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Lesson time: (3min 10sec)
This lesson is part of the course Beginning Mandolin with Tom Bekeny
Watch this lesson for free below.
Lesson transcript:
Okay, I was just talking to you about the alternation of your pick. When you're playing an even flow of notes of even rhythmic value, like fast 8th or 16th notes, you alternate:
Always starting on the downstroke.
However, when the music is syncopated, you don't adhere to that strict pattern. Without getting too much into music theory, what remains the same is that you're using a downstroke on the strong part of the beat.
So, for example, with eighth notes:
I'll always be hitting a downstroke on the strong part of the beat. Even when something's syncopated, if we're in the strong part of the beat, we're going to be hitting down.
I won't get more into that. I think you'll be able to sort of get the feel for this by just doing it and hearing it.
There are a couple of syncopated patterns I want to show you, and then we'll apply them to a basic fiddle tune or traditional instrumental.
Here's one pattern, and again, we're departing from the strict down-up alternation. I'll just show you this on the open A string:
I can't say it as fast as I can play it, so I'll just play it without saying it.
Now, do it slower:
For those of you who've heard traditional fiddle music, old-timey fiddle, or bluegrass fiddle, that may sound familiar. A real common pattern from fiddle music is called a shuffle. If I had a fiddle here, I could show you, and it would probably sound more familiar to you.
The point is, we're not doing strict alternation of the pick. We're hitting two downstrokes in a row:
Now, you can reverse that pattern, and you have this sound. I'll call out the directions:
Sped up, it sounds like this...
Tom Bekeny is a mandolinist, fiddler and seasoned mandolin teacher who has performed and taught in the U.S. and abroad for over 40 years - so when he breaks down how to play, you are learning from someone who has spent a lifetime both on stage and in the lesson room. He was the mandolinist in such San Francisco Bay Area bands as Done Gone, Tenbrooks, and an early version of the Grant Street String Band with Laurie Lewis. He has appeared with Peter Rowan, the Rowan Brothers, David Grisman, George Cole, vocalist Lua Hadar, and Jerry Garcia. Tom has played mandolin with the highly acclaimed Kathy Kallick Band for almost 20 years and has held the fiddle spot with California's premiere traditional bluegrass band, High Country, since 1988. He has recorded with many of these groups and was featured in the Summer 2009 issue of Mandolin Magazine. Tom also plays in the wildly popular trad bluegrass "jam" band, Bangers and Grass, alongside west coast bluegrass luminaries Jim Nunally, Steve Pottier, Bill Evans and Chad Manning. Beyond bluegrass, Tom plays jazz mandolin with his trio The Missing Man Quartet (MM4), which plays straight-ahead jazz with original arrangements drawing material from the world of jazz and Great American Songbook standards. He released a solo CD project ("Jazzolin") in 2013, on which he plays mandolin and fiddle backed by drums and bass. read more
