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Thread: Monroe Style

  1. #26

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Up down, or down up is just how you look at it. Chris Henry has a great tutorial of this in his Mandolins Heal the World clip of the tune I'll Fly Away. Great to have it in the context of a song. Once you get the feel of upstroke on the first note of the phrase, then down up on the rest, it's pretty easy. It's easy if I can do it. Much easier than four frets apart sliding into double stops for sure.
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  2. #27
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Quote Originally Posted by Ivan Kelsall View Post
    . A favourite 'Monroe tune' of mine,
    You might enjoy this then -

    "There was a story behind every one [of Bill's instrumentals]. For example 'Northern White Clouds': on the bus coming back from a trip up north, he [Bill] looked out the window and saw the prettiest white clouds he'd ever seen against a pure blue sky. The way he described it was so vivid. he would write down notes that would remind him of the experience. From these notes would come certain sounds that he would relate to a particular title. It was very strange and wonderful."

    (Recording engineer Vic Gabany, quoted in Can't You Hear Me Callin': The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass by Richard D. Smith

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  4. #28
    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    From Mark Wilson - "......Dn/Up is hard habit to break "!. It certainly is !!. ''Un-learning'' anything is darned hard. A few years ago,i learned how to play ''Old Daingerfield'' from Bill Monroe's recording & i played it for well over a year fairly regularly. One day i was playing it, ''pickin' along with BM'' & i realised that i was playing one part of it wrong. I went back to the tune & tried to play the wrong bit the right way - like h**l i could !!. I literally had to leave the tune alone for close to 18 months in order to forget how it went,then i could re-learn it.
    It was a bit like having the steering wheel on a car 'reversed' left = right. You get there in the end but you have one heck of a time gettin' there !,
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  5. #29

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    The ups and downs are not flipped. The phrases start on a downstroke, change notes on the upstroke, play the same note on the downstroke, change notes on the upstroke, play the same note on the downstroke, repeat to end of phrase. See Monroe's phrase in Pike County Breakdown below.

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  7. #30
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    It depends what your playing..if your improvising,and you go into t h e staggered style,,you would start with an upstroke,,,I do it all the time...

  8. #31
    Purveyor of Sunshine sgarrity's Avatar
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    I'll reiterate what Don said. The down and up strokes are not flipped. While that technique might work for you it is not necessarily the way Monroe did it. I won't say he never did it because he did a lot of idiosyncratic things but it's certainly not the basis of the style.

    I just watched Chris' video posted early in this thread and he's explaining it correctly. The phrase/measure starts on a downstroke and you change notes on the upstroke.

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  10. #32

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Quote Originally Posted by sgarrity View Post
    I'll reiterate what Don said. The down and up strokes are not flipped... ...The phrase/measure starts on a downstroke and you change notes on the upstroke.
    Thanks Shaun and Don. It's not just the direction of the pick stroke, it's the 'stagger' that gives it that sound.
    Unfortunately, understanding it and doing it are two completely different things.

  11. #33
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    I might not start with a downstroke lead note,,but I'm not copying Monroe solos,,I play every new note is an upstroke,,there's no question that I get that sound..

  12. #34
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    'Theoretically' - an 'up stroke' / 'down stroke' should sound the same. Although they seem to sound a tiny bit different,the notes are the same :- an 'up stroke' G is still a G !. T.D. does it his way,we all might do it differently,but essentially it should sound the same IMHO,
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  14. #35
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Thread Bump:

    NFI....but this video is killa for Monroe Style instruction on one of my favorites: Southern Flavor

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  16. #36

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    And for more fun with 'staggered 16th notes'...
    "I play BG so that's what I can talk intelligently about." A line I loved and pirated from Mandoplumb

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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Quote Originally Posted by DataNick View Post
    Thread Bump:

    NFI....but this video is killa for Monroe Style instruction on one of my favorites: Southern Flavor

    Killer lesson using the murphy method. I highly recommend it

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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    That's some cool stuff right there. One aspect of this number which gets little discussion is the chordal accompaniment. What are the chords? Some say E minor, some say E Major, some say E Major on the bridge only. What are they?

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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Quote Originally Posted by AlanN View Post
    some say E Major on the bridge only. What are they?
    answered and asked

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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Hmmm...is that you talking, my friend or is that truly the chordal deal? What did Monroe (the composer) state? To my ears, I can hear Major on the A part.

  22. #41
    Loarcutus of MandoBorg DataNick's Avatar
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    E minor to Bmaj, E minor to G-F# minor to E minor on the A part

    Bridge is Dmaj-Emaj, Dmaj-Bmaj

    The E minor could be substitued with E modal(no flatted 3rd)

  23. #42

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    I love this tune...I play Em to B7 on part A, D to Em, D to B7 on part B. Not sure it matters much on mando as other instruments are picking up the full chords...I generally use the same shape for Em and E which is 422x or sometimes just 42xx...YMMV...
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Thread bump. I just started working on Compton's Peg Head Nation course. Big change from the single note fiddle tunes I was working on last year. Amazing how much subtle stuff going on in Monroe's playing with all the accents, syncopation, strange timing. So simple, yet so complex. I am a big rockabilly fan and played rockabilly guitar for awhile and I am amazed how similar rockabilly guitar is to Monroe's BG style - especially the partial chords and double stops and playing with the major and minor 3rd. I guess Scotty Moore was listening to Bill as much as Elvis was.

    So I am fascinated with the Chris Henry video on staggered 16th's. I've been working through arpeggios and fiddle tune turn arounds. Can anybody recommend some other practical practice ideas for putting it to use? Let say you were picking away and got to the last beat (upstroke) of the forth beat and changed chords - would the note on first down beat (down stroke) of the next measure be from the previous chord or would you typically anticipate the chord change by playing the new chord tone on the last upstroke of the previous measure. If that makes sense.

  25. #44

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    I too like the staggered 16ths and practice working them into tunes as much as I can. To answer the que you would follow the chord progression so in the case of Blue ridge cabin home in G, play the 1st 2 measures of G then the 1st downbeat on the 3rd measure starts the C run for 2 measures, then to D and so on.

    You might like Chris’ Monroe Style Mando workshops and lessons, head over to his website for more info...nfi

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  27. #45

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    There are cases where you may be playing ahead of the beat, but in general I would say it sounds best to hit the chord tone, ideally a melody not right on the beat of a chord change. Then the next up stroke you could roll into staggered 16ths.

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  29. #46
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    There's good reason why Mr. Monroe is in so many halls of fame. Rockabilly guitar was an offshoot from his mandolin playing. There is a well known video of Ricky Skaggs talking about this and Carl Perkins told him that he would go see BM play whenever he was in town, as he got his guitar licks from that mandolin playing.

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  31. #47
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Plus one on "Northern White Clouds" Ivan, inspired to me of course by Michael Cleveland who seemed to have brought that one back around, I think Richard Greene did it back in the 80's as well.
    Play along with "Baker Plays Monroe" there isn't really a lot of lead mandolin but a great place to focus on rhythm- which is so important for Monroe style.
    I really like "Road to Columbus", "Old Dangerfield", "Lonesome Moonlight Waltz", "Jerusalem Ridge", "Wheel Hoss"
    I still need to tackle stuff like "Ashland Breakdown"," Gold Rush", "Southern Flavor," was playing around with "Footprints in the Snow" at the local Jam.
    Monroe is woven into the fabric of American Mandolin music.
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  33. #48

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    The first time I heard Bill’s mando solo on Sittin’ Alone in the Moonlight I was like..Chuck Berry must have listened to Bill Monroe.
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  34. #49

    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Here's a short demo I did of playing the melody to On and On. I just do the staggered 1/16s on the 1 before going to the 5 and then on the 5 chord. It is a pretty basic video. As posted, Chris Henry really is the maestro at teaching this concept. He has something he calls the "Infinity Shape" which is basically staggered 1/16s out of the E chord shape starting on the low G sharp (applied to the same shape for all chords). He talks about this lots and how to apply it in his Monroe Improv course. If you don't feel like buying the whole course you may want to send him an email and see if he is selling individual lessons about the "Infinity shape".

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  36. #50
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    Default Re: Monroe Style

    Thanks for bringing this thread back to the top. I missed it when 1st posted and it has some amazing content for me.
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