Buegrass and Traditional Songs to Sing Along With....Help Please.

[Nalapombu]

Hey all,

Back when I took lessons, about 10 years ago, my teacher would play a song for me and ask how I liked it and then would tab it out for me and then I'd give it a try. I'd leave and work on that song for next weeks lesson. We'd work on chords some too with him on the guitar. We never did work on any songs where the mandolin was the, or could be, the main instrument with vocals with it. Not that I can sing, I can't, but it would be kinda fun to learn some bluegrass and traditional songs that don't need another instrument and have lyrics with them.

So, the only songs I know are songs that need other instruments and have no vocals. I'd like to ask you guys and gals to help me in learning some songs that I can play on the mando and sing along with them alone. Just something to make learning a bit more interesting. The first one I want to learn is WayFaring Stranger by Monroe, his version that he sings by himself on the video on Youtube where Marty Stuart intro's him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI92oDdXazg

I love that song, I don't know why, I just do.

By the way, if you all know more gospel songs that I can learn and sing, that would be extra AWESOME...

Please add as many as you know.

Thank you for your help and time.

Nalajr

[Tobin]

What you're looking for is the Parking Lot Picker's Songbook for mandolin, by Dix Bruce. It contains 225 common bluegrass and gospel songs with tabs, chords, and lyrics. It does have Wayfaring Stranger in it, although you'll have to tweak it for a specific version like Bill Monroe's. All the songs are presented in a basic format, with the bare-bones melody. Once you learn the 'guts' of a song, you can start to improvise your own version. But that's the point of the book; it's a basis for everyone to play the same songs, and it's an incredibly popular resource.

http://www.amazon.com/Parking-Lot-Pi...dp/078667492X/

[KEB]

I'll echo Tobin-- pickers is a great book. Some of the keys and versions are a bit weird-- especially the vocal versions of fiddle tunes, but you can definitely sing along as you play. When playing solo without a band, you might want to try out open chords instead of chop chords-- chopping sounds weak without the rest of the band in place.

[Nalapombu]

Great... I'll have to pick one of those up.

Are the tabs in the book easy to follow? I ask because I have seen a lot of tabs online and they are very hard to follow for me. My teacher would give me tabs and they had 4 lines to represent the 4 pairs of strings and they were repeated down the page 4 times. If the song called for playing the 3rd fret on the D string, he would just write the number 3 on the 3rd string and so on. He didn't have any extra stuff on there. He would also record himself playing the same tune on mandolin on a cassette tape and that would go home with me. So I basically had all I needed.

A lot of these tabs are really difficult for me to understand. I hope the tabs in this book are easy to understand and use and if they aren't, I would hope I could get help understanding them here.

Thanks

Nalajr

[Tobin]

Are the tabs in the book easy to follow?

I hope the tabs in this book are easy to understand and use and if they aren't, I would hope I could get help understanding them here.

If you follow the link I posted to the Amazon site, you'll see a "Look Inside" link at the left side of the page. Or just click on the image of the book. It will open a window that lets you preview selected pages of the book (scroll down to see more pages). As you can see, they give you the music notation, accompanying chords, lyrics, and very simple tabs.

The book also has good information at the front about how to transpose to different keys, as well as some very basic music theory stuff. Oh, and it comes with a CD so you can listen to the songs as well. They've pretty much given you all the tools you need to learn the songs.

But yes, of course if you need help, folks here are always willing to answer your questions!

[Nalapombu]

Thanks.

I checked it out and I think I can follow those tabs without too much difficulty at all. They look at a lot like what my teacher would give me. Many times though, I will check out tabs posted online and they'll have symbols in them that I can't understand or other things that don't look familiar to me at all.

Gonna have to pick this book up.

Nalajr