I"ll Fly Away - Jon Lowry

[mcmi11ions]

Hey all, beginning player, first time poster...

I play bass guitar primarily in my church's praise band, and this weekend we are going to be playing the Jon Lowry version of I'll Fly Away. I can't find anything anywhere on the web about this version of the song. I have some chord progressions that were given to me by the praise band leader, but he passed two along to me. One in A w/a capo on 7 and the other in E.

I know next to nothing about theory. I suppose my questions would be:

1. Which version should I be playing? If I was on bass, I would play E with the guitar using the capo'd tuning. Do I stick with that or do I need a capo too?

2. Since I only have chord charts and my ear isn't trained enough to identify the individual pickings that are used, is this a good beginner tune that I should have an easy time strumming with and maybe finding a very simple picking part where the "solo" is if I'm asked to play something there?

Thanks for the help and I'm sorry if any of the questions were "dumb" or new sounding, but when it comes to mandolin, at this point I am dumb and new

[Mandolin Mick]

If you're going to play it in A with an E inversion, you'd capo on the 5th fret of the guitar. 3 chords E, A & B7. Personally, I'd play it with a capo on the 2nd fret and use G, C & D7. You're still in A , but much easier.


Play the bass in A, just playing the root & 5th. On the A chord, that's the A & E. For the D chord it's D & A and the E chord is E & B.

I wouldn't capo the mandolin, just play the chords. IMHO.

Good Luck!

[mcmi11ions]

Thanks Mick! I appreciate the time you took to post. As a followup, I was a little confused by your comment regarding the bass. Are the notes you listed what I should focus picking on with the mandolin, or the notes you feel the bass line should move around? After reading it a couple of times I figured the first part of the post was in regards to the chords you figure the guitar should be playing, and not the mandolin along with the guitar.

Thanks again.

[Mandolin Mick]

I wrote that in 3 different parts because I was confused to which instrument you were referring to ... so I wrote out what to play on 3 different instruments!

Play the mandolin with a chop on the off beat, like a snare does in a rock band.

The bass part is what is to be played on the bass fiddle or bass guitar.

[mcmi11ions]

Thank you again!