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.