A couple of months ago I picked up the rocket science banjo book, and I've been feeling pretty proficient lately. After I got the basics from there I learned a bunch of songs from the tab archive, and now I'm learning them by ear off of youtube, and from recordings I make in an old time jam I attend. Often I can even pick up most or all of the melody of a fiddle tune as we play it in the jam, which I'm pretty proud of.
Anyways, my question concerns accompaniment styles. Since I usually focus almost entirely on playing melody, with an occasional "bum diddy" thrown in to fill the gaps, I'm not sure what to do when I run into a song I don't know during a jam. I end up just going "bum diddy bum diddy" on the chords, which is both mentally and musically boring, especially since that's basically what the guitar part is doing. I'm wondering what I can do to add musical interest. I really like when I hear bluegrassers doing relaxed sounding rolls in the background, or doing a sort of countermelody thing, but I think I want to keep more towards downpicking/frailing/clawhammer technique for the moment so I don't get overwhelmed. I did try to work out some two finger thumb lead, but I'm not sure that I want to tackle that for a little while longer, and it's not quite the sound I'm looking for I guess.
I was trying to work out what this guy is doing when he's singing the verses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9CO_8ApXGdg Is he just doing a drop thumb every other time (bum diddy bum pa diddy) and really stressing the thumb to get that almost syncopated sound, or is there more to it? In this video: http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Inko6iQsUMI he definetly has some syncopation going, and I can't figure out what he's doing because I can't see his hands the whole time. I thought that maybe he was doing a particular rhythm of drop thumb combined with what old woodchuck calls the M-skip to get some of it, but I also think maybe it's just how he's accenting things that makes it sound that way. I also really like how open, but still active he sounds when other people are soloing, like the fiddle at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Inko6iQsUMI#t=55
Basically I'm looking for a way to have a more active sounding accompaniment texture but still be able to use the clawhammer type technique I've been working so hard to get good at. Does anyone know of a good book I could check out, or at least more videos of people playing like that to get me pointed in the right direction? There's such a massive number of styles and names for them that I"m not even sure what I should be searching for.
