Hello:
I've been playing clawhammer for a few years now, working out of Ken Perlman's and Dan Levenson's books. I've got the basics under my belt and can play about 15 songs from those books. I just started going to a slow jam and I'm enjoying it a lot. They play some standards, plus some new songs I haven't heard of. I was wondering what the best way would be to learn the new songs. I can't pick them up quickly enough to play them on the fly yet, and I'm not sure that my ear is quite good enough to just learn them of recordings. My friend plays fiddle and learns them from this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Fiddlers-Fakebook-Sourcebook-Traditional/dp/0825602386/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339414408&sr=1-1&keywords=fiddlers+fake+book
I thought I might try using that to get the basic tune down, then turn them into clawhammer arrangements based on the techniques I know. I haven't found a really compressive tab book for fiddle tunes, but if anyone has recommendations please let me know. I'd be really curious if there's a better way to start building up a song list. I really appreciate any advice.
thanks a lot,
Mike