Examines the development of country mandolin performance during the 1930s. During that decade, the mandolin became a featured solo instrument requiring players to develop a new style of playing in order to give vocalists a break, particularly in the "brother act" format. As the decade progressed, numerous idiomatic techniques were tested, discarded and refined leading to instrumental solos based more on playing over chord changes than on the melody itself. The techniques outlined here, based on period recordings, clearly establish the roots of that new solo approach which blossomed in the looser ensemble format of early 1940s "bluegrass" music. Note/tab. 83 pp.