any flatpickers here?

How many of you acoustic players love to hear good flatpickin? I bought a flatpickin instructional DVD by Steve Kaufman called flatpickin banjo tunes.
And he's pickin the strings off that martin. Of course Steve is a 3 time national flatpickin champion. He breaks each song down in parts and at a slower pace. I still can't play any of the songs through without making mistakes, but I'm hangin in there. just wonderin if any of you guys like
that good ole bluegrass flatpickin?

Tmullen

I love it. I'd someday like to be able to do it convincingly, but it doesn't seem likely.:lol:

I primarily gig acoustic, original music, and there is a call for that kind of playing. But even though i'm tons better than I was a couple of years ago, I still wouldn't call myself anything close to good at it, considering what's out there.:shock:

Luckily, all of my stuff is more of a fusion of country, and folk, with a bluegrass influence, so people aren't showing up expecting to hear Tony Rice, or I'd be in a heap of trouble.

I'm still working on it though. Where can I get that DVD you have? Is it on Amazon or anything like that?


Jake

Yep, I'm a flatpicker. Been playing blugrass for many years. It all started the first time I heard the G run, then I just went from there. I play a flatpicking version of "I'll Fly Away" that is quite unique and get's people really excited. Using a C shape, capoed at the 4th fret you start by hammering the the open D string to hit the E note and just walk it down. The melody of that tune really jumps out at you from there.

I can play some fiddle tunes and belong to an area bluegrass assoc.. It's a lot of fun and the bluegrassers seem to be the best way I can find to get experience playing in public and with others. They are well organized in my area.

I've tried it but am not a good flatpicker by any stretch. I played in a "bluegrass" (I use the term loosely) group for about a year, me on guitar, fellow on dobro/banjo, and a bass + occasional harmonica guy. We had a lot of fun and did "bluegrassed" pop tunes + Alison Krause, New Grass Revival stuff & some other more modern bluegrass.

I can do some G-run related stuff and a few things, but have played with real flatpickers and there is a vast world of difference between what I do and what the real good ones can accomplish. I don't know that I have the discipline, talent, or time left enough on this earth to really be a good one. Heck, good & tight bluegrass rhythm, sans drums, is a challenge in itself.

I remember I was in a music store once checking out a flattop and an old bluegrasser said "So, you're a folksinger, eh?". I didn't think so, but probably sums it up. Learning to really flatpick seemed counter to everything I'd taught myself as far as rhythm & timing. My hats off to all the good ones out there, I love listening to it & it's a great guitar style.

Maybe if I'd woodshed for about a decade...

My introduction to acoustic music was going to bluegrass festivals as a teen with my first teacher who was a killer flatpicker. I remember seeing Tony Rice on stage in the mid 80's and being completely blown away. That awe still inspires me. I have much respect for anyone who can pick up an acoustic guitar and shred your face off. Plus, I'm so grateful that I started out as an acoustic player. It takes a lot more strength to play clean on an old crap acoustic guitar with mile-high action. By the time I picked up an electric a few years later it was a piece of cake!

I love to flatpick - I took some bluegrass lessons a few years ago and it really helped my picking technique in general, even playing rock, etc.

My favorite flatpicker is Norman Blake.

I wish I could call myself a flatpicker. I have sit with Doc Watson albums for years trying get just a little bit of licks in. Oh well!

Well the picks I use are flat but that's as close as I can get right now.

Man, I started out playing punk music and power chords...over the years (23 years now?) I found blues, then bluegrass bug bit me...took a few years learning Scruggs style banjo ... all the while still playing bass and guitar including all my other influences..the natural transition from there was to learn to flatpick..Im mainly into Jazz/Funk/Jam stuff now ..bass and guit..but if an acoustic is in my hands...I cant help but play bluegrass. I love the sound and feel and freedom you get jamming over tight acoustic grass..nuthin like it in the world:mrgreen:

I've been flatpicking pretty seriously for about 24 years. Lots of Clarence White, Doc Watson, Norman Blake stuff, but mostly my own arrangements. Lots of bluegrass jams, festivals, played in a bluegrass band, still play occasional one-shot gigs when I get a call for one, like this coming Sunday.

Tmullen, one thing to watch out for with "bluegrass" instructional material is what I call "instrumental syndrome". I have seen lots of instructional material that is supposed to teach bluegrass, but all it teaches is fiddle tunes. Some of Kaufman's stuff is just as guilty of this as anyone else's. At least the one that you got is honest enough to call itself flatpickin banjo tunes.

The bluegrass repertoire is mostly songs, and if you're going to be a good bluegrass flatpicker (or fiddler, mandolinist, banjoist, dobrologist, etc.) you need to learn to construct instrumental breaks to songs. It's fun flatpicking fiddle tunes, and it's impressive because it's flashy, but most of bluegrass is songs.

I think bluegrass jams contribute a lot to the misconception that it's all about instrumentals. You go around the horn, each guy choosing a tune when it's his turn, and lots of people don't sing, so they play an instrumental. So in a jam, sometimes half of the tunes are instrumentals. But if you go and hear a top bluegrass band, out of a set of 15 tunes maybe one or two are instrumentals, if that. The rest are songs.

+1 Califiddler. I saw Alison Krause with Union Station in a 200-seat place way back before she was "huge" and got this: every single aspect of top-rate bluegrass musicianship--rhythm, timing, dynamics, harmony, and oh yeah, solo virtuosity--is absolutely astounding. The top players are excellent musicians in all respects. I had never listened to bluegrass at that time, and was spellbound. Ya talk about tight, they defined it.

Noted the same with others since.

I grew up worshipping Doc Watson and Tony Rice but never had the discipline to become a good flat picker. I learned a few licks and when a friend asked me recently to play some acoustic guitar on his CD I combined them all to come up with a grand total of 15 secs of flatpicking. (on the second half of the instrumental break you can hear the sum total of all the dobro licks I ever learned.)

Flatpicking simulacrum (http://www.sbs.uab.edu/Depts/History/FacPages/Keitt/sonsamp/dvl.mp3)

Jake, you can get the DVD at homespuntapes.com and at Elderly.com and several others, but the cheapest is at the homespun website.

Like most of ya'll, I'd love to be even close to half as good as Tony Rice, or Steve Kaufman, etc but at 58 I think I've probly waited to late to ever call myself a flatpicker. My wife and I went to Oak Grove LA a couple years ago to hear Joe Cook and familly. His son, which looked to be about 17 or 18, could flatpick as good as any I've seen or heard. Lightening fast.
I'm goin to keep tryin and get as good as I can in the years I have left.
I'm workin on "Crying Holy" for an acoustic solo. I play in a Country Gospel group and we play 5 or 6 bluegrass type songs. I play dobro on all but "Cryin Holy", and I'm tryin to work that one up on my Takamine. :smile:

Tmullen

Just to mention it... Steve Kaufman has put out a series of books/CDs called "Bluegrass Guitar Solos That Every Parking Lot Picker Should Know"... What you get is a book of clearly readable tab for a great many tunes, and 6 CDs on which Steve plays the songs and talks about each section in detail... I think there are 4 books in the series, one of which teaches instrumental breaks to well know Bluegrass songs, and the rest are all fiddle tunes...

This series is a great resource to learn flatpicking... The way I used it over the years was to start playing each tune REAL SLOW, and gradually build up speed as I felt comfortable with the tab... One thing, is that rhythm playing in Bluegrass is truly 75% of the battle... If you can play convincing rhythm to hold down a Bluegrass group, fellow players will always welcome you at a jam... Playing rhythm along with Steve's leads on this series has been a great help to me...

Cheers,
Joe

Been flatpicking for a few years, mostly fiddle tunes but also some bluegrass & jazz standards. I had a private lesson with David Grier last month but we mainly just picked fiddle tunes that I knew. Grier's "I've Got The House To Myself" is a must have for anyone but especially if you love to hear a guitar flatpicked. Also, any of Kentucky Colonels with Clarence White, especially Appalachian Swing. Kauffman's Parking Lot series is an excellent place to start as it walks you through slowed down versions of common fiddle tunes. Through trying to flatpick, I'm playing more mandolin than guitar these days & also trying to learn the fiddle itself.

Best advice I can give is find folks to jam with, use a metronome when you're working out the tunes & practice only on the days that you eat!

When I first started to get serious about playing guitar (after 15 years of Bob Dylan and Neil Young acoustic stuff), I bought the Will the Circle be Unbroken album. I wasn't a lead player at the time, so I just played rhythm along with the tunes. Shortly afterwards, I switched to electric and have been playing lead in country bands for the last 30 years. A couple months ago, I started going to a weekly bluegrass jam and really enjoy getting back to playing acoustic. Although I'm an adequate lead player now, I'm still not terribly fast and I find it hard to get away from electric "country" licks while playing bluegrass. Time to start woodshedding again and reprogram my mind to think acoustic!

I love the music and sound of bluegrass and flatpicking. I play in a small acoustic quartet. Me on guitar plus a banjo, bass and ukulele. We don´t play real bluegrass though. We play a mix of bluegrass and old country songs with acoustic instruments. My part is mostly straight rhythm with a few flatpicking licks thrown in. I try to learn new fiddle tunes every now and then. It helps building a repetoaire of licks and ideas for solos I can use in every song based around open chords.

I played Dobro in a bluegrass band back in the 70s, had a Dobro Model 60D in maple, a sweet guitar. Also played pedal steel in a C&W band, using a Marlen D10, top neck Nashville E9th with Lloyd Green's copedant, bottom neck standard C6th "jazz" tuning. Sold both back in the 80s when I was at sea.

Now I have a few nice acoustics and I am trying to get back into country and Bluegrass styles again. The saying "if you can play Bluegrass you can play anything" is pretty close to the truth.

I've been flatpicking off & on since the mid-70s. The one thing I will suggest as far as technique goes, is that if you want to play FAST, practice SLOW with your hands TOTALLY RELAXED - no tension or tightness allowed - with a VERY LIGHT TOUCH on the fretting hand.

Love Flatpicking, big fan of Bryan Sutton, Tony Rice and others, Play in a country worship team, I just sing and play Rhytmn guitar, but there is a 78 year old dude I play with that is an awesome Flatpicker
Jim

I keep practicing. Love it.

Have attempted to do it, love listening to it. I was lucky to have seen Doc and Merle in the mid 70's, and Clarence White in the Byrds in the early 70's. They played one whole acoustic set, Clarence was brilliant.