Re: Repertoire list for bluegrass jams
Google "Bluegrass Guitar Top Ten", and click on the "complete results" choice. Working your way from top to bottom, you can’t go too far wrong as far as fiddle tunes go, in order of how often fiddle tunes are played -- on average nationally, that is. As has been mentioned, local jams have their own characteristics and “results may vary” -- widely.
But the way I look at it, I’m not going to kick myself for not knowing Grey Eagle or Stony Point if I get to a jam and it turns out that those are tunes they play all the time -- but I ought to know Red Haired Boy and Whiskey Before Breakfast. Some of these tunes are not as mandolin friendly as others, and some are too hard for a relative beginner to learn at jam tempos, but one can at least learn the chords.
Vocal tunes are entirely unpredictable in their frequency, but the chord progressions are generally easy to figure out on the fly, and the melodies tend to be simple to pick up on if one needs to improvise a break.
2008 Weber Bitterroot A
1924 Gibson A Snakehead
2012 Martin D-18, 2004 Martin SWDGT
1962 Martin 5-16, 1972 Alvarez 5043
1929 “Houn’ Dog”
“Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I only wanted…to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home”
-- Edvard Grieg
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