Bluegrass Jamming Online Course (July 5-29)

BLUEGRASS MANDOLIN JAMMING WITH MATT FLINNER (July 5-29)

“After buying six mandolins and umpteen books…I am convinced your course is best $100 I have invested in my mandolin journey to date. Finally, I’m getting the discpline I need with your exercises to learn scales, arpeggios, double stops, fingering techniques, learn the fretboard (the essential tools I need)…and most importantly to learn how those things fit into playing tunes.”—Rick D., Bluegrass Mandolin 101 student

“I have to say that making everything available online is a great convenience for me. Being able to stop and return to a more challenging exercise or a newer phrase is a great for learning. I also really appreciate your availability to answer questions offline. This is a great course, and I feel as though I’m improving daily because of it.”—Joe C., Bluegrass Mandolin 101 student

This course is intended to help the aspiring mandolinist build up repertoire and find ways of creating new solos over commonly played standards; it’s also designed in the hope that it will encourage students to get out and jam with other players!

Now offered at Europe-friendly times! Class sessions take place at 2 pm eastern time (7 or 8 pm in most of Europe) and 9 pm eastern time. Students are welcome to join whichever session is more convenient for them…or they can join both! Students who cannot make it to the live sessions are able to view the sessions afterwards on the class website—generally by the following day.

Each week, we’ll look at four bluegrass standard tunes: usually two instrumentals and two vocal songs in a particular key. Students will be given lead sheets (in standard notation and tablature) for each song, as well as a few exercises to help them learn more about the fretboard and start incorporating new ideas into their solos. Concepts and tunes will be taught during the class session, and all tunes will be revisited during Saturday practice sessions in a “jam session” format, where each song is played several times though, and students have the opportunity to try out some of the week’s concepts on the tunes (with guidance from Matt).

Classes meet every Tuesday in July (except for the first session, which will be Wednesday, July 5, to avoid the July 4th holiday) at 2 pm eastern time as well as 9 pm eastern time. We hope this will be convenient for folks in various time zones, including Europe and around the world! There will also be 45-minute review sessions every Saturday morning at 11 am eastern time.

The course fee is $125.

Here is the curriculum:

WEEK 1 (July 5)

Key of G

Warmup Picking Exercise

Positions in G

G Scale Exercises

Mountain Dew

I’ll Stay Around

Sally Ann

Stony Point

WEEK 2 (July 11)

Key of D

Moving Between Positions in D

D Scale and Patterns

Changing Octaves in a Tune

Dig a Hole in the Meadow

You Won’t Be Satisfied That Way

Forked Deer

St. Anne’s Reel

WEEK 3 (July 18)

KEY of C

Positions in C

C Chord Tones and Double Stops

Toy Heart

Teardrops in My Eyes

Farewell Blues

Goodbye Old Pal

WEEK 4 (July 25)

Key of A

Some Positions in A

Using Open Strings

A Major Scale and Patterns

Mixing in Licks and Double Stops

Sunny Side of the Mountain

Sittin’ Alone in the Moonlight

Sally Gooden

Stoney Creek

See the Scale and Arpeggio Intensive Curriculum

See the Swing Jamming Curriculum

Go to the Home Page

2 comments on “Bluegrass Jamming Online Course (July 5-29)”

Lisa Kemna says:

June 29, 2017 at 11:43 am

Hi,
Curriculum looks great! I am registered for the class but have not received materials. Are we supposed to look at them in advance?

Reply
- flinner says:
  
  June 30, 2017 at 2:17 am
  
  Hi Lisa,
  
  Glad to have you in the class! We’ll look at the materials during each session; I encourage students to learn one tune by ear (and/or by observing me play it) during the class session, along with some concepts we’ll look at during the class session. Then we’ll run through that tune and the other three during the practice session. Students are encouraged to at least play chords with all of the songs, and try melody and/or some soloing ideas (which we’ll cover in the class session) on whatever they’re comfortable with.
  I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions. See you in class!
  
  Thanks,
  Matt Flinner
  
  Reply