Old Time Jam Session Strum Patterns

[A 4]

I've gone a few times to an OT jam near me. It's a great experience for me, since I have zero experience playing with other people, and didn't practice chords or rhythm playing very much playing at home. I've been three times, and really liked it. I have a few weeks before I go again, and would like to practice.

I'm trying to figure out where I fit in, and what to play. They've been pretty nice, and nobody has complained about me so far, so that's good. The typical line up is one or two fiddles, one or two guitars, two or three banjos, and me, but it changes, obviously.

I figure the fiddles have the melody taken care of, and I don't know the tunes yet, anyway. The guitars are doing a boom-chuck rhythm. So what should I be doing?

I've been avoiding a chop (and actually avoiding chop chord shapes, since once I'm in them it is pretty easy to start chopping). I can do a mando equivalent of the guitar, with a bass note ringing and the chords on the 2 and 4. Maybe choking off the chords a little. Strumming open chords and letting them ring on the 1 and 3? On some songs it seemed to work to alternate between up and down on the two followed by just the down on the 4. Is that annoying to other folks? Sometimes that sounded OK, and sometimes it sounded like I was trying to play Reggae, so I stopped that. Any other ideas on how to contribute?

Apologies if I have my terminology wrong here - I don't have a lot of experience. I'm not even sure they are not playing in 2/4. There were a few songs where I couldn't count right with 4 beats, but worked with two, which is the first time I've ever thought I understood the difference. I asked them, and nobody knew the time signatures. They all learned them by ear and played them, and didn't worry about it.

[Perry]

"True" old-time feel* to me is more 1&3 (boom) then 2&4 (chick)...putting an emphasis to the back beat which is what the chop does doesn't sound quite right

If you are serious I recommend getting this book; even though it is guitar based


*as to what constitutes true old-time feel I suppose one could write a book

[JeffD]

Listen on line or elsewhere to a bunch of old time music and get a feeling for it.

Playing the melody is always acceptable.

Tasteful backup that isn't a percussive bluegrass chop is also fine.

Enjoy and have a good time. Try and fit in and you will.

[A 4]

Barry and JeffD, thanks.

Once I learn some of the melodies, I'll try. But I've learned that fiddles are really loud, so who knows if I'll even be audible! Also I don't know how to learn by ear, so it may take a while.

A "chick" rather than a "chop" is what I think I am doing. Not so wristy, using an open chord if possible, and letting it ring for an eighth or 16th note or so and then muting with my palm.

It is great fun, though. My favorite thing is feeling the mandolin resonate to what other people are playing. One day I'll figure out why the crooked songs are giving me such trouble.

[John Flynn]

The following is part of a description of John Hartford's concept of a "window" rhythm approach for old-time published on the liner notes of his album "The Speed of the Old Long Bow." Basically, "window" means you can change up these possibilities every eight measures. I don't count the measures, I usually change up as a part ends and another begins. But here are the options Hartford talks about:

"Everybody has a bunch of things they can do on their instruments - you can 1) play rhythm on the down beat, 2) play rhythm on the off beat, 3) play a figure, like boogie woogie, 4) play a figure, like high or low bass runs, 5) play unison lead, 6) play harmony, 7) deaden your strings and play rhythm things, 8) play 4/4 chromatic runs, 9) play straight open chord rhythm, 10) play closed chords, 11) always play just one note like the tonic or 12) you can just lay out."

I think you can do chop chord forms, but I would not actually chop with the right hand. Also, some good advice I got from a very good OT mandolin player was to accentuate the bass strings and go really light on the treble with a mandolin always.

[Fred Keller]

As a follow up to John Flynn's suggestion, listen to what Compton does on Hartford's OT recordings (Wild Hog in the Red Brush, etc.). Also, check out the notion of playing the melody with rhythm (playing the melody with right hand strums and no fretting). Linda Higginbotham does this with Brad Leftwich here playing Jenny Lynn

[A 4]

John, thanks. That info from John Hartford is great. I've always liked his music, but don't have much in my possession. I'll have to remedy that.

I think I've naturally been changing up (when I change) at the end of the a or b part, which might be 8 or 16 measures, depending on the repeat.

Right now, I'm avoiding the chop chord forms, because once I am in them I have a tendency to try and chop.

Thanks again.

[JeffD]

I have been listening to a lot of Charlie Poole. Just because. Even though he did not have a mandolin in his band, after a while I can tell what kinds of strumming, harmonies, riffs and emphasis will fit and what kind will stick out. I would not be able to describe it well, but I know what to do. (Which is why I don't teach.)

Really works to listen a lot a lot a lot, and then deliberately go about "fitting in" and trust your developing intuition. I don't know how, but I know it works.

I can get into a "Charlie Poole Mode" that I can kind of turn on and turn off as I want and use that mode on anything, (when just messing around). It works best for old time music of course, but it surprises me how my playing mind came up with it.

I am sure that if I listened to more bluegrass could come up with a BG mode of playing that I could also turn on and off at will.


Nothing better than listening.

[JeffD]

Come to think of it, same kind of think happened last year when I was playing a lot of Civil War stuff. I kind of evolved a "Civil War Mode" of harmonies and riffs and rhythms that worked with those old tunes. After a while it was easy to see what to avoid, and the rest was good.

[A 4]

Fred and Jeff, thanks for the pointers. I've been listening to Compton backing up Hartford. Not always easy to pick up what' he's going on, but I'm getting the idea, and the Linda Higginbotham helps, too.

Jeff, I don't know Charlie Poole, but I seem to know all the songs of his that are on the YouTube. I'll keep listening.

[allenhopkins]

Find when jamming on old-time tunes I do a lot more open-string chording than the closed-chord "chop" figures I might do at a bluegrass jam. More of a "running" figure, with a note falling on every beat, than a 1/3 or 2/4 emphasis.

Also, if I don't know the melody, I often find a "piece" of the melody that I can learn, and that fits with what the lead instruments are playing, and insert it whenever that part of the tune comes around. Since most fiddle tunes are in good mandolin keys, and since most old-time jams repeat the tune many times, the little added melody "reinforcement" seems to add to the overall texture. When the tune moves past the part I'm adding, I go back to chording.

I can usually hold up my (modest) end in an old-time jam, and even suggest and lead on the limited number of tunes that I know. Good ears are usually the secret: listen to the lead and the more experienced rhythm players, improvise until you find something that fits well into the context of the tune, and be prepared to be flexible, courteous, and sensitive to the music around you.

[Charles E.]

That video posted by Fred Keller is very instructive. Notice how Linda is driving the tune with her rhythm. She also is, at times, using a figure 8 pattern, a very nice strum to drive a tune and stay out of the guitar player's way.

[JeffD]

and be prepared to be flexible, courteous, and sensitive to the music around you.

Well if that ain't a prescription for life itself....

[Jon Hall]

A boom chuck-a rhythm works well. Use closed position chords. The boom is played on the 4th strings and the accent is on the chuck-a. If you are playing a waltz rhythm a boom chuck-a chuck-a works well.

[A 4]

Find when jamming on old-time tunes I do a lot more open-string chording than the closed-chord "chop" figures I might do at a bluegrass jam. More of a "running" figure, with a note falling on every beat, than a 1/3 or 2/4 emphasis.

be prepared to be flexible, courteous, and sensitive to the music around you.

Thanks, Allen. Can you explain what you mean by a 'running figure'? I'm familiar with a guitar G-run, but don't know if that's related.

[A 4]

That video posted by Fred Keller is very instructive. Notice how Linda is driving the tune with her rhythm. She also is, at times, using a figure 8 pattern, a very nice strum to drive a tune and stay out of the guitar player's way.

No kidding. I'm not familiar with the term "figure 8," but I like what she's doing. I followed some related videos after that one was finished, and I see that she/they have been doing that for at least 30 years! I liked this one for Linda's work, and there is a great fiddle version of Bonaparte's Retreat from the same show:

[allenhopkins]

Thanks, Allen. Can you explain what you mean by a 'running figure'? I'm familiar with a guitar G-run, but don't know if that's related.

Not a "run" in the sense of a series of notes that transition from one chord to another, or that punctuate a phrase the way that the "G run" does.

What I meant is an almost continuous series of notes, double stops, or chords, perhaps on every beat of a measure, rather than a strongly-strummed full chord on the first and third beats ("on-beats"), or the second and fourth beats ("off-beats") of each measure. The mandolin keeps up a nearly non-stop, but not too loud, "foundation" behind the melody; its notes change with the chords, and it may also follow or echo the melody, or add a harmony. It stays out of the way of the guitar chords, and perhaps resembles the rhythm of clawhammer or double-thumbed banjo more than that of guitar.

I've sometimes added a "one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and" eighth-note pattern, using maybe one or two strings, to try to form a "bed" under the melody. Can be too "busy," sometimes, so taste is needed (hope I have some!); it's also pretty strenuous, so you might turn it on and off during the many repetitions of a fiddle tune.

The ukulele-banjo in the video above gives some idea of this approach, but I don't usually do it full-chord, and I "throttle back" the volume quite a bit.

[Charles E.]

Think of a figure 8 on it's side. Then trace the figure with your pick, starting with a down stroke, coming back and up for the second stroke, down and back (behind the first stroke) for the third stroke and then up and forward for the fourth stroke, repeat. I hope this makes sense. I call this type of rhythm "Wacka Wacka".

[JeffD]

That video posted by Fred Keller is very instructive. Notice how Linda is driving the tune with her rhythm.

Absolutely.

[A 4]

Think of a figure 8 on it's side. Then trace the figure with your pick, starting with a down stroke, coming back and up for the second stroke, down and back (behind the first stroke) for the third stroke and then up and forward for the fourth stroke, repeat. I hope this makes sense. I call this type of rhythm "Wacka Wacka".

Thanks for the description of the figure 8. I've been doing something similar, an accident at first, but sort of on purpose, now. Playing near the fingerboard alternating playing near the bridge for different tones - to do that, I'm probably moving in a figure 8, but without thought.

[mandogerry]

If you have the melody line in your head, but don't want to compete with the fiddles or do just chords, you might try some simple harmony with the fiddles. Easily done in G and D after a few tries (and more fun for me than the strumming).

[A 4]

Thanks again, everyone. I had a great time last week, and look forward to going again on Friday. Lot's of fun trying to put some of the suggestions into practice, when I could. Harmony is still in the future for me, but I tried all sorts of other things. Compton-esque strumming in rhythm with the melody was particular fun, but I could only do that when chords stayed the same for awhile.

[Jim Nollman]

I've been stewing on this thread for about a week now.

While all of these comments are well and good for learning how to play old time tunes on mandolin, most of this advice is too general. Some comments seem to suggest that playing dynamics is nothing to be concerned with, and instead, reproducing some picking technique we heard on some recording of old time music is most important.

To learn any any and all these techniques certainly points us down the right path for making good music. But it is all just a starting point. Once you learn them, forget them, because at some juncture in musical development, other people's techniques have to become subservient to heeding the message our ears give us each time we are in the moment of interpreting a tune. The tune is a story we are telling. To unfold that tune's story well, we have to develop technique, an ear, and a sense of dynamics so that what we are playing blends with what everybody else is playing at each moment.

With old time material sometimes this unfolding can mean playing single notes on the A and double stops on the B. Or double stops on the first B and full chords on the fourth B. etc. etc. Often, what we play unfolds differently depending on all the other instruments. Sometimes the most important thing we can do to unfold the story, is to sit out an entire verse. That can be the hardest thing we ever do, musically.

I don't mean to sound over-intellectual here. I am just saying that it seems musically self-defeating to build a file cabinet to hold appropriate playing techniques, and keep guard against including inappropriate techniques . It reminds me of jam situations where some player gets mad because the rest of us are not playing some tune exactly the way it sounds on the record.

[JeffD]

Right you are Jim. Its a tool box, with techniques to pull out as the situation seems to warrant, not a filing cabinet of techniques that are stored for future reference.

[allenhopkins]

But, one starts somewhere, often by emulating others' techniques and approaches. To the person who's getting involved for the first time, some pointers as to what has worked for others can be welcome. No one that I read, seemed to be suggesting there was only one acceptable way to play mandolin on old-time fiddle tunes.

When one has acquired experience, and the expertise -- and confidence -- that can come with experience, one starts to develop an individual style, and to vary approaches and techniques as the music suggests. Starting out, one may be more concerned with committing a faux pas, or playing in a style that doesn't mesh with the music, and with the other musicians.

During the transitional period, I see nothing wrong with trying some techniques that more experienced musicians have used before. Clearly, one doesn't want to be forever tied to them, or to limit oneself only to those styles that others have suggested. When one feels fully comfortable -- when one doesn't have to think, "Am I doing this right?" -- one starts to express the flexibility and innovation Jim N details above.

And, I don't think it's necessary to "forget" the techniques one learns from others, just to treat them as starting points, rather than limiting factors.