The Mandolin, Americana and noisy pubs

Banjo, Mandolin & Guitar Club at Washington
& Jefferson College in the 1890s.

I haven't completely given up on English folk music and playing the concertina, but I'm currently hooked on the mandolin and Americana.

I was first attracted to the mandolin because of its logic - four courses (pairs of strings) for four fingers, each course ascending in fifths. It's also playable largely in first position, and you can begin with just two-finger chords.

I originally wanted it for English folk, but it got diverted to my growing interest in Americana. While many people my age and a little older started with Americana, I came into folk with English folk rock and then went for the very trad stuff, so Americana is a new experience for me, and I'm enjoying it.

A third element of my interest in the mandolin is the occasional need to sing in public bars as well as backroom folkclubs. Sometimes this has even been to a predominantly pub audience rather than a folkie one. Few people want to hear unaccompanied ballads even in the quite traditional folk circles in which I circulate, and while the concertina has curiosity value, I find it hard work to sing and play it in a noisy environment. The English public are much more open to American (or Irish) material than to their own heritage which is largely unknown and unappreciated. Sad but true.

Although my mandolin playing is very basic and glitchy, the rate of progress from zero to being able to perform after a fashion has been supersonic in comparison with the concertina. I have felt far more relaxed while performing, and quite a few people have told me that the mandolin and Americana suit my voice better.

Change and chop

The Monroe Brothers

No sooner had I begun to get my head around the alternating bass and strum style, when the penny dropped and I realised that what I should really be attempting for use in sessions and group situations were classic Bluegrass chop chords! And so I found myself relearning everything once again.

Now, at my time in life, I may not develop the agility to play full-on four-finger chops, but three-finger chops, avoiding the open string, should be doable. Fingering apart, making the percussive chop on the offbeat seems relatively straightforward.

Coincidentally I was privileged to chat to an experienced player about styles to use when playing solo, and he suggested playing a bass note on the first beat of the bar and then brushing the rest. This is good news as it essentially combines the two approaches I've already covered. Although it will be the fourth style I've attempted, it should allow me to recover my modest repertoire with a minimal amount of time and effort.

Adapting to boom-chick

My Eastman MD504. It was heavily
discounted by the Acoustic Music
Company, Brighton, when they
were discontinuing mid-range
models, and made me an offer
I couldn't refuse.

The mandolin was previously just a side project and I spent very little time on it. Over the course of a couple of years I built up a small repertoire of songs that I eventually felt confident to perform in public. But hot on the heels of this début, I started attending the Bluegrass workshops run by the Orpington Folk & Blues Club, and I now find I have to adapt my style to a more upbeat 'boom-chick' approach.

From what I can gather the classic Bluegrass mandolin method is to play a light chord (or nothing) on the downbeat and a chop chord on the upbeat. Chop chords are a bit of a stretch, so for the moment I'm compromising on a guitar-style approach - a bass note on the downbeat and an open chord on the upbeat. I think I'm going to need a variety of styles for different situations and types of song.

It's straightforward, but it will take time to get used to the correct succession of bass notes for each chord, to sustain the rhythm across chord changes, and, ultimately, to regain the same smoothness I had achieved with 'brushing' the chords. For now it's one step back, but I'll hopefully take two steps forward in the foreseeable future.

Hello again...

Charlie Poole and the North
Carolina Ramblers: a famous Old Time
stringband in the 1920s

This is my second attempt at a music blog. The first was terminated abruptly when it got accidentally deleted along with a misspelt email account…

The first blog touched on my entire musical engagement with English traditional folk music, including acapella singing, the Crane Duet Concertina and a host of other musical instruments which mostly gather dust. I don't know how much of that I'll bother to catalogue again. This new blog appears at a time when I have just turned a musical corner, so a clean slate feels quite appropriate.

 My current consuming interest, only publicly revealed at the beginning of last month, is in singing American songs with mandolin accompaniment. The songs are in the Old Time/Bluegrass/Early Country/Skiffle area, but I'm still coming to terms with definitions so let me pass on that for the time being.

Many if not most people are sceptical about mandolin accompaniment in a solo context. They suggest getting a guitar or a partner with a guitar, but there are precedents and I think it works. IMO the mandolin is good for both strumming and adding in melodic breaks (when I've learnt to pick). At some point I'll put some samples on SoundCloud.

As this new enthusiasm is absorbing a lot of my attention, I'm not sure how much time I'll have for my old interest in traditional English folk song, with or without concertina accompaniment. After several years of focusing on the concertina I felt I had reached a dead end. As and when I go back to it, I need to develop a more chordal approach.

In the meantime I'm concentrating on the mandolin and developing my repertoire of Americana.