Sharon Gilchrist: “Soldier’s Joy”

Peghead Nation’s Melodic Embellishment instructor demonstrates some of the improvisation techniques she teaches in this new mandolin course, now available for subscription.

By: Dan Gabel

July 2, 2021

Earlier this year, Sharon Gilchrist taught a live, eight-part workshop series with Peghead Nation called Melodic Embellishment: A Doorway to Improvisation where she used common bluegrass and old-time tunes like “Old Joe Clark,” “Whiskey Before Breakfast,” “June Apple,” “Angeline the Baker,” and more to demonstrate her method for teaching students how to embellish and vary melodies as a way to begin to improvise.

In one of those sessions, she focused on the tune “Soldier’s Joy,” showing students techniques for playing in different octaves, and combining some of the previous improvisation techniques she had taught, like separating strings, playing with a drone, rhythmic variations, and more. At the end of that session and in this video, Sharon plays through ”Soldier’s Joy” using those techniques and others to vary the melody.

You can now subscribe to Melodic Embellishment and learn Sharon’s unique method for beginning to improvise. The course includes all the video footage and Q&A from the live workshop series, as well as extensive notation and tab that Sharon created for the sessions, as well as some play-along tracks and audio examples.

Join Sharon in Melodic Embellishment now!

Check out Sharon’s other course on Peghead Nation, too! Beginning Mandolin, Intermediate Bluegrass Mandolin, and Bluegrass Mandolin Fingerboard Method.

Use promo code SharonLand when you sign up and get your first month free!