Adam Steffey - My Approach To Bluegrass Mandolin

By John Lawless, AcuTab
June 17, 2007 - 9:00 pm

Adam Steffey - My Approach To Bluegrass Mandolin DVD

Adam Steffey has been a prominent figure in bluegrass music for more than 20 years. His clean, articulate picking has won him rave reviews from serious students of the mandolin, and earned him 5 Mandolin Player of the Year awards from his peers in the International Bluegrass Music Association.

On Disc 1 of this new release, Adam goes over several topics, including mandolin rhythm playing, right hand attack, note spacing, tone/volume, practicing, and building speed - with demonstrations of each in turn. He then spends roughly 45 minutes covering how you can build a bluegrass-style solo based on the basic melody of a song. Using 3 common jam session tunes, Adam shows how to start with the simple melody and build a solo - in several different keys.

The second disc has Adam teaching 7 of his most requested solos, covering his work with Mountain Heart, Alison Krauss and his own solo CD. Each song is played with a band before Adam breaks it down lick by lick. They are each then shown (fast and slow) in a split screen orientation. A printed booklet is included which contains transcriptions for all 7 solos, in both tab and standard notation.

Topics covered on Disc 1

* note spacing
* pick attack
* tone and volume
* practicing
* building speed
* rhythm
* creating solos

Songs taught on Disc 2

* East Tennessee Blues
* Cluck Old Hen
* Liza Jane
* Everytime You Say Goodbye
* No Place To Hide
* Daybreak In Dixie
* #6 Barn Dance

More details are available on the AcuTab web site, including several screen shots and a number of brief sample video clips.

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