Old Time Jam Session Strum Patterns

[A 4]

Oh, I thought this thread was finished, but you have gone on without me!

Jim, no argument with your points above, but the "file cabinet" you warn against was exactly what I was looking for at the time: brand new, trying to ease in without being a disruption. So really, what I got was a bunch of stuff to try. That was great, and then before too long I just stop worried about it and had fun playing along. If I tried something that didn't work, it's easy enough to stop doing it, and the way the oldtime players repeat tunes multiple times, it is a great opportunity to try different things.

It also depends on who is playing. When the resonator guitar is going, there is not much I can do to mess up the flow anyway. But, when I was the only rhythm instrument, I would be a little less experimental!

[Jim Nollman]

In jams, you are usually playing with people who are not developing "parts" that feed the whole. When a tune starts, first locate a frequency niche and play a simple riff off the chords, that lets you hear yourself without having to bang on your instrument. If the jam is noisy by default, then you are going to be playing a lot on the E and A strings. That because high-up is the prime mando niche. However, be aware that what you hear and what they hear are not always the same thing, especially if you are playing an F hole instrument. It's a good reason for a new non-bluegrass player to favor an oval hole.

As you point out, the fiddles really have the melody covered, while the guitars cover the standard rhythm. So, on mandolin, start by playing something simple and repetitive around the tune's chord structure. in an earlier statement, someone here thought they were sounding too much like reggae. That seemed like an OK choice to me. It suggests that you are aware of playing the mandolin as a quasi-percussion instrument that doesn't blindly copy the fiddle or the guitar. Bluegrass does it traditionally with a "chop". Old time does it any way you can get away with it.

If you do it well, it will drive the music forward, and keep everybody else from getting stuck in too much unison playing. Yes I am aware that not-playing-unison may be controversial to some, although I've never seen the law that says the guitar is exempt but the mandolin is not. But truly, old-time thrives within a more spontaneous structure than Irish session playing.

In a band setting, a big goal is learning to enhance each other's part, to create a sound that not just the players want to hear. Eventually you may want to develop a double-stop language. If so, you'll have your work cut out for you. After learning the vocabulary, you next have to figure out which voicings work best in which songs.

I use double stops a lot. I often develop my own part as a counter-rhythmical version of the fiddle melody. I often play dances. Dancers' thrive on counter-rhythms, although it only works well if you have a strong piano or strong guitar holding down the standard beat.

[Ryk Loske]

You may find Don Julin's videos on YouTube as good a source on back up mandolin as i have. There's some good information in his Mandolin for Dummies as well. Besides covering the information you're currently looking at for Old Time, both those sources open doors to other areas of back up as well.

Have fun,

Ryk