here. A last thought about country music: leave it at home. Or, maybe more appropriately, treat anything you do that isn't traditionally bluegrass as "crossover" music. In one of my groups we do Cheap Trick and Johny Cash and the beatles, but we do it with bluegrass instrumentation and bluegrass style touches to the music. However, I wouldn't bring any of that to the jam sessions. There's nothing worse than being at a bluegrass jam session and have someone try to do half a dozen or more country songs. The two styles are very different and it's not very much fun for bluegrassers to attend a country jam. As far as the old standards, at least for instrumentals, you’ll want to learn songs like Foggy Mtn. Breakdown, Salt Creek, Gold Rush, Soldier’s Joy, Lonesome Road Blues, John Hardy, Clinch Mt. Backstep, Old Joe Clark, Cripple Creek, Blackberry Blossom. For vocal pieces (and you’ll want to learn the banjo leads for vocal pieces even if you aren’t going to sing) you’ll want to tackle Love Please Come, Old Home Place, any of the “cabin” songs (Little Cabin Home On The Hill, etc.), Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Fireball Mail…I’m drawing a bit of a blank right now, and many of the area pickers who read this will be screaming at their computer screens when they read this: “You idiot!! What about (insert song here) or what about (insert song here) or how about (insert song here) etc. etc. The best advice would be to frenquent some jams sessions and see what the pickers are picking, then get that set of songs learned!

It’s interesting to note that you find regional differences when it comes to the song titles you are likely to encounter in the jams. If you go to a different region of this country and attend some jams there, you’ll find they play some of the same songs as we do in Michigan, but perhaps a whole new set of songs that you hadn’t considered and that we normally don’t do too much around here.

A last thought about country music: leave it at home. Or, maybe more appropriately, treat anything you do that isn’t traditionally bluegrass as “crossover” music. In one of my groups we do Cheap Trick and Johny Cash and the beatles, but we do it with bluegrass instrumentation and bluegrass style touches to the music. However, I wouldn’t bring any of that to the jam sessions. There’s nothing worse than being at a bluegrass jam session and have someone try to do half a dozen or more country songs. The two styles are very different and it’s not very much fun for bluegrassers to attend a country jam.

]]> By: Pickin'chick http://banjosrule.com/blog/beginners-are-you-ready-to-jam/comment-page-1/#comment-10 Pickin'chick Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:05:29 +0000 http://banjosrule.com/blog/?p=48#comment-10 What are some of the "old standard" songs that you hear at nearly every jam session? Do people mostly stick to bluegrass, or are there some jams that are mostly country? What are some of the “old standard” songs that you hear at nearly every jam session? Do people mostly stick to bluegrass, or are there some jams that are mostly country?

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