Cowboys in Bluegrass Music?

Hopalong CassidyAs a kid, I desperately wanted to be a cowboy.ย ย I dreamed of owning a horse, riding the range, and doing what cowboys did. And why wouldnโ€™t I? Every night I slept under a cowboy blanket and my lunch box was fully decorated with a decal of a handsome cowboy twirling his lariat. Growing up at the dawn of the age of television, all my heroes were cowboys: Hopalong Cassidy, Shane, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and John Wayne. I watched โ€œGunsmoke,โ€ โ€œHave Gun Will Travel,โ€ โ€œThe Riflemanโ€ and โ€œBonanzaโ€ while eating my TV dinner. My favorite actor was Gary Cooper,

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Ukulele Tunes Tips & Jamming Videos

Thanks for purchasing Ukulele Tunes, Tips & Jamming! Below you’ll find videos of Ted and Catherine Parrish playing the strums, songs and scales in the book. For tab, instruction, and helpful tips please reference the book. The track number corresponds to the number in the gramophones in the pages of Ukulele Tunes, Tips & Jamming.

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How to Play Music by Ear

Playing by ear is, or should be, the holy grail of playing music. You just about never see a banjo picker, fiddler or mandolin player performing with their nose buried in a book of music notation or tab. It just ainโ€™t done. Of course, there are plenty of beginner musicians who completely depend on tab to get them started. For these people, when they get to the point where theyโ€™d like to go out and jam with other musicians, they find it difficult or next to impossible to give up the addition to tab or music. Like quitting smoking, playing

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Playing the B-Flat Chord on the Ukulele

By Ted Parrish, ukulele extraordinaire and co-author of Ukulele for the Complete Ignoramus! and Ukulele Tunes, Tips & Jamming.

Beginning ukulele students often have this common experience: You are rolling right along, strumming and singing, you got your C chord down, Am, F, even G. Then you have to play a Bb and you decide to take a break. Forever.

The Bb is the most dreaded beginning chord for the aspiring ukester. Letโ€™s break it down and see why it is so difficult (because it is, youโ€™re right), and the proper way to play this chord so that it

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Easy Two-Finger Mandolin Chords

By Wayne Erbsen

Compared to the guitar, mandolin chords are EASY. In fact, most mandolin chords only use two fingers or sometimes only one.

In the mandolin chord charts below, each horizontal line represents a pair of mandolin strings. The E string is the one closest to the floor, as you hold your mandolin in playing position, and the G string is closest to the ceiling. The numbers represent the fret. Be sure to place your fingers between, not on, the fret. The letter to the left of each chord chart tells you the name of that chord. The letters

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Curly & Jack, The Shelton Brothers

Among the favorite pastimes in the mountains was music. They say fiddlers and banjo players were so numerous they practically fell out of the trees when it rained. Although banjos and fiddles were common, it is said that guitars were a rare and precious commodity in the early days. Anyone who could play one was awarded the respect due only to a preacher or a moonshiner.

Accordingly, it was a special day in the Shelton household when Charlie Pack came to visit. Charlie always brought with him a black Stella guitar. In the evenings, Charlie would chord the Stella and

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Walter Davis – Fisk & Skull Banjo

Rural Roots of Bluegrass

One of the most fascinating of all the two finger pickers is a gentleman by the name of Walter Davis. Residing in Black Mountain, North Carolina, Walter, in his 75 years, has come to know most of the western Carolina banjo players such as Samantha Bumgarner, Mack Crow, Clarence Ashley and Dock Walsh. He was also acquainted with Jimmy Rodgers, who once lived in Old Fort, North Carolina, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, who played on the streets of nearby Johnson City, Tennessee. He also knew Jimmy Davis, who came to visit his mother in a hospital in Morganton, North Carolina,

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