drnathan747 - Posted - 11/14/2010:  19:14:04

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My son, a good intermediate player, has learned to play tunes like "Soldier's Joy", "Red Wing", "Angelina Baker" , etc. as a solo player. He is now wanting to play in, or as part of, a bluegrass type group or jams, where he would need to learn how to "chop" while the other players take the lead and play their break.

That is to say he wants to learn, not the break or lead, which he can already play, rather he wants to know how to play in the background with the chop.

How does one go about learning to do that? How do you know what note to chop on? Is that strictly something that is learned by ear? or is that something that is written down on the sheet music somewhere?

Anyway, how can he go about learning that? Any books or DVD's that could help him?

Thanks,
Nathan

srselby - Posted - 11/14/2010:  19:36:39

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There are two ways that I know of:

percussive: you mute the strings with your fingers and bow upward sharply near the frog, making a percussive sound on the off-beat.
melodic: also up-bowing short strokes aggressively near the frog; but you play double stops over the chord changes (say G, C, D). For this, you need to know your double stops and you need a chord sheet if you can't do it by intuition yet. (If you can see the mandolin player and he's chopping, you can follow his fingering. You can also learn the common chord shapes for the rhythm guitar and chop the corresponding double stops on the fiddle.)

dzen - Posted - 11/14/2010:  21:48:01

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Good for him. Lotsa stuff on the internet. Learn chord progressions, learn some 2 or 3 fingered mandolin chord fragments (or violin doublestops, same thing), and learn how to make the bow sound "percussive" .

There's a Darol Anger DVD called "Chops and Grooves" with some advanced, extremely cool sounding techniques. I own it but haven't had a chance to explore it much. Like a lot of fiddlers, I don't spend nearly enough time practicing backup. Anger has an introductory lesson online also.

youtube.com/watch?v=8Lud1IMpJm4

Mandogryl - Posted - 11/15/2010:  03:11:05

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Darol Anger, as mentioned, has some really great chops. So does Ed Howe here in Maine, who taught me. Usually in a bluegrass setting, the fiddle only chops while the mandolin is taking its break. It is really the mandolins job to do the chopping.
THe way I was taught to chop was to straighten the thumb instead of having it bend for normal playing, and just bring the bow down on the strings near the frog. That is it in a nut shell. It takes some practice, of course. While the mandolin is chopping, I like to play some long harmony notes, or even some mini licks here and there, vary it up. I never chop while the mandolin does.

bowbag - Posted - 11/15/2010:  08:49:26

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I always referred to it as chunking. It's not very tricky though. As others said you just plunk down the bow close to the flog, typically on two string at a time. The special part is not the technique itself but actually learning all the various partial chords you can play and even more so learning all the chords to the various tunes you play. Brian Wicklund talks about it a bit in his beginner book, that's what got me started.

Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 11/15/2010:  09:09:02

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I've heard "chunking" way overdone, too, in my humble opinion. Seems like it's a spicy seasoning which can ruin the musical meal if added too copiously?

John Gent - Posted - 11/15/2010:  09:24:41

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quote:

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Originally posted by Humbled by this instrument

I've heard "chunking" way overdone, too, in my humble opinion. ...

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Agreed. I typically will play two note chords without ever taking my bow off the strings. And do so quietly, but bear down at intersections or other transitions. Perhaps also for 'loud instrument' breaks.

drnathan747 - Posted - 11/15/2010:  12:34:42

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Just wanted to thank everyone that contributed playing advice so far, thank you. I have learned a lot.

I am guessing that my son will be able to get the actual mechanics of the bow stroke down fairly quickly. It seems that knowing which note to play on will be the biggest challenge.

If anyone else can recommend any additional DVDs, Youtube videos, or books on that aspect, or has advice about how t learn it, please let me know.

Thanks,
Nathan

Reilly-Byrne - Posted - 11/15/2010:  13:26:46

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A little fiddle chop goes a long way with me. Back in my bluegrass banjo days, I would chop behind the mandolin break and the mandolin would chop behind the other instrument's breaks. In my experience I didn't see a need for a fiddle chop,except if the fiddler was too lazy to play real backup.

Mike_Fontenot - Posted - 11/15/2010:  15:43:12

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quote:

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Originally posted by drnathan747

My son, a good intermediate player, has learned to play tunes like "Soldier's Joy", "Red Wing", "Angelina Baker" , etc. as a solo player. He is now wanting to play in, or as part of, a bluegrass type group or jams, where he would need to learn how to "chop" while the other players take the lead and play their break.

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Did your son learn most of his tunes from music notation? If so, the notation will often indicate the chord needed for each measure, or half-measure. If so, you can play the root note of the chord, and either the 3rd of 5th note above the root note. (Or sometimes just the 3rd and 5th, without the root note).

One easy way to get started with chops, is to play along with a tune in D. In that case, you can chop on the open D and open A strings together, to get the 1 chord, and on the open G and open D strings to get the 4 chord, and on the open A and open E strings to get the 5 chord. You can do the whole accompaniment without touching the finger board at all!

Of course, if your son has never had any experience with chords, the terms "1 chord", "4 chord", and "5 chord" won't mean anything to him, and neither will the 3rd and 5th intervals above the root of a chord. Probably any rhythm guitar player could explain it to him fairly quickly. It's also very easy to visualize it on a piano keyboard (especially in the key of C), because it's right in front of your eyes. (Even though I haven't played the piano for years, I still go in and spend a few minutes in front of the keyboard, when I'm trying to figure out some weird doublestops ... and I always transpose the tune to C first, to make it especially easy to see).

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Edited by - Mike_Fontenot on 11/15/2010 15:44:32

Mike_Fontenot - Posted - 11/15/2010:  16:09:03

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P.S.:

I prefer to chop with downbows, rather than upbows ... I think that's fairly common.

The main thing about chops (other than you usually want to be near the frog), is to bounce the bow off the string ... it starts out above the string, and ends up above the string ... and it's only in contact with the string for an instant.

VivianW - Posted - 11/15/2010:  16:15:25

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Generally stick to double stops on the 2 low strings, and don't use too many open strings, because you don't want the chop to ring for long. If you don't know the correct notes for the chord you are on, then do as a previous poster suggested, put your fingers lightly on the strings and get a percussive grunt!

I heard that when Gene Lowinger first started playing fiddle in Bill Monroe's band, Monroe for a long time wouldn't let him play anything but off-beat rhythm chords. I suppose the reason was, to get his rhythm solid and improve his knowledge of chords. This might be fakelore -- but nevertheless, it's great training for fiddlers, who are often lacking in chord and rhythm sense.

As far as overdoing the chop is concerned, you don't have to do it loud enough to be obnoxious, and it is usually better than cluttering up the background with overplaying. And if you're on stage, it looks better than just standing there doing nothing!

VivianW - Posted - 11/15/2010:  16:25:51

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Another thought -- years ago I taught a workshop on bluegrass fiddling, and I used to give my students this advice for what to do for backup:
Behind mandolin lead - chop, because you can't trust the banjo to provide it, and when the mandolin is playing lead the band loses its powerful off-beat rhythm.
Behind the banjo - either chop, or long notes in the low register.
Behind lead guitar - either chop, or do nothing, because anything else will muddy up the guitar sound which is hard enough to hear anyway, since it's low register.
Behind solo singing - maybe some long notes, but mostly filler licks at the ends of the phrases of the song.
Behind harmony singing - be even more restrained, especially while the singing is happening.
So I had been lecturing about "less is more" and "don't clutter up the singing" until I was hoarse, and then we got the video of the Reno and Smiley Kroger TV shows, with Mack Magaha on fiddle. And wouldn't you know it, he was playing all sorts of notey stuff behind the harmony singing, and it sounded great! So I guess the moral of the story is, play restrained until you get as good as Magaha!

OTJunky - Posted - 11/15/2010:  16:36:09

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quote:

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Originally posted by VivianW

So I guess the moral of the story is, play restrained until you get as good as Magaha!

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--OTJ

aschatz - Posted - 11/15/2010:  17:05:25

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Your question is which notes to play for the chop. I typically chop on the D and A strings (together) and I finger lightly with either my 3rd or 4th fingers in their normal position (the exact position doesn't matter). The point is to deaden the vibration of the string so their is no note sound at all - just the percussive sound of the bow crashing on the strings on the offbeats (beats 2 and 4 in a 4/4 tune). The bow stroke is primarily vertical - very little horizontal movement. It takes practice, especially to play this in time. Tell your son to practice this with a metronome. And kudos to him for wanting to learn this!

The chop is an essential part of bluegrass - the mandolin usually does this, but banjo, fiddle and dobro should learn to do this as well to back up the other instruments when they solo. It's kind of like the hi-hat in a jazz band.

rafa - Posted - 11/15/2010:  17:23:59

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Hi all, use to chop away in my banjo life. Good Idea to learn arpeggios so you can chop away on the chord being played.

drnathan747 - Posted - 11/16/2010:  05:02:30

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Mike-- My son has learned most of his fiddle playing from notation. He seems to have a good ear, even though we have not put an emphasis on ear training. Perhaps that comes from paying close attention to having good intonation, or perhaps it just comes naturally.

Yes, lots of the music notation that I have gathered for him does have guitar chords marked. But you are right, he hasn't gotten into studying chords and chord progressions. I was thinking of having him take some guitar lessons just to get familar with that, He seems to like playing other instruments as well, and he horsed around on the viola, cello, and double bass. I think he is probably one day going to learn to play each of those stringed instruments (though he is only in the 8th grade now).

Thanks,
Nathan

drnathan747 - Posted - 11/16/2010:  11:29:43

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Thanks everyone. That's a lot of good information. I'll pass it along to my son, who I am sure will make good use of it..

Mike (or anyone else who might know)-- how do you find the root of a chord?

Thanks,
Nathan

Mike_Fontenot - Posted - 11/16/2010:  16:53:04

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quote:

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Originally posted by drnathan747


[...]
Mike (or anyone else who might know)-- how do you find the root of a chord?
[...]

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If the music notation shows that, for example, a G major chord should be played in some given measure (or half-measure), the root of that chord is a G note. You can get that on your fiddle either with the open G string, or with your ring finger on the D string, or with your middle finger on the E string (and there are other possibilities higher up the neck, but that's for later, if ever).

The 3rd of any major chord (called a "major 3rd") is four half-steps up the chromatic scale above the root note. (A half-step is the spacing between any two adjacent notes of a chromatic scale ... to play a half step above a given note that you are already fingering, you put your next finger down about as close to that previous finger as possible. On a piano, it's just the very next key up the keyboard.) For a G major chord, that's a B note, which you can get with your middle finger on the G string, or with your index finger on the A string, or with your pinky on the E string.

The 5th of any major chord is three half-steps up the chromatic scale above the (major) third note. For a G major chord, that's a D note, which you can get with the open D string, or with your ring finger on the A string.

The fifth of any minor chord is the same note as the fifth of major chord of the same name. (And a major and minor chord of the same name have the same root note). But the 3rd of a minor chord is a half-step lower than the third of the major chord of the same name. (So, it's called a minor 3rd, instead of a major 3rd).

All this sounds more complicated that it really is. It's easiest to see, if someone shows you on a piano keyboard, especially in the key of C. Try to find a piano player who can show you this stuff ... it's a LOT easier if it's right in front of your eyes.

drnathan747 - Posted - 11/17/2010:  06:15:25

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Mike-- thanks for your write up on roots, 3rds, and 5ths, and how to find them. That was very well written. I think even I understood it, and I don't play an instrument.

Thanks,
Nathan