I play jazz piano, bluegrass mandolin and other things in Raleigh, North Carolina. I’m a self proclaimed music nerd and recently found myself in a unique position due to my background in both bluegrass and jazz. I run a periodic newsletter of weird, obscure and interesting music called The Orphic. Like many productive members of society, I work a desk job to finance my unhealthy interest in music. The following is a rewrite of a response I made on the r/jazz subreddit about the relationship between improvisation…
bluegrass
Blue notes get used a lot, you can find blue notes in countless genres and they certainly appear (sometimes too frequently) in bluegrass. But do you know exactly what a blue note is? Are you ever confused when people use the term? Does it have something to do with blues or jazz? Don’t worry, I’m going to cover what you need to know about…
I met Maddie Witler at IBMA 2018 and she was definitely one of the stand out instrumentalists. She appears multiple times in the IBMA vlogs I posted on YouTube and I knew I had to get her on the website sometime in the future. Lucky for us, her band just released a new album, Smoke & Ashes. So Maddie was nice enough to talk with me about…
I know this is a big hurdle for bluegrass guitar players. We learn our first fiddle tune melodies, our first licks, our first runs and our first breaks in first position. So how do we demystify the rest of the neck so we can ascend and descend it freely? The good news is you probably don’t need to memorize every note on the fretboard. In fact, most guitar players are visualizing much smaller frameworks as they travel the neck.
Some of you may know me by now, but if you don’t, then hey! I’m Kjerstin, I’m Marcel’s girlfriend. I’ve been around for a handful of years, and I’m an accidental bluegrass fan. This is Bluegrass Anonymous, right? But seriously, calling me a fan is probably an inaccurate description. I often call myself a “wrangler”. Partly, because I think I’m funny but in actuality I’ve been more of a band manager. Band Wrangler? Is that cool?
We’ve all heard the phrase “stick to the melody!” before. Normally those words are shouted by a bluegrass festival veteran in the direction of a pre-teen Chris Thile play-a-like. But far from a traditional versus progressive dividing line, these comments often come from the same traditionalist that will applaud a completely improvisational Tony Rice break.