Working on my chop
I had the good fortune recently of playing with some high caliber bluegrass musicians, it was a good experience and for the most part I felt I held my own all the while being the obvious weakest link in the group. There was some talk about making it a regular thing and maybe putting some shows together to see how it went over. After playing I asked the guys to offer up any and all criticism they could think of to help me get to work on all that I need to improve, the unanimous consensus was my chop. Now I've always felt my chop was decent enough to get through most jams but I wasn't surprised to hear I was wrong, according to a couple people whose opinion I respect a lot, my chop is lacking the drive and the warmth that they want to hear in a BG group. I asked if it was a timing thing and the answer was a "not really", I know there is way more to the chop than just playing on the off beat, there's a right and left hand technique I must be missing along the way that is denying me the sound that is ideal to a lot of players. I'm wondering if this is part technique as well as part equipment, I am playing a 2017 Fern that I feel is still opening up and wonder if maybe it's holding my chop back? This critique came from a couple guys who are not mandolin players but have been playing bluegrass music professionally on and off for many years so I have no choice but to accept my shortcoming and do what I have to do to correct it. I've read everything I could find here on the chop and haven't seen anything posted that is what I'm looking for, I listen to all the classic BG stuff the rest of you probably do and feel like I have a good frame of reference to draw from. Hopefully this makes enough sense to garner a little advice from you all, thanks!
2017 Gibson F5L
Northfield Big Mon
Collings D1AT
Collings D1AVN Varnish
Collings D2HGT
1941 Martin D-18
"Too dumb for New York, too ugly for L.A."
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