A number of companies who offer products to the bluegrass market are offering contests and giveaways to celebrate May as Bluegrass Music Month. In one such promotion, Mel Bay Publications has partnered with Michael Kelly Mandolins and will be giving away a Legacy Elegant?© model at the end of the month.

No purchase is necessary to enter the drawing, and online registration is available. Only a single entry is allowed per person, and the contest is limited to legal residents of the United States. The contest deadline is May 31, 2009 and a winner will be selected by random drawing in mid June.

The Legacy Elegant?©, valued at $1285, is a solid wood mandolin with a hand carved top, a radiused ebony fingerboard and gold plated hardware.

You can find more details about this model on the Michael Kelly web site, and full contest rules and online registration at the Mel Bay site.

Mel Bay has a couple of new instructional books that will be of interest to the bluegrass community.

First Jams: Dobro is a starter book (with audio CD) designed for young players who want to learn some simple, familiar songs on resonator guitar. It will also be suitable for a beginner at any age, offering tab and standard for the basic melody of 20 jam session standards.

The First Jams series includes similar books for guitar, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and mountain dulcimer, each showing the melody of the same popular tunes, selling for $14.99.

Also new from Mel Bay is Bluegrass On Hammered Dulcimer, which contains arrangements of 24 familiar bluegrass songs for malletheads. This one was written for intermediate to advanced players, and is written in standard notation.

8 vocal popular pieces are included along with common instrumentals, taken from the traditional repertoire and from The Father of Bluegrass himself. Jerusalem Ridge, Big Mon, Rawhide and Bluegrass Stomp appear from Bill Monroe’s legacy of great tunes.

The book sells for $14.95.