386 episodes
Bluegrass Jam Along Bluegrass Jam Along
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- Music
The podcast for anyone and everyone who plays bluegrass. Free fiddle tune backing tracks and interviews with people from the world of bluegrass. For every tune we give you four brand new tracks: - Backup 4 times through (you play the tune or improvise breaks)- Tune 4 times through (you play backup)- ‘Jam Along’ (4 complete run throughs, alternating backup and tune)- Full performanceThey work with any instrument - guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, bass, banjo…even if you’re a bluegrass cellist (I have actually met one!). For more info and chord charts, visit https://bluegrassjamalong.com. Hope you find these tracks useful (and thanks for listening!) - Matt
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How to Coach a Band with Stephen Mougin (Sam Bush Band/Dark Shadow Recording)
My guest this week is Stephen Mougin, guitarist in The Sam Bush Band and founder of Dark Shadow Recording.
In this episode we talk about Stephen's work as a band coach. We chat about his training as a vocal teacher, what bands should be working on, including how they should be rehearsing, why preparing for the studio isn't really all that different from preparing to play live and how to listen to music in order to learn from it.
There are so many fascinating insights that will be invaluable to bands and individual musicians, as well as to music fans who just want to understand more about the music they listen to.
To find out more about Stephen's band coaching, check out the band coaching video on his website or visit www.stephenmougin.com
There's also plenty of info on Stephen's studio and record label at
www.darkshadowrecording.com
Happy picking!
Matt
Support the show
===
- Sign up to get updates on new episodes
- Free fiddle tune chord sheets
- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews
- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:
Instagram Facebook - Review us on Apple Podcasts -
Bluegrass Briefing - April 22nd 2024
Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass.
Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode.
News and announcements - Church Street News
Library of Congress listReleases (The Grass is New)
The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlistScroll on Buddy
Billy Strings a capella quertetJacob Jolliff Vera performanceOther bits
Sign up for emails https://bluegrassjamalong.com/contact/The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlistFull list of interviewsPeghead NationUse the code ‘jamalong’ for a free month of any course
Happy picking.
Matt
Support the show
===
- Sign up to get updates on new episodes
- Free fiddle tune chord sheets
- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews
- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:
Instagram Facebook - Review us on Apple Podcasts -
Kristina R Gaddy on the Banjo’s Hidden History (part 2 - new interview)
Kristina R. Gaddy joins me again to celebrate the paperback release of her fascinating book “Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History”.
We chat about the reception to the book's publication in hardback, what information has come to light since publication, Kristina's hopes that her book will inspire others to pick up where she left off and dig deeper, plus how Beyonce's 'Cowboy Carter', featuring Rhiannon Giddens (who wrote the foreword to Kristina's book) increased the attention on the themes the the book deals with.
It was a treat getting to chat to Kristina again. If you missed the original episode, I've reposted it as the episode before this (#380) so you can listen again.
To buy the book, follow these links:
US:
https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393866803
UK/Europe:
https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393866803-well-of-souls
To find our more, visit Kristina’s website and Instagram
The film mentioned at the end is The Librarian and the Banjo
Happy picking!
Matt
Support the show
===
- Sign up to get updates on new episodes
- Free fiddle tune chord sheets
- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews
- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:
Instagram Facebook - Review us on Apple Podcasts -
Kristina R Gaddy on the Banjo’s Hidden History (part 1 - original interview re-post)
**This interview was originally posted in September 2022**
My guest this week is Kristina R. Gaddy, who joins us to discuss her fascinating book “Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History”.
We chat about how she came to write the book and some of the key discoveries she made along the way, in particular the banjo’s unknown history as an instrument of ritual and rebellion.
Kristina’s research in diaries, letters, archives, and art, traces the banjo’s beginnings from the seventeenth century, when enslaved people of African descent created and carried this unique instrument as they were transported and sold by slaveowners throughout the Americas, to Suriname, the Caribbean, and the colonies that became U.S. states.
It’s a fascinating book and, I hope you’ll agree, makes for a fascinating conversation.
To buy the book, follow these links:
US:
https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393866803
UK/Europe:
https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393866803-well-of-souls
To find our more, visit Kristina’s website and Instagram
The film mentioned at the end is The Librarian and the Banjo
Happy picking!
Matt
Support the show
===
- Sign up to get updates on new episodes
- Free fiddle tune chord sheets
- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews
- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:
Instagram Facebook - Review us on Apple Podcasts -
Bluegrass Briefing - April 15th 2024 (Church Street Blues re-issue, John McEuen, Jake Eddy)
Welcome to this week’s Bluegrass Briefing, a weekly series of episodes taking a look at what’s going on in the world of bluegrass.
Here are the links to stuff mentioned in this episode.
News and announcements - Church Street News
Church Street Blues reissueReleases (The Grass is New)
The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlist
Other bits
Sign up for emails https://bluegrassjamalong.com/contact/The Grass is (mostly) New 2024 playlistFull list of interviewsPeghead NationUse the code ‘jamalong’ for a free month of any course
Happy picking.
Matt
Support the show
===
- Sign up to get updates on new episodes
- Free fiddle tune chord sheets
- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews
- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:
Instagram Facebook - Review us on Apple Podcasts -
Matt Glaser - Celebrating 15 Years of Berklee's American Roots Music Program
My guest this week is Matt Glaser, Artistic Director of Berklee's Center for American Roots Music.
Matt joins me to celebrate 15 years of the program, but also to delve into some of the themes of his superb Keynote Speech at IBMA 2023. In the speech, Matt sets out the idea that American music can be seen as one thing, rather than simply a series of genres, and goes on to give countless examples of early musical connections between styles.
We chat about his approach, how music education differs in the UK and US and why being curious is more important than being right.
There's a link to his IMBA speech below and I strongly recommend you go and check it out if you haven't seen it. It's wonderful.
I loved this conversation and hope you do too.
You can find out more about Berklee and the Roots Music Program at https://college.berklee.edu/focused/roots
Here's Matt's 2023 IBMA keynote speech
Happy picking!
Matt
Support the show
===
- Sign up to get updates on new episodes
- Free fiddle tune chord sheets
- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews
- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:
Instagram Facebook - Review us on Apple Podcasts
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