View Full Version : Kaufman's four-hour bluegrass workout
I started working with this some to improve my speed and repetoire. Great practice CDs at a slow and then fast speed. There's a definite diference than just playing these tunes with a metronome which I was doing previously. Having the band tracks really gives your playing some life. (if you can keep up) Otherwise you find and isolate the problem areas. Great stuff.
Rick Crenshaw
May-01-2007, 3:45pm
Do yourself another favor. After you've used those awhile, get Brad Davis' Flatpick Jam CD's or DVD's. I prefer the DVD's. There's no tab, but you can find tab somewhere. I have the set. I know Flatpick Guitar Magazine sells them. Four speeds for each tune, with ample time on each speed. And the chords are given on the DVD version (slow speed). I love playing with the CD's and DVD's. Lots and lots of fiddle tunes on these CD's and DVD's.
mando.player
May-01-2007, 4:54pm
Is there tab included for each tune?
Tab included for mandolin, guitar, and standard C clef notation with chord progressions; chord charts for mandolin and guitar at the beginning of the book. The mandolin tablature can be used for violin as well. It's a good begginer /intermediate book until you try to play along with the up to speed CD version.
bradeinhorn
May-03-2007, 5:46am
jaco-you can probably get a program to slow down the fast version to a middle ground.
The Brad Davis stuff looks interesting. Does anybody know how fast the "fast" version gets on the Brad Davis CD's?
In other words are the fast version really up to speed?
Much of the stuff I have or have heard the fast version aren't really uo tp jamming speed.
The Dix Bruce Back-up Trax series is also well done but the fast is not burning fast. Here's a link (http://musixnow.com/OT&FT%20Trax.html)
Thanks
Perry
nupicker
May-31-2007, 1:44pm
The fast version on the brad davis dvd's is smokin !!!!
woodysny
May-31-2007, 5:57pm
I use the Brad Davis CD's almost every day. They are an excellent practice tool. And yes, the fast versions are very fast indeed.
Actually, they are quite good to just listen to. Hard to believe someone can play all those tunes with so much speed and precision.
Jonathan Peck
May-31-2007, 7:46pm
I've got the DVD's and it was pretty funny playing along with Brad as he stares at the screen while he plays a rythym track and then takes a break. I did the DVD's for awhile and then got the Cd's. The Cd's are great because you can download them into itunes and then set-up playlists with just the tunes and tempo's that you want. The guitar TAB is somewhere on the FGM site. You have to print out each song individually. I didn't know that there was mandolin TAB for the series. Is there a new mando version that I've missed?
jim_n_virginia
May-31-2007, 8:00pm
I learned a lotta tunes from the Kaufman 4 Hour Bluegrass Workout and the 4 hour Celtic Workout. Some of the tunes I even had to use SlowBlast to slow down the slow tracks of each tune and went I got them down you can increase faster and faster and with SlowBlast you can increase faster than 100% so it's faster than the fast track. SlowBlast is a great program that slows down or speeds up the music without changing the key. You don't need multiple track the program plays back at any speed you want.
But you gotta remember the tunes are just the basic bare bones you gotta listen to CD's and live music and make the tunes yours with your own variations, put your own meat on those bones so to speak. Took me a few years to figure that out.
But those practice tracks helped me tremendously in expanding my fiddle tune repetoire.
cooper4205
May-31-2007, 9:25pm
jaco-you can probably get a program to slow down the fast version to a middle ground.
Best Practice Free slow-downer (http://www.xs4all.nl/~mp2004/bp/)
Rick Crenshaw
Jun-02-2007, 9:53am
I didn't know that there was mandolin TAB for the series. Is there a new mando version that I've missed?
There's not an FGM mandolin TAB source that I know of. I was saying that you can find some TAB for those popular fiddle tunes somewhere in a book or on the internet. I didn't mean to suggest that there is mandolin TAB available specifically for the Brad Davis series.
Personally, I like to use the slow versions to pick out the tune 'by ear'. I think that's good training for improvisation. Although, you could never tell that by me when you hear me attempt to do improvisation up to speed!
mancmando
Jun-04-2007, 10:50am
Not exactly relevant but I was playing in a session last week a fellow player turned out to be Steve Kaufman's brother who plays fiddle and teaches American studies at the university of central lancashire over here in the uk..
Its a small world http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif