We also shot videos of me playing both versions slowly, along with a lesson video to walk you through this. You have a slow melody track, a slow rhythm track, and the faster jam track, for both versions 1 and 2. I've followed the same format that we have used for our previous lessons. This one has a lot of files and a lot of info. A good friend of mine whose opinion I trust, really liked the idea of colored licks and said, 'You've created Garanimals for bluegrass.' I'm hoping you get it as well. I've taught these versions for about 3 weeks now, and everyone seems to get and like the whole 'color' thing.

The goal of course, is to get you to begin to see how licks and phrases can be used to create your own version and still have it sound like the tune, more or less. The blue licks on page one, will swap out with any of the other blue licks on page one, etc. The difference is I've color coded certain licks and phrases, to give you an idea of what licks can be swapped out with other licks. There maybe a very good reason I've never seen it done, but we're going to try it anyway. For version 2, I'm trying something I've never seen done before.

Version 1 is a straight forward, 'here's the melody' sort of arrangement. Since one of the most emailed questions I get is, 'how do I improvise around a melody, once I understand the tune?' To help answer that question, what we've done is a version 1 and a version 2 of Big Sandy River.

Several folks have asked, 'Who played on the recordings'? Well, for better or worse it's all me, one track at a time. Also be sure to visit our free samples page to download actual samples from Jam Tunes. Of course, feel free to contact me with any questions you might have, I will get back to you. The lessons are designed for intermediate players for both mandolin and guitar, and are intended for private/home study use. Right click on each of the links for the MP3s, WMVs and PDFs, and download them to your computer. The MP3s and WMVs are as small as I could make them without losing quality. In order to read the PDFs, you will need to have Adobe Reader. The tunes are in MP3 format, the text and music/tab is in PDF format and videos are either links to our YouTube channel or WMV. Remember to practice your rhythm playing as well as the picking, you're going to need it. The 3rd track is full band, 3 times through 170 bpm. The 2nd track is no melody with band 106 bpm. The 1st track is melody with band 106 bpm. The lesson tunes are recorded and laid out in the same way all of the tunes in my Jam Tunes books are done.

Free Bluegrass Lessons for Guitar & Mandolin

Mandolin tabs