If you’ve ever wanted to sing bluegrass harmony and didn’t know how to learn, or if you’ve been trying and need some help figuring out the parts, Stephen Mougin has come to your rescue.

Stephen plays guitar and sings with Sam Bush. He knows his way around bluegrass harmony, and he’s come up with a learning tool that is top notch.

His recording studio, Dark Shadow Recording, has produced two CDs designed to help you learn to sing harmony naturally.

Bluegrass Tenor Singing (featuring Russell Moore)
Bluegrass Baritone Singing (featuring Ronnie Bowman)

What Stephen has done is to take five traditional bluegrass songs, and produce a great quality recording of each one. The songs are:

• Little Cabin Home On The Hill
• Mr. Engineer
• Blue Ridge Cabin Home
• My Little Georgia Rose
• How Mountain Girls Can Love

I spent some time with the tenor CD and it’s great. The recordings are well done and these are quality arrangements worth learning. The band consists of Adam Steffey (mandolin), Megan Lynch (fiddle), Ned Luberecki (banjo), Daniel Hardin (bass), and Stephen Mougin (guitar). The vocals, the focus of the project, are sung by Stephen (lead vocal), Russell Moore (tenor), and Ronnie Bowman (baritone).

The first track for each song presents you with the full mix of the tune so you can get a feel for what the finished product should sound like. We all like to sing along with recordings, so go ahead do so, but be sure to spend some time just listening as well. Listen to the blend of the three vocals.

The second track for each tune consists of just the choruses of the song, cut together back to back, with only the band and the lead vocal. This track is important. It will help you learn the melody, as well as the phrasing and dynamics. I worked with Little Cabin Home On The Hill, and noticed that the final chorus is a bit different than the others. It’s got a minor little frill that sets it apart. This is common in bluegrass, and I’m glad they included it in the arrangement.

Once you’re comfortable with the melody, phrasing, and dynamics of the song, you can move on to the third track. This track is identical to the second, back to back choruses, with the tenor (or baritone, depending on which CD you’re working with) vocal, and no others. This allows you to hear the part you’re trying to learn. Still in the context of the band, you’ll hear where the harmony part lies within the chords. You can repeat this track until you’re confident that you know the part, then move on.

The fourth, and final, track for each tune is the same as the first, but with the harmony part removed. On the tenor CD, you’ll hear the full mix of the song, solos and verses included. On the choruses however, you’ll hear only the lead and baritone vocals. It’s up to you to provide the tenor part. This provides you with a sort of “jam along” track, where you can try out your new skills.

This is a great way to learn these parts, and I think you’ll learn more than just the five songs included on the disc. You’ll learn to hear where the parts are, and should be able to take your new skills and figure out the harmony to other songs as well.

The Bluegrass Harmony Training Series CDs are sold individually for $15 + S/H or you can purchase both the tenor and baritone CDs as a package for $25 + S/H.

Here’s a video introduction to the series.

One More For The Road, the new Adam Steffey CD isn’t due until September 22, but the good folks at Sugar Hill have agreed to let us offer a few sneak peeks here on The Bluegrass Blog.

The album showcases Adam as both a vocalist and a fiery mandolinist, accompanied by an all-star cast of pickers and singers with whom he has toured and recorded over the years.

Maybe you’ve heard of some of these folks: Ron Stewart and Ron Block on banjo, Clay Hess, Bryan Sutton and Dan Tymisnki on guitar, Stuart Duncan and Ron Stewart on fiddle, Randy Kohrs on slide guitars, and Barry Bales on bass.

He found a couple of singers too… Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Ronnie Bowman and Chris Stapleton.

The CD will soon ship to radio so you’ll be hearing a lot of it shortly, but in the meantime, here are bits of three tracks to show what is contained therein.

First up, the title track (from Josh Shilling and Craig Market) with Adam on lead vocal, and Chris Stapleton providing harmonies.

Next, a spicy Scotty Stoneman number, with Dan Tyminski on vocals.

And lastly, Half Past Four a great old time fiddle tune given the modern grass treatment by Adam and company.

That is some mighty powerful pickin’ and singin’!

You can read more about One More For The Road, including some comments from Adam, in our earlier post about the project.

Steep Canyon Rangers have re-upped with Rebel Records, and will begin work on their fourth Rebel project later this month.

They have tapped Ronnie Bowman again as producer, reprising his role in the success of the band’s last project, Lovin’ Pretty Women. Tracking is scheduled to begin in late February at Wyatt Rice’s studio just outside of Nashville.

Rangers banjo man Graham Sharp tells us that sticking with what works was the band’s philosophy this time out.

“After a few different prospects and a lot of thinking we decided our next record would be with Rebel.  The decider was simply the fact that Mark and Dave Freeman, and everyone else there, have always been great to work with and so supportive.

Making this record will be a little different than others because it will be the first time we’ve used the same producer on consecutive albums. Needless to say, Ronnie Bowman is one of the more inspiring people to work with; his work ethic is unbelievable.

The Rangers have been plowing through a ton of material, all of it written within the band, and it’s hard to say exactly what shape the finished product will have, but we’re going to find out.”

Rebel is hoping for a Fall ‘09 release, as are the many Steep Canyon Rangers fans worldwide.

The Pick One concert tour we told you about in December has largely come and gone, taking a star-studded bluegrass package show to Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia in early January.

Instead of presenting bands that perform together normally, artists as varied as Ronnie Bowman, Mike Bub, Missy Raines, Terry Baucom, Rob McCoury, Alan Bibey, Mike Compton, Phil Leadbetter, Rob Ickes, Kenny Smith, Tim Stafford, Jason Carter, Steve Gulley, Kim Fox, Dale Ann Bradley, Amanda Smith and Josh Williams were assembled into different groups throughout each show.

Tour organizer Larry Gorley shared a number of photos from shows in Bristol, VA and Kurtztown, PA. They offer a nice flavor of the way these many pickers and singers were staged in various groupings for these concerts, as well as the giant throng on stage for the finales.

Gorley says that the tour has gone well…

“It has been one of the most fun things that I’ve ever been involved in. The crowds have been extremely appreciative of what we’ve done and all the musicians have enjoyed their response and the chance to play with their own. Some great stories have been shared and hopefully new ones will be told after these dates.

We have one more date to do in Stillwater, OK and the tour has been going well. We’ve had 21 musicans on it so far and will likely finish with 25 musicians by tour’s end. Interest has been shown for maybe more of these shows, and hopefully that will happen.

We want to thank all the venues for having us and to all that have come out to see the show, it is much appreciated.”

Perhaps we’ll see an even bigger all-star tour in ‘10.