If you love old time music and haven't yet attended a camp-out then do yourself a favor and find one near you. There are usually a few dances scheduled, sometimes with ""open bands" of whomever wants to join in. But mostly, its about jamming, sitting in with both friends and strangers and playing and learning lots of tunes from every possible genre. If you decide to attend one, give it at least three nights to really get into the mood.
One thing i learned early on, is that the jam groups are almost never mandolin-centric. The fiddlers overwhelmingly control the tune choices, although with so many talented fiddlers at the gatherings, both the number and sheer speed of tunes you play, can really push your learning curve. Old-time devotees can treat new tunes much the same as bird devotees treat their lifetime lists.
Banjos are usually the most frequent instruments encountered, with fewer guitars, and even fewer basses. Mandolins are usually dead last. An interesting phenomenon that develops from so many open-tuned, frailed banjos, is that a session will often stick to one key through 10 or 20 tunes in a row. These days, I seem to smile the most when that key finally turns to C major, which attracts the most seasoned players who savor the musical nuances of the prevalent rags, revelries, and southern swing.
A lot of old-time mandolin players seem to favor old Gibson A's, and stick to first position chords rather than playing the melody. I once met a guy who lugs four Gibson A's around to the sessions, each one open-tuned to a different key. My own personal habit is inventing counter-rhythms that push the melody, often relying on double stops over the entire real estate of the fingerboard. Last summer at Centralia — one of the best camp-outs — I met and played with some great mandolinists picking on Red Diamonds, Nuggets, Loar period F4s, and a Gilchrist or two. Spending an hour swapping my Altman for such mandolins, while focusing on specific tunes that we mandolin players seem to favor, is a highlight of a camp-out.
I started this thread, because there's a great camp-out coming up in early March in Tucson. Here's the info. If you attend, maybe I'll see you there. http://www.swotgathering.com
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