My chop got a lot better when i _

[Crowder]

I've been playing about ten or eleven years, and I've played all kinds of music. I only recently got involved with a bluegrass band for the first time. I've always played with a kind of sloppy/noisy/busy chop that worked with most of the situations I've been in, but I really need to nail the POW!/(dead) bluegrass chop so I've been trying to pay more attention to what I'm doing and get it right.

So, help me out. If you've mastered this technique, I'd like to know what made the difference for you. How'd you get it down right?

Thanks in advance.

[Jim Broyles]

Fret the chords cleanly, use a heavy enough pick to generate a full tone, don't follow through too much - stop your chop after you have driven past the strings - immediately relax your fretting hand fingers to dampen the strings and stop their ringing. If you are chopping chords with open strings, quickly palm mute with your picking hand, although this is a source of disagreement among some players in that some will say you never chop any open chords. I say, generally true, but I do chop the 5-3-0-1 F major chord and it sounds fine if I dampen the strings and don't let the open A ring out. On a personal preference note, I hate the 7-4-5-2 D chop and I never use it. To me it sounds weak with the doubled 3rd and no 5th. Instead, I use 2-4-5-x for my D chop as a V chord, and 7-4-5-x as a Tonic (I)chop chord.

[Paul Kotapish]

Good advice, Jim.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we all tend to make on our chops is hitting 'em too dang hard. On a decent f-hole instrument with an elevated fingerboard (with either an A- or F-style body shape), those chop chords really cut through the mix without much force required if they are cleanly executed and rhythmically accurate. Timing is much more critical than volume in terms of making the chop effective, and different bands like that backbeat in different places. Most of us shoot for the centerline of the backbeat, but playing to the front of the beat makes for a very aggressive, driving groove, while playing a little bit behind the beat makes for a more laid-back groove that fits certain songs.

Push too much one way or the other, though, and it can make for an uncomfortable rhythmic situation. In concert, anyway, Ricky Skaggs pushes his chops so far in front of the beat that it sounds like he's going to jump the bar line. It creates a very driving sound, but with a little too much tension for my tastes. At the other extreme, if the chop is too lazy, the whole band will tend to slow down in response.

Work with the band to get the right feel, then work with a metronome to perfect it.

[Mike Bunting]

Great advice and if I may add, paly slowly, only concerned with the sound of the chop, and when you get the sound you like, figure how you got it and then work on the rest.

[sunburst]

I really don't have any business posting here, because I'm not really a mandolin player. I used to be a drummer, however, and I've never had any trouble chopping a mandolin.
Paul, you must have been a drummer too at some time, or else you're someone I'd sure like to have had in one of the bands I played drums in!
In any band, rhythm is everyone's responsibility, but in a bluegrass band, where there is no drummer, that's especially true, and Paul's advise is spot on!

[Pete Martin]

"Started practicing...!!??" http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Perry]

Metronome...or better yet drum machine....I set mine to country beat wnd when my chop is dead on the snare drum disappears...when I stop chopping it reappears....it's serves as great aural feedback to know when you are spot on.

On a side note I play often with just guitar, bass and harmonica so I often employ a quick up strum to my chop to fill it out...

In Niles' chord book he points out that you need only concentrate on the bottom two strings when chopping. This helps "clean" up my chop.

Sam Bush is my favorite chopper.

[AlanN]

I always liked Duffey's chop. It had enough of the chord tones and his oomph was just right, he had the little gallop down perfectly.

[Kevin Briggs]

Practice hitting the off beat only, for about a year. Then, once you are rock solid at just hitting that beat, feel free to mix it up a bit. The other members of your band depend on you to be the snare drum, so your desire to play a different role is....

[Klaus Wutscher]

Having a clear idea how you want your chop to sound is important. My chop only started to work once I saw/ heard other musicians who demonstrated their approach to me. Also, the chop is happening mostly on the G and D string - like mentioned above, fretting the second fret of the A string for the Dmajor chop doesn´t really help because a) that note is already there and b) the E string does not chop, it plinks! Focus on the three lower strings and if you think hard enough about a good, deep solid chop while practicing, your hands will finally catch up:)

[keymandoguy]

install a pickguard !! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[mingusb1]

..."started working with the bass player". In a band setting, I find it helpful to stand next to the bass player to figure out what works best. How are the bass notes decaying? Are they ringing a little, or being totally deadened? If the bass player is worth their salt this will change depending on the song, time signature, singing, etc.

Some bass players are prone to rush if they play very staccato and the chop is way at the front of the backbeat. Also, what is the guitar player doing? Some guitar players like to chop a bit themselves, albeit typically with a longer decay.

Good luck!
Z

[TeleMark]

...changed picks. Switching to a Golden Gate from a pointy pick seems to make a huge difference to me. It takes some practice to get the volume/feel back for single notes, but it's worth it for the chop tone.

[Ken Sager]

I listened closely to John Reischman's chop and worked hours and hours trying to get that flop/fwop/chop sound he gets. It's timing both hands to hit the strings and mute (again with both hands). It's not a very hard hit with the right hand, either, regardless of the tempo or volume.

Listen and listen to someone who does what you want to do, then listen and listen to yourself trying to get there. The more adjustments you make while listening the closer you'll get over time.

Did I mention listen?

Best,
Ken

[mandopete]

Anyone here have advice on imitating Sam Bush's chop sound? I have always used my right hand to mute the strings (as opposed to releasing with the left hand) to make the chop sound and I find it's a bit more versatile that way. But I have never even got close to that signature Sam Bush chop sound.

[kudzugypsy]

listen to doyle lawson...A LOT - best chop in BG
and i mean LISTEN - listen to where he places the chop and how it is done - he doesnt bash it, he lays it right in there.

also, as mentioned, it should be done with a LOOSE wrist, arch your wrist at a (close to) 45 degree angle and make a quick snap right near the end of the fretboard and then KILL the sustain with your right hand...repeat x100000

of course, every BG band/situation is different. i've played in jams/bands where you DID have to beat the heck out of it, but i dont enjoy that-

[Knot-Head]

[QUOTE]install a pickguard !!
Huh??

[Atlanta Mando Mike]

The 1 thing that totally changed my chop was to have my pick arm completely parralel to the strings-imagine the line the neck makes and your arm would be on the same line but just continuing behind the bridge. Makes the pick strike the strings completely flat-the pick strikes perfectly perpendicular to the strings. Helps give that chopping wood sound. Its interesting to hear the difference. Try chopping but only change the angle of your arm-the more parrallel to the strings and in line with the stings and neck, the more full sounding chop.

[Kevin K]

Michael,

The same exact thing I ran across was the string arm parallel combination and that seemed to just click. Not only was the chop there but the tone and volume through out was there.

[Peter Hackman]

Lately I've been listening to some stuff my group recorded in 1969. We usually played to one or two microphones and the most striking thing abut my "chop" is that it's all but inaudible, because I was so far off mic. There was a vocal star
(Totte Bergström) and an instrumental star (the banjo player)
and I was neither so I often stepped back quite a bit. The places where the mando can be clearly heard is when the backup deviates from the usual chop pattern, which indeed I beleive it should do, quite often. I can hear that I liked to go into a more strumming pattern, especially at the end of a section, and some Monroe-inspired rhtyhmic rolls, some irregularly placed accents, tremoloes and triplets on slower stuff.

(After that period, I never played mandolin, only guitar, in BG-type group contexts)

So I guess I was a bit casual, or even sloppy about chopping. I expected, and I still expect, the bass and guitar to handle the beat and the mando to do something on top of that, so as to complement or contrast that beat. Our guitarist didn't play with a very strong afterbeat, besides, he often fingerpicked, which called for a different approach, I guess.

Our band had no fiddle and what I DO hear is I simply loved to play and play and play behind the soloist - banjo, guitar or vocal. Basically, I would almost never chop on a slower piece. Unfortunately, the best example
is an incomplete recording, otherwise I would post it here as an example of what I believe the mandolin can do in a group.

In my dream band, the Amazing Slowdowners, there would be no banjo - or, at any rate, only four players. I would like to have a bass player who can walk his thing and I would play a lot of riffs, fills and countermelodies, hardly any chops at all. I would like to continue where I left off 38 years ago.

Listen to early Monroe, with Howard Watts or Joel Price on bass, not much chopping there, but lots of stuff behind Lester Flatt's vocals.
The AS might have percussion, but certainly not the imbecile snare drum of so many 60's bands (at least on record).

I the summer of 1969 I heard Monroe several times, at the major festivals and on the Opry. I noticed that he often didn't play at all while singing. Doug Green and James Monroe weren't exactly the strongest rhythm team he played with; maybe he chopped so little because he didn't quite know which of them to relate to ...