What genres of music do you play on mando (besides bluegrass)?

[chuck3]

Playing the mando is fun and I want to keep getting better at it. I do wonder though in what direction my mando playing will eventually go. Anybody identify with this? What genres do folks play?

I identify with it. And what I'd say is ... we don't need no stinkin' genres.

Seriously - mando is one of the most versatile instruments of all. Play what you like and keep working at it. Let bluegrass, jazz, classical, rock and all forms of music from around the world inspire you. Take lessons if you can.

[Bren]

Music is for playing with others, in my preference. So I play what I'm immersed in and there are always people to play it with, rather than picking genres off the shelf.

Living in Scotland for so long, I've ended up playing mainly Scottish (which has many regional styles and variations) , Shetland/Orkney, Irish , with the odd sprinkling of bluegrass, jazz and "other European".

At home alone, I muck around with choro and Italian.

[fatt-dad]

I play Appalachian fiddle tunes, some Celtic, Swedish, Finnish, O'Carolan, Quebec-stuff (French Canadian), and Baroque (strong melody stuff). step 1: have a melody in my head. Step 2: Play it!

Rinse and repeat!

f-d

[Todd Bowman]

I play a lot in the Praise and Worship genre (old and new). Love jazz and classical -- anything J.S. Bach.

[chidave]

I agree, I've only been playing playing @ a year and am still a baby when it comes to the mandolin. I was born in East Tennessee so of course am rooted in bluegrass, but had my first jam with a couple of guitarists who were primarily playing rock this past weekend. It was so much fun, afterwards one of the guitar players came up to me and said "Please tell me to buy a mandolin", I said "They're a lot of fun" and he turned to his wife and said he's getting one. Several people came up and said how good the mandolin sounded (I was primarily chording and soloing not chopping). I think it is a wonderfully versatile instrument and I regret so much I didn't pick one up years ago.

[Charlie Bernstein]

I have recently started to play the mandolin and though I love the Stanley Brothers, Old & in the Way and Grisman collaborations with Garcia, I am by no means a bluegrass diehard. I mainly like singer/songwriter stuff like John Prine, Van Morrison and Randy Newman . . . .

I love those guys, but I think you're short-sheeting them by calling them singer/songwriters. There's a lot more substance to what they do. Newman writes full orchestral scores, for heaven's sake!

But I'm with you - not into mando for the bluegrass sound. Love listening to it, not into playing it. Lately I've been working on my blues chops, listening to Rich Del Grosso, Yank Rachell, and Johnny Young - my idea of good-time music.

To give credit (or blame) where it's due, if it weren't for Old and In the Way and the Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken, bluegrass might never have swept suburbia.

All in all, I'm inclined to thank them for it!

[billy_v]

[QUOTE=Eric Platt;1657519]My main styles are general Scandinavian-American and Finnish-American music. As in, Scandinavian and Finnish music, but filtered through an American playing mentality.


Eric, have you run across this?
Hallvard T. Bjørgum & Friends: Peace Will Come
I ran across it chasing Blondie Chaplin music, love that Blondie. And with Rick Danko! This CD has the weirdest Rag Mama Rag you'll ever hear, sung by Blondie. I don't react well to hearing Irish fiddle, but these Norwegian folks kill it. What timbre! Real cool. I especially love Nils, Jens & Jeidaug, a shredfest of HOW many fiddles?, drum and jaw harp, sung in the mother tongue but with Blondie howlin' away about being caught in a love triangle. Well under 10 bucks online, incalculable in worth. If you haven't heard it, I hope you check it out and enjoy!

[drbluegrass]

You mean there are genres for mandolin other than bluegrass?

[bratsche]

... playing around with the Schubert Arpeggione Sonata on mandola.

Way to go, Louise! I should dig that one out of my trunk, dust it off & do the same - it's been more than 40 years since I played that one!

I play mostly baroque, classical, Celtic tunes and traditional hymns.

bratsche

[DougC]

"Stumble upon" seems to be a right way of describing how I came to mandolin.

I was playing violin in a community orchestra, and we thought a mandolin would be a cool addition to a piece by Vivaldi. I asked a few mandolin players (who made excuses in order to back out, ha, ha.) And they said that I could play mandolin after playing guitar and fiddle for many years. (Irish fiddling mostly.)

So I 'fell in love with mandolin and now have a mandola too.

And then my wife asks me to try mandolin on her favorite music (besides classical music) which is Klezmer music. And again I 'stumble upon' another genre and am smitten without ever planning the process.

The moral of the story is beware of family and friends. They will choose for you. Ha, ha.

[Jim Garber]

[QUOTE=billy_v;1658732]

My main styles are general Scandinavian-American and Finnish-American music. As in, Scandinavian and Finnish music, but filtered through an American playing mentality.


Eric, have you run across this?
Hallvard T. Bjørgum & Friends: Peace Will Come
I ran across it chasing Blondie Chaplin music, love that Blondie. And with Rick Danko! This CD has the weirdest Rag Mama Rag you'll ever hear, sung by Blondie. I don't react well to hearing Irish fiddle, but these Norwegian folks kill it. What timbre! Real cool. I especially love Nils, Jens & Jeidaug, a shredfest of HOW many fiddles?, drum and jaw harp, sung in the mother tongue but with Blondie howlin' away about being caught in a love triangle. Well under 10 bucks online, incalculable in worth. If you haven't heard it, I hope you check it out and enjoy!

Billy: that sounds interesting but can you post a link? And which CD are you talking about? Norwegian, Irish, Danko, Blondie Chaplin—you seem to be all over the place.

[billy_v]

[QUOTE=Jim Garber;1658921]

Billy: that sounds interesting but can you post a link? And which CD are you talking about? Norwegian, Irish, Danko, Blondie Chaplin—you seem to be all over the place.

Sorry, I was concerned it may be frowned upon to post a link. Here you go:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and here:
http://theband.hiof.no/albums/peace_will_come.html
It IS all over the place!

[Jim Garber]

Sorry, I was concerned it may be frowned upon to post a link. Here you go:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and here:
http://theband.hiof.no/albums/peace_will_come.html
It IS all over the place!

All over what place? I wanted to hear that odd rendition of Rag Mama Rag. There are no sound files or videos.

There is no problem posting links. In fact we even can embed full youtube videos here and other things as long as it doesn't violate copyright.

[Joes]

Irish fiddle tunes, a couple of blue grass songs. My instructor just assigned me Mr. P.C. By John Coltrane. Man they play that fast. Good luck to me. :O

[Hypoxia]

Bluegrass doesn't really interest me. I appreciate it but don't play much. I'm mostly in GDAD and I do blues, Celtic, surf, old-timey, American Songbook, Brit Invasion, all by myself playing chord-melody to entertain my partner, who likes my playing and voice. Ain't a dedicated audience great?

[Jeff Hildreth]

I began playing in 1961
Quickly tired of bluegrass
Fast forward to early 1970s and tried again with Bluegrass. switched to banjo.
Fast forward to late 70s.. took some ;lessons with Tiny Moore.. Texas fiddle tunes
Fast forward to late 80s early 90s.. went whole hog into classical with a couple interventions with a couple David Grisman clinics.
Shoved my right hand into a shaper rearranging my fingers and thumb and took a vacation from music for a decacde or so.
Now my interest is classical T A N G O and other So American styles and ..
a little bluegrass but not the maintstream stuff. Also interested ( as I have been for 40 years) ... Nordic stuff.. Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and of course the Finnish music.

[Austin Bob]

I play in a Catholic choir. The leader plays acoustic guitar, and we generally have two horns, a recorder, a viola, and myself. We also have an excellent percussion player, but he's semi regular. It is in a Hispanic area of town, so we play a lot of songs in Spanish, most of which lend themselves to the mandolin very well. It's challenging and I've learned how to read music and, most importantly, to really listen for the empty places to play.

When I play with friends, I prefer the singer/songwriter and easy rock sort of stuff. I've never been in a Bluegrass band, but I did sub for a while in a local band that claimed they were "Bluegrass Infused", but that was mainly because they had a banjo. It wasn't the real deal.

[Seatosky]

I play folk music of various vintages and origins, mostly celtic and english folk, with a little italian and other things theown in. But my tune list is still a bit limited

[Denny Gies]

Stuff by Jason Isbell, Tyler Childers, John Prine, Neil Young, Jessie Winchester plus a lot of bluegrass.

[Dogrich]

I like to play ITM, old time, fiddle tunes, generic folk, but I also like to sneak in the occasional Irish-ish punk music (Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys, Rumjacks, etc.).

[Jess L.]

Started with oldtime, later on got into Irish because (a) I liked the sound of it and (b) I liked the additional technical challenge, then spent years not playing at all, and nowadays I like to experiment with stuff like reggae and 7/8 time Greek music and weird classical scores from IMSLP Petrucci library etc. It can be fun sometimes to see what's possible just from the written notes, without hearing anyone play it first, my goal being to take a possibly dull piece of written classical music and whip it into shape to make it into a proper dance tune! (The composers would probably be horrified... or maybe not.)

Oh, and some of the old hymns, those are fun to play, although I don't mess around with changing those too much, they're usually mostly ok the way they are. (Some things just don't need 'improvement' lol.) But sometimes I use different chords.

Never played any bluegrass mandolin though, just never had the calling for that.

[BluesPreacher]

Blues, Celtic (a few tunes), old-time, classical--Handel mostly, contemporary praise and worship and traditional hymns.

[Doc Ivory]

I play a bunch of classical, mainly Bach!
But a bunch more bluegrass, folky type music.

[JeffD]

I agree, I've only been playing playing @ a year and am still a baby when it comes to the mandolin.

I have been playing this thing for a lot of years and I am also still a baby.

I enjoy playing the mandolin much more than i enjoy playing any particular genre of music.