Me and a buddy have worked up some southwestern tunes lately, that are usually played with twin fiddles doing harmony. I'm playing the second fiddle parts on guitar, and now I've started working on harmony for other fiddle tunes. I record the tune melody and then loop it while I try various harmony approaches.

In bluegrass sometimes its hard to keep the chords in mind when I'm taking a break - especially if I just learned the tune. But it feels like this harmony thing is helping with chord awareness and unlocking some interesting sounds even in my solo break playing.

Anyone else have this experience in harmony playing? Or have other ways of keeping the changes in mind during breaks.

This is kind of a rant and a discussion. I've been getting more into bluegrass recently and keep getting demotivated by how niche it is. I've loved bluegrass since I was a teen, but now that I'm actively trying to play it, it's very demoralizing.

Granted I live in a more urban area, but it's very hard to find jams, and even just other players, around unless I drive at least an hour.

It also feels like there aren't many "masters" to study. For guitar it's basically Tony Rice, Bryan Sutton, and Clarence White.

Then to top it off, even the "big" acts still aren't well known so your chance of jamming to some Billy Strings or Molly Tuttle is next to nil. Bluegrass players only want the standards, non bluegrass players won't even know the artist at all.

I do hope this newer generation makes the genre a little less rigid, but even then, that'll be 10-20 years down the line. Anyway, rant over. Figured it was worth posting just for some activity here.

Discovered these guys at a festival last year. The whole album is great but this is one of my favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=486SfTozblo

Here's my guitar, Martin D-16. What's everyone's favorite tunes to jam? Anything you're trying to work on these days?

I'm trying to fill out some content here but posting videos hasn't picked up much involvement or traffic. Let's get this group going with a bit of discussion.

Edit because I asked questions I didn't myself answer:

The first tune I think to play when I'm practicing is usually "Red Haired Boy" or "Salt Creek". I like to mix and match A and B parts from tunes in the same key. These are my favorite "G" warm up exercise.

I'm trying to learn how to play with more focus on melody and avoid just stringing together other people's licks.

Reaching back to my bluegrass awakening with this one. I grew up with the Grateful Dead and punk rock, Yonder was the first bluegrass adjacent group I had the pleasure to see. I still have a hard time with some of these old performances, but every once and a while I just get to missing this time in my life. RIP to the great Jeff Austin, I wish I could still see you make music.

Some great pro shot video from the Cap run a few years back. These shows were a wild time.

Some of the finest playing, especially Sam's mandolin break. If Tony growls a quick "YEAH" after your break, you're doing something right

Probably my favorite group of all time. Maybe not true bluegrass but its pretty close

This whole album RIPs in my honest opinion. wish they were still around making music.

Matty H is some of the best around imo

Starting off today with a wonderful version of "Way Downtown" played by Bryan Sutton & Michael Daves.

A nice cover from Billy and friends

Some fantastic playing from Del & The band. Ronnie McCoury is one of the best in the business.

What's everyone's favorite bluegrass tunes? This one has been the first thing I think to play as of late.

I was looking around for a bluegrass group on here and couldn't find one, I hope that someone else finds this and joins me.