I was happy to see the earlier post on old-time tunelists for mandolin players interested in old-time - enough to start a fresh post now that the old one's trail is cool.
Thanks for the download link, Mando Johnny, and I'd like to see more conversations about old-time and how mandolin seems to fit in.
Old-time fiddle and stringband groups and associations are sometimes hard to find without some word-of-mouth help. Try doing web searches for old time groups and societies in your area though, and you may come up with something, or asking around at other jams.
Another tip, if you are looking for old-time musicians to play with, is try to find any local or regional contradance organizations. The musicians who participate with and play for the dance groups often are part of the old time stringband clubs or enthusiasts. I moved here to Nashville a couple years ago, and even though I searched before and after getting here, I didn't come across the oldtime musician gatherings until I asked for directions among the contradance society. But some societies have websites including tunelists and simple chordcharts for the popular tunes, as well as information about local jams.
The musical archives, recordings, tunes, and knowledge in the oldtime fiddle genre(s) is simply vast, and only a tiny corner of it pokes its way into bluegrass and other styles. Your head will spin, but it is exciting. My eyes have really been opened by some of the fiddlers I now play with, to the abundance of young and old musicians and recordings of countless fiddle tunes, among which are the familar standards, but the material is almost endless. As others mentioned earlier, bluegrass is often a dirty word among older old-time musicians - sometimes in jest, and sometimes for real. Our local old-time association has a number of mandolinists, many are multiinstrumentalists, and the mandolin picking style basically copies, or tries to, the fiddle melody. It is, as doanepoole says, a fiddle-centric style, though the oldtime banjo is the other pillar. Many of the tune "versions" I knew tend to be a lot notier and busier than what many fiddlers play in a group, so you have to adjust. "Different" versions are not always regarded with interest!
Many times a mando player will learn a solo and a variation, and then they're ready to move on to another tune. Oldtime playing is all about merging, not about standing out, and of course there are no "breaks" in a "real" oldtime jam - everyone plays together, sometimes for many, many repetitions of a tune. This can sometimes become boring, or sometimes the groove captures you and you wish it wouldn't end. But it is a great setting to learn both familiar and many new melodies, and really let a tune sink in.
"Old time music - It's better than it sounds!"
Bookmarks