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.