Do instructors over-emphasize fiddle tunes?

[Alex Orr]

[WARNING: Rant to follow]

Why are fiddle tunes so heavily emphasized in instructional material?

Don't get me wrong, I love fiddle tunes. They're fun to play, part of the basic repertoire of bluegrass, and can teach a lot about scales and melodic construction. They give people who aren't comfortable singing a type of tune they can lead at a jam. They're also standardized (for the most part) in such a way that pickers from just about anywhere can meet and start playing Old Joe Clark or Whiskey Before Breakfast together in no time flat.

However, at most jams I go to, fiddle tunes probably account for about a third (or less) of the tunes played. Heck, look at the catalogs of the bluegrass greats; Flatt and Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, The Country Gentlemen, The Stanleys, Jim and Jesse, and Bill Monroe all have very well known instrumentals and takes on fiddle tunes, but the vast majority of their music is vocal tunes.

Speaking personally, and judging from other folks at about my skill level, it seems like one of the major obstacles to being a better jammer is both familiarity with vocal tunes and the ability to improvise and write breaks for them. And yet most instructional materials tend to emphasize fiddle tunes above all else. I've even had an instructor who, when I told him I wanted to work on vocal tunes and breaks, told me the first thing to do was focus intensely on fiddle tunes. I stopped going. (It should also be noted that when I told him I only wanted to focus on bluegrass he told me we had to start working on Irish tunes because they form the basis of bluegrass )

Again, I love fiddle tunes. I knew quite a few. I enjoy playing them. But I get sick and tired at looking at instructional material and seeing the same tunes (Red Haired Boy, St. Annes, Bill Cheatham, etc...) being taught yet again. Bluegrass vocal tunes often fall into a handful of chord patterns, so why not do a DVD talking about that and showing strategies for improvising breaks and back-up fills based on those patterns. Why do instructional materials on Monroe's music always seem to include Rawhide but never breaks for songs like Walls of Time, Used to Be, Georgia Rose, and On and On? I NEVER hear Rawhide called at a jam, but those other tunes show up all the time.

I suppose my other complaint in this regard is that when Homespun (or others) put out DVDs with great pickers using vocal tunes, it's often a mix of the really common and simple (Banks of the Ohio, Bury Me Beneath The Willow) and a few tunes that NO ONE has ever heard of, often a deep cut from the artist's catalog of original tunes. WHY?!?!?

This is partially a response to looking at the Academy of Bluegrass stuff from Mike Marshall. There are a handful of vocal tunes, but yet again, it's mostly common fiddle tunes. Maybe it's cause Mike isn't comfortable singing? Maybe it's because he just doesn't care for bluegrass vocal tunes? Fine...then get someone to sing with him, or if it's the latter, get another instructor to cover that area. It seems to me that digital video and hi-speed internet have opened up the possibility for a LOT more HQ instructional material to be produced. You no longer need a good studio, a film and audio crew, construction of a physical product, and all the hassles that went into storage, shipping, and distribution. So, why doesn't the Academy of Bluegrass find someone who'd be willing to do a tutorial on a common bluegrass vocal tune every two weeks. At the end of the year that's 26 vocal tunes, broken down into talk about their structure, basic melodic ideas, and various ways to improvise off that, including tips on incorporating standard riffs and phrases and techniques like cross-picking as well as touching on various mandolin styles from guys like Monroe, Jesse, or Grisman. Don't resort to doing simple folk tunes and Carter Family numbers. Do songs like Sweet Sunny South, I’ll Never Shed Another Tear, My Little Girl In Tennessee, Can’t You Hear Me Calling, Rocky Road blues, I’m Blue and Lonesome, Footprints In The Snow (a great tune to show how to use arpeggios in melodic context BTW), Close By, Ocean of Diamonds, and Blue Railroad Train.

Alright...end of rant. Maybe someone who makes instructional material will see this and respond, or maybe it will just be a way for me to let off steam and do a little procrastination at work...

[walt33]

Are you complaining because mandolin teachers don't give voice lessons? Or are you saying that they seem to teach mostly melodic lines and not how to accompany yourself when singing? Once you learn the chords and the progressions, it's up to you to practice singing and accompanying yourself. At first it might be easier to sing the melody without words, i.e., da-da-da-dum, and once you get the chording down, introduce the lyrics. Granted, multitasking (singing and playing) is a whole nother skill set as opposed to just chopping chords or just playing melody.

[JeffD]

I am not preominantly a BGer, and I certainly don't know how to each bluegrass. But your post caught me just as I was putting together training materials here at work and so I had a thought.

Perhaps the tunes one might pick to teach bluegrass are the best for teaching, as opposed to good for jamming. Teaching bluegrass needs to be more than showing a bunch of tunes.

So for example, a tune may be a great tune, standard vocal tune currently played at jams everywhere, but for many reasons it might not be appropriate as a teaching tune, either because its too hard, or because its too easy, or because its not the best representative of its kind of tune, or because there is nothing to learn from it beyond the tune itself, etc.

Just a thought.

[AlanN]

I NEVER hear Rawhide called at a jam

Funny, around here, you whip out a mandolin, that's all they want to hear. That, and Rebecca. Fine tunes, no doubt, but aargh already.

I hear you. What you are saying makes sense, but a solo to a vocal number is such a personal thing, with some many niggles and variations, that to teach it would be tough, imo. Fiddle tunes are safe.

[Earl Gamage]

I think part of the reason for selection of tunes in training is what tunes have to be paid for and what is public.

Fiddle tunes do provide great training and give you something to work with. It really is up to us to figure out how to improvise the tunes we hear at jams.

[Brian Ray]

Learning fiddle tunes is a proven way to learn how to play... but there's more than one way to skin that cat. That said, it's been my experience that the quality of a player and the quality of the fiddle tunes they know are often directly related.

[John Duncan]

One of the best fiddle workshops I ever attended was with Jason Carter, Ron Stewart and David Grier backing them up. Someone asked what their favorite lick was. Ron simply replied "My favorite lick is the melody." This attitude has become my mantra and is, imo, the key to playing bluegrass with authority and in the traditional stance.
If you want to sound like you have a strong handle on bluegrass vocal tunes you have to play the melody. I think I have said before on here it isn't "John Henry" if you can't play " sol do do sol do". The best for this kind of playing, imo, is Bill Monroe in the 1930's and 40's. If you can sit down and play the mandolin (or fiddle or banjo) parts to the early tunes your ear will be able to figure out some pretty complex melodies later on.

[250sc]

"Bluegrass vocal tunes often fall into a handful of chord patterns, so why not do a DVD talking about that and showing strategies for improvising breaks and back-up fills based on those patterns."


Bluegrass solos aren't often based on chord patterns as much as they are based on a songs melody. (Jazz improve is based on chord changes though. Either the original chords or subs of the original chords.). If you can solo over a fiddle tune you can solo over a song with vocals. It has been my observation that you'll make most listeners happy if you stay close to the melody.

lol. Looks like Mr. Duncan and I are on the same page.

[Jim Garber]

Fiddle tunes are the equivalent of etudes for classical players. Basic stuff that you can build on until you reach intermediate and advanced stages. As far as backing up vocal tunes, teachers can recommend things but the very best thing to do is to play with others, either in a band or in a jam.

We did a lot of vocals in our old time band many years ago. Initially we all played behind the vocalist until we learned to back off. In so many ways it is as important to know when not to play as when to play, esp behind a singer.

[allenhopkins]

Alex –- sounds like you want to learn the breaks to bluegrass vocals. Books like Tottle's Bluegrass Mandolin have instructional material for vocal breaks on some tunes (Nine Pound Hammer, Girl Behind the Bar, Too Many Tears, John Hardy etc.), mixed in with the "fiddle tunes" and non-fiddle instrumentals(New Camptown Races, etc.).

The emphasis is not really "fiddle tunes"; it's instrumentals, since a tune like Raw Hide isn't really written for fiddle, but for mandolin. If you're learning to play an instrument, learning instrumental (non-vocal) numbers does make sense; they have more extended melodies, with "A" and "B" parts, and in many cases are generally known, as you point out. I guess the theory is that if you have a command of your mandolin learned by playing instrumentals, you'll be able to pick up "breaks" for vocals -- basically, improvising off the vocal melody and chord changes -- as well.

My suggestion would be to bring to your instructor a recording of the song you want to learn, and work through with him the "break" on the recording. Sounds like you had a teacher that came from a Celtic music background, and wanted to teach the repertoire he knew. That happens; just because someone is capable of teaching mandolin techniques, doesn't mean he/she knows bluegrass.

Once you have a decent competence on the instrument -- know a good repertoire of chords, scales, and picking techniques -- you need to be able to translate that competence into replicating and expanding upon the mandolin music that you hear and want to reproduce -- not "copy," but assimilate and adapt to your own style and skill. A good instructor can work with you on this. I went through a real learning period when I started to play a bit of klezmer music, with its non-Western-standard scales and chord changes. Knowing my way around the mandolin, through playing decades of fiddle tunes, bluegrass and Celtic instrumentals, helped me "get it" in a new area.

[TonyP]

There are as many ways to learn as there are people. I LOVE fiddle tunes, but personally found them almost useless when I started trying to do breaks to Bluegrass songs. Part of this is I think because a lot of really old fiddle tunes like Red Haired Boy come from the Celtic tradition that predates chords. That's why the "funny" changes. They are not structured like Bluegrass songs to me and my ear.

So I had to break down the major songs of a lot of the Monroe songs, and learn that form. And I found just like things that are transferable from fiddle tune to fiddle tune, the song "tools" are transferable to other songs. Trad fiddle tunes do not teach Monroe, and I feel like that's key to Bluegrass songs.

To me, I can tell folks who come from that style of playing songs first, than playing fiddle tunes with that approach. They don't play the fiddle tunes note for note, like I would, but they can play them just fine, just different.

I think most teachers want to come up with a "method" and stick to that. A friend of mine back east is learning from a teacher who won't teach him any Bluegrass. He's teaching him all Celtic and Klezmer tunes. Which frustrates both of us, as we have no common tunes to play together. And my friend is mostly wanting to learn Bluegrass, and says there are no other teachers around.

So I would say, yeah, if you are going to go to a teacher, find the one that will teach you what you are interested in, after you have gotten the basics down. Fiddle tunes will get you playing, and if they are the ones that everybody knows, playing with others. Outside of that, I've found playing with cd's, studying tab of songs, and Band In A Box to be most helpful.

[foldedpath]

EarlG got there first -- it's a financial consideration when publishing instruction books and DVD's. Many of the popular songs in BG and other genres are still under copyright. Most of the classic fiddle tunes are public domain, with just a few modern exceptions like Ashokan Farewell.

That's also why you'll see so many featured artist instructional DVD's playing their own original songs on a DVD, or covering old out-of-copyright material instead of covering contemporary tunes by other artists. They don't have to pay for use of their own songs.

Aside from that, I think there's a good argument for learning fiddle tunes as one of the early steps to competence on mandolin, but copyright and an understandable desire to maximize profit, is the basic explanation for the tune selection on most books and instructional DVD's.

[pickloser]

I surely do agree with you, Alex. At the jams I attend, a few fiddle tunes might get played, as a warm up or if there is a fiddle player or to be gracious and humor a beginner. (The humored beginner has been me on many an occasion, and I have appreciated it.) Songs are much more prevalent. In my experience, the only folks at bluegrass jams who call fiddle tunes are those who only know fiddle tunes, or people who can't sing, or fiddle players. The clear preference of any audience, even at casual jams, is for songs with instrumental breaks (and I'm not so sure that listeners aren't merely tolerant of the breaks). I know lots of fiddle tunes. It's a comfort zone kind of thing for me.

It seems that there are countless, "learn to play bluegrass by learning these fiddle tunes" methods. There's not much out there for what to do with songs, other than, "here are the melody line and the words." Even pickers who play breaks sticking to the melody are embellishing the heck out of the melody. There's not much instructional material out there even for melody embellishment. So we try to learn on our own, using slow downers, asking other players to show us things, copping licks and plugging away. But it seems to me that there are approaches to soloing that can be taught. The instructional material I have seen so far that best teaches approaches applicable to songs is The Mandolin Picker's Guide to Bluegrass Improvisation, and even it doesn't reference many actual songs. (IIRC)

At Kaufman mandolin camp, there's a lot of fiddle tune playing. One can get kinda sick of it. At some of the jams there, the participants refuse to play fiddle tunes and warn potential joiners that no FTs is a ground rule. By the middle of the week, this is the kind of jam I seek. (I LOVE Kaufman Kamp. It is great fun, and there's lots of wonderful instruction and jamming. I go every year.)

I agree with all your caveats about the usefulness of learning fiddle tunes. But I still get sick of 'em.

[montana]

I collect instuction tapes/dvds and just got a used vhs tape called Jamming Bluegrass Mandolin by Jor Carr for $.99. He plays the major chord progessions you would incounter at a bluegrass jam and you can play along. It's great practice for playing breaks for bluegrass tunes. I'm sure it's still available as a dvd.

[Alex Orr]

Just a few thoughts/responses...

No, I'm not suggesting mandolin teachers be vocal coaches nor am I complaining that they don't teach self-accompaniment. I'm complaining that the trend in instructional materials seems to de-emphasize lead breaks on vocal tunes and yet SO MANY posts and threads on the Cafe center on questions about how to be a better improviser, how to create a good lead break/solo, how to use a hot lick on a break, etc... It seems like the basic answer is that there is no way to teach this...you just have to play....oh, and learn fiddle tunes.

There is a relation in a lot of bluegrass songs between chord patterns and melodies, especially in older songs. Furthermore, chord based improvising is very much so a part of bluegrass. Monroe in particular was apt to construct lick-based solos around chord shapes. This became more and more prominent in his playing the '50's and beyond. The bulk of the recent book The Mandolin Picker's Guide to Bluegrass Improvisation is almost entirely based on chord-based improvisation. I like melodic solos as well, and that's what I usually aim for, but I also love lick-heavy solos based on the chord changes.

TonyP stated what I was getting at perfectly. Fiddle tunes do offer a great deal to use in constructing melodic lead breaks, as does sticking to the melody, but there's simply more to it than that. Take a song like "Walk Softly On This Heart of Mine". It gets called a lot at jams I attend. The melody is sort've bare bones and subtle, and there just ain't much correlation between that tune and any of the more common fiddle tunes. Blues-y stomp type tunes like that don't have a precedent in fiddle tunes and don't lend themselves to strict melodic breaks. Monroe's break is equal parts riffing and melody. So why not is it not taught more often by someone like Mike Marshall? Those kinds of tunes are central to bluegrass but seem to get short shrift. I could go off on a tangent here but it seems to me like the "blues" aspect of bluegrass is increasingly under-emphasized.

I hate to keep using Monroe as an example, but it's the most convenient to me since it's the style I wish I could play but just don't seem to naturally "get". Take Todd Collins Monroe book. Awesome book, but it would be much, much better with video and a LOT more teaching of the material, rather than just a few comments and solid transcriptions. Why does it seem there so little video instruction like that, using those kinds of tunes? Maybe not even transcribed exactly, but really focusing on the fundamentals of bluegrass soloing in the context of classic bluegrass songs, rather than simple public domain folk tunes or fiddle tunes? I have wondered if the copyright issue is just too expensive, but at the same time, why should it be that expensive? These are niche market tunes. Less money is better than no money, so why should estates or publishing companies make the economic barrier so high, if that is indeed the case why copyrighted (but nonetheless canonical) bluegrass tunes rarely seem to receive focus in instructional DVDs or online lessons.

Part of this also comes from the fact that I've been spending a lot more time recently working on lead breaks for songs that are commonly played at the main jams I attend. Like JeffD mentioned in another post, I've sort've started to tailor my practice regimen around the idea of how I can be a better player at those jams. That focus has involved a lot of trial and error and slow discoveries about the way double stops interact, what notes to land on in a scale for common melodic ideas in traditional bluegrass songs, and slow improvements on timing. It's made a difference in my playing but it seems like some of the things I'm beginning to feel more intuitively about breaks could be taught by a good teacher, this making for more efficient learning, which would be great because like most hobbyist pickers, my time to practice and learn is limited. It also seems like the repertoire covered in bluegrass mandolin instructional videos could be expanded away from the same fiddle tunes more often.

[randolin]

As a mando instructor with thirty years experience I have come to understand that although we in Bluegrass play "head" music and improvise on breaks, the mandolin is no different from any other musical instrument and a certain amount of technical proficiency is necessary in order to get to the point where we can play the thing in a jam. Fiddle tunes are a way of working on the mechanical side of playing. In my teaching I emphasize playing backup and chord structure since that is what we will be doing 90% of the time when we are jamming. Improvising a break requires you to choose notes from the scale of the "active" chord and use those notes in a way that still retains the essence of the melody. Learning other peoples breaks is a good way of understanding the grammar of the mandolin but to construct breaks of your own you have to know the scales.

[Perry]

[WARNING: Rant to follow]
Why are fiddle tunes so heavily emphasized in instructional material?
They're fun to play, part of the basic repertoire of bluegrass, and can teach a lot about scales and melodic construction. They give people who aren't comfortable singing a type of tune they can lead at a jam. They're also standardized (for the most part) in such a way that pickers from just about anywhere can meet and start playing Old Joe Clark or Whiskey Before Breakfast together in no time flat.

Sounds like a great argument for the emphasis of fiddle tunes

I think a good instructor will teach you what you want to know.

Playing behind vocal tunes is as much about being a musician as it is a mandolin player. Perhaps the emphasis on mandolin instruction has always been too much "lead playing" based.

I suppose my other complaint in this regard is that when Homespun (or others) put out DVDs with great pickers using vocal tunes, it's often a mix of the really common and simple (Banks of the Ohio, Bury Me Beneath The Willow) and a few tunes that NO ONE has ever heard of, often a deep cut from the artist's catalog of original tunes. WHY?!?!?

To cross sell the artists CD.

[Brian Ray]

Alex, from your comments it sounds like you might be a good candidate for online lessons with Mike Compton. Don't get me wrong, he'd still beat the fiddle tune into you but he's also an excellent singer and a master of Monroe style. http://mikecompton.net .

IMO, it's not about fiddle tunes... it's about the RIGHT fiddle tunes and more importantly, playing them the RIGHT way.

[Phantoj]

Mandolin is just a fiddle for those too tone-deaf to intonate well, right?

[Crabgrass]

I have the same problem. Seems like bluegrass is fundamentally about ensemble playing....I mean, one mando picking out the tune to In the Pines isn't exactly Bluegrass Music (even though it's a bluegrass tune). So you get "the music" for a song and you just get the lyrics, notes, and maybe chords. Then my question is always, What should the mando be doing during this tune? Just chopping? Strumming? A combo of both? Any particular patterns or licks that work well? And how about an example of a simple intro and solo to get us beginners going? I guess what I'm looking for is an arrangement for mandolin, same way as for classical.

[farmerjones]

i sure understand what your saying Alex.
You're absolutely right about the gap between fiddle tunes and melodic breaks and improvization. I can also see it's a synaptic jump to get to the level of playing as discussed daily on this fine forum. Similarly, there's a synaptic jump between playing and singing a tune from a page, and firing up a tune, passing out breaks, putting a tag on it, all from memory. Half of the jump is to know what you want to do. Sound like you've done your homework there. You've nearly hit on the other part yourself; If you learn to pick 50 melodies. Not ness. fiddle tunes, but Blues, Rags, Old pop standard, Old timey or even old classic jazz standard. If you learn 50 melodies, there won't be a single thing that gets by you at your jam. Undertand any melody is a collection of phrases re-arranged to be different from the last melody. Recognise the similarities. Any melody i listen to reminds me of at least two other melodies. Learn to ignor keys a bit too. Keys are another thing that seperate one melody from another. If everything was in D, life would be too simple. Good thread.

[Brent Hutto]

Around here if you show up as a beginner for "bluegrass" mandolin lessons (the only kind of mandolin lessons you'll find) they want you to spend your first months learning how to play four-string chop chords. Some of these teachers wouldn't dream of assigning you a fiddle tune to play until you're well on the way to doing impossibly stretchy chords at lightning speed.

Give me a fiddle tune any day, yikes! Chopping out rhythm in a bluegrass jam is a perfectly cromulent pastime but some people want to hear a melody come out of their own instrument.

As for playing a "Rawhide" lead break in Monroe style, that's more like a lifetime goal for some people who get started late in life. The melody for "Old Joe Clark" might throw them a bone, early on.

[Perry]

[WARNING: Rant to follow]

This is partially a response to looking at the Academy of Bluegrass stuff from Mike Marshall. There are a handful of vocal tunes, but yet again, it's mostly common fiddle tunes. Maybe it's cause Mike isn't comfortable singing? Maybe it's because he just doesn't care for bluegrass vocal tunes? Fine...then get someone to sing with him, or if it's the latter, get another instructor to cover that area. It seems to me that digital video and hi-speed internet have opened up the possibility for a LOT more HQ instructional material to be produced. You no longer need a good studio, a film and audio crew, construction of a physical product, and all the hassles that went into storage, shipping, and distribution.

If you look the AOB lessons (post #6) in this thread:

There are many lessons, if not the majority that are generic in nature: kick-offs, double stops, chord theory, playing over the turnaround, tremolo, harmonizing the melody, blues lines.

These are all tools to help a mandolin player play some interesting stuff in between or during a vocal tune while the singer is singing the melody.

If anything I think the course material that Mike has posted on AOB to be the most varied and comprehensive mandolin instruction I've seen in a bluegrass context. Just really GREAT stuff.

Not everybody can teach AND record this stuff in a quick and efficient (read profitable) manner despite having equipment and the means to distribute.


NFI, YMMV

[catmandu2]

I would reiterate the point made by randolin--also being the method of learning jazz (improv). If you intend to improvize on your instrument, there's no substitute for learning scales and harmony. Of course, syntax is also necessary--as farmerj mentions. You can get this through listening.

[Crabgrass]

If you look the AOB lessons (post #6) in this thread:

Thanks for the link! That'll do nicely. Joining today.