(Mandolin Demo)
Okay, so that does not sound very Bluegrass’ the way I just played out that. It is just like the bare bones of melody and the reason is that it does not sound like a Bluegrass, enigmatically Bluegrass is there are a lot of elements missing and a player version that adds those elements in, in just a moment. But first I am going to explain it, and then I am going to play it and then, I can demonstrate parts of it.
Traditional Bluegrass is really very much oriented to vocal music and the interpretations of the solos or breaks is there called in Bluegrass. Few fairly close to the melodies that are being sung and in this song, there are a lot of held notes like the first notes, the singer would sing is
(Demo plus vocals)
So, that the first note, the D note is held. So , if I played the Mandolin,
(Demo)
To the held note, it is really not going anywhere. It is just kind of, it does not really translate on to the instrument, the intensity that the vocalist is putting into it. So, that is one reason, why what I play did not really sound like a Bluegrass version of the melody. You really have to keep the music going forward by adding notes to keep the rhythm self-propelled forward. Even if it is just back and forth on the same note, maybe the singers holding out that first note that I am mentioned.
(Demo)
And the way you that, it is just going back and forth on that note. Another thing that makes a solo sound more Bluegrass, more Traditional Bluegrass, is the use of slides into notes. Sometimes down to notes, to bit often into notes.
(Demo)
Say, that is the first melody note, these are the pick notes
(Demo)
Pick up melody note, sliding into that note. So, that makes it sound Bluegrass and just less square then the first version I played you of a melody. Another thing that makes it sound like Bluegrass’ a use of Blues notes. Say, where in the key of G here, I do not think I mentioned the key where in, where in key of G Major from on and on, a common Blues note in G. Say you are playing over a G chord, instead of playing,
(Demo)
the third of the chord, which is really the 3rd note of scale.
(Demo)
G, A, B, that is one of the chord tones of the G chord. Instead of playing that just straight on. You would slide from the flatted 3rd. The flatted 3rd is the Blue note.
(Demo)
That is really common and just all kinds of rock music and pop music and jazz. Use of flatted 3rd it is a Blue note. Another one is Flatted 5th’s.
(Demo)
That D note there is one of the core tones of a G chord. The 3 notes that make up the G-chord are G Major Chord,
(Demo)
G, E, D, so you can slide it into the 3rd. You are going to also slide into the 5th.
(Demo)
D note. The reason is called the 5th, it is the 5th note of the scale.
(Demo)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
(Demo)
Some sliding into that, so you are actually about have a flooded 5th. Where you are starting your slide,
(Demo)
one fret below into the 5th.
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