Mandolin Trainer Workbooks

12 Weeks of Bluegrass

An older man in a hat and a dark suit, photographed from above as he plays a fiddle outdoors.
Fiddlin' Bill Hensley, a mountain fiddler, in Asheville, North Carolina. Ben Shahn, 1937. Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress. Public domain.

Each week takes one bluegrass song and spends seven days on it. You find out who made it and what they made it out of. You build the rhythm before you touch the melody, you number the chords instead of memorizing letters, and then you hunt the tune off the record a note at a time. Nothing is graded. It is a plan you follow with the page open beside you.

It is for a player who can hold a chord shape and change it in time, and who wants to stop waiting to be handed the notes. Reading standard notation is not required, because hardly anything here is written out: these songs are still under copyright, and learning them by ear is what the plan asks for anyway. A mandolin, a recording you can rewind, and about half an hour are.

A week is seven cards. Each one says how long it takes, usually twenty to forty minutes, and gives you a few things to do, one question to answer in writing, and one line saying what you should be able to do by the end of it. Monday is listening and reading rather than playing, and Saturday opens with listening too. Skip those and the playing days teach less than they should.

This is a workbook, and a workbook is paper. Nothing on it listens. The lessons, and the checks on your playing, are in the app.

How to use this workbook

The weeks

  1. Week 1Hear the Whole Bluegrass MachineSeven days on one Bill Monroe song: where it came from, the chop under it, the three chords it runs on, and the fiddle inside the mandolin.
  2. Week 2Hear the ConversationSeven days on one Bill Monroe song: the waltz pulse, the I-IV-V map guessed before it is checked, a melody sung before it is played, and what a different rhythm did to the whole thing.
  3. Week 3Build Music From Little IdeasSeven days on one traditional fiddle tune: the AABB road that keeps you found, a chord skeleton numbered by ear, the A section hunted before the tab, and three notes changed on purpose.
  4. Week 4The Beautiful Wrong NoteSeven days on one Bill Monroe instrumental: the rhythm, attack and color that sound like Monroe, the flat third rising into the major third, and a tense note that knows where it is landing.
  5. Week 5Where the Beat LivesSeven days on one Bill Monroe instrumental: drive, accents, anticipation, pocket, attack, and the forward lean that makes bluegrass move without changing the tempo.
  6. Week 6Stop Hearing Notes. Hear Shapes.Seven days on one traditional fiddle tune: contour, intervals, fiddle-tune patterns, implied harmony, prediction, and a fast melody learned without depending on tab.
  7. Week 7Make the Melody SpeakSeven days on Bill Monroe's Jerusalem Ridge: melodic skeleton, slides, drones, double stops, modal color, and the difference between the tune itself and a performer's interpretation.
  8. Week 8The Ancient SoundSeven days on the old-time tune Cluck Old Hen: tonal center, modal color, drones, the flat seventh, and the one-note changes that move a tune between musical worlds.
  9. Week 9Chords Have FamiliesSeven days on The Old Home Place: diatonic harmony, the famous III major chord, harmonic surprise, and hearing function instead of memorizing shapes.
  10. Week 10Put It All TogetherSeven days on Bill Monroe's Wheel Hoss, to put the Monroe language under your fingers: melody, rhythm, blues color, chord tones, double stops, drive, variation, and recovery.
  11. Week 11You're in the BandSeven days on Nine Pound Hammer: a mandolin immersion in ensemble listening, backbeat, vocal fills, simple breaks, clean handoffs, and knowing when not to play.
  12. Week 12You Can Hear It NowA seven-day mandolin graduation in ear-led learning, harmonic awareness, variation, ornamentation, groove, ensemble conversation, and recovery.

Twelve weeks, and the workbook is whole. It opens on Uncle Pen and closes on Blue Ridge Cabin Home, learned by ear with no tab in sight.

Each week is written up after it has been worked through a day at a time, so the plan on the page is one that was followed, with the rough edges sanded off afterward.