Hello Augusta Bluegrass Week fiddlers! I’m excited to spend this week making music together. In this advanced class we’ll be focusing on improvisation, music theory, and other musical tools to help with openness and fluency in a variety of bluegrass-adjacent genres. We’ll discuss progressive instrumental concepts and how they relate to traditional bluegrass, efficient practice techniques, playing in different ensemble settings, backing up singers, and learn some of the more complex instrumental melodies you may encounter in jams. This class will primarily be taught by ear. Make sure to bring a recording device and pencil/paper for notes.
The goal of this class will be to help expand your musical vocabulary so that you can more freely express yourself and find joy in more musical situations, bluegrass and beyond.
Instructor Bio
John Mailander is an acclaimed multi-instrumentalist who moves listeners in concert halls, festivals, and music camps at home and abroad. A sought-after performer, educator, producer, and recording artist, John is known for his deeply rooted voice on the fiddle, mandolin, and other stringed instruments.
John is a member of Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers. He has toured and performed with some of the greatest names in the acoustic music world and beyond, including Billy Strings, Darol Anger, Joy Williams, Sierra Hull, Jacob Jolliff, Keller Williams, Tony Trischka, Ruth Moody, Col. Bruce Hampton, Joe K. Walsh, Peter Rowan, Molly Tuttle, Lee Ann Womack, Missy Raines, Laurie Lewis, and John Reischman, to name a few. He was the featured fiddler for Steve Martin & Edie Brickell’s musical, Bright Star, for its debut run in Poughkeepsie, New York.
A San Diego native now based in Nashville, TN, John is an in-demand session musician. His debut solo album, Walking Distance, featuring an all-star cast of musicians from the New England acoustic music scene, was released in 2014 to critical acclaim. The process of recording his following album, 2019’s Forecast, led John to found an ensemble of his own under the same name. John Mailander’s Forecast is now a continually evolving collective of improvisational musicians from the Nashville music community. Their newest album, Look Closer, was released in May 2021.
As a teacher, John has been on staff at some of the most prestigious music camps in the Americas, including the Augusta Heritage Center Bluegrass Week, the Swannannoa Gathering, the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, the California Bluegrass Association Music Camp, and the Nimblefingers Old Time & Bluegrass Music Workshop. He also keeps a busy private instruction schedule, teaching students all over the country in person and online. His first instructional book, A Fiddler’s Guide to Moveable Shapes, was published in Fall 2017. He is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA.
Check out Mailander at Augusta in 2017: