Sierra Hull: The Mandolin That Started It All and the Making of a Bluegrass Concerto

A Full Circle Moment at DelFest

Some interviews are about gear, some are about technique, and some are about the long arc of a musical life. This conversation with Sierra Hull, filmed on a rainy weekend at DelFest in Cumberland, Maryland, manages to be about all three. Sierra is one of the most respected voices in modern acoustic music, a former mandolin prodigy who has grown into a composer, bandleader, and six-time Grammy nominee. Four of those nominations came from her first independent release, a project she built with a small, hardworking team instead of a major label machine.

She is a mandolin player, but the ideas she shares translate directly to guitar. How do you finish the musical ideas sitting in your voice memos? How do you use the quirks of your instrument as a writing tool? How do you say yes to a gig you are not sure you are ready for? Let's dig in.

Writing a Bluegrass Concerto: The Movements

The story of The Movements starts at the FreshGrass Festival in North Adams, Massachusetts. Each year the festival commissions a few artists to write something new to premiere for its audience. In 2022, they asked Sierra to write a bluegrass concerto. Her first reaction was excitement, followed quickly by a reasonable question: what even is a bluegrass concerto?

She landed on borrowing the classic concerto structure of fast, slow, fast, three contrasting instrumental pieces that work as a whole. That framework gave her boundaries, and boundaries are often exactly what a songwriter needs to get unstuck.

I've logged a lot of pieces in voice memos and had a whole bunch of stuff sitting around, but it's easy to say I'll eventually get to that. This seemed like a good excuse to dig into some of those ideas.

Why Deadlines and Forms Matter

Every serious player has a phone full of half-finished riffs. The commission gave Sierra a reason to revisit them, and the concerto form gave her a shape to pour them into. If your ideas tend to stay unfinished, try giving yourself a structure. Write a three-part instrumental with a fast opening, a slow middle, and a fast closer. Set a premiere date, even if the audience is just a few friends or a video you plan to post.

A Half-Step Modulation in Movement One

Movement one opens in a modal A minor, shifts down to A flat, and then returns to A. That half-step move creates a striking change in color without feeling random, because the return home resolves the tension. Sierra had written the A flat section years earlier as a personal challenge, simply to see if she could compose in that key. She had even tried an early version with her drummer, Mark, before it found a home in the concerto.

For guitarists, A flat is not a key most of us gravitate toward, since it removes the comfort of open strings. That is exactly why it is worth exploring. Writing in an unfamiliar key forces you to think in shapes and intervals rather than leaning on habit.

Composing From the Notes Behind the Nut

The most inventive idea in the piece shaped movement two, which did not exist at all before the commission. Sierra had a long-standing note in her phone about building a melody from the pitches that sound when you pluck the strings behind the nut, the short lengths between the nut and the tuners. Her mandolin version uses notes behind both the nut and the bridge. She would pluck those odd, bell-like tones, find the matching pitches on the fretboard, and build a melody from them.

Because every instrument is a little different, she found herself texting Sean, her guitarist, to ask which notes sounded behind his nut. She also admits with a laugh that her own pitches have drifted slightly since the recording, so she has lost a note here and there. It is close enough.

Try this on your guitar. Gently pluck each string between the nut and the tuning post and use a tuner to identify the pitches. You will likely get a random, slightly dissonant collection of notes. Treat that collection as a scale or motif, find those notes on the neck, and improvise a melody using only them. It is a great way to escape familiar patterns and let the instrument itself suggest something new.

Collaboration Over Sheet Music

When asked whether she wrote out the parts by hand, Sierra's answer was next to none. She did sketch one section in Finale notation software to check whether several independent lines would fit together, but most of the work happened with the band in a room. She credits her bandmates with being sharper and quicker than she is and says they made the ideas better than anything she came up with alone.

That is a healthy model for any group. Notation software is useful for testing whether counterpoint lines collide, but the real refinement happens when people play the music together and react in real time.

Recording It Live, Twice

The studio version was recorded with the whole band playing together, just a few months after the premiere. Sierra booked an extra day while working on her album A Tip Toe High Wire so the music could be captured while it was still fresh under everyone's fingers. Some sections were done in pieces and there were many takes, but there was no multitracking trickery behind the razor-sharp unison between mandolin and fiddle at the end of movement three.

Later, the band returned to FreshGrass and recorded a full live video performance at an on-site studio. Comparing the two versions shows how the piece has evolved over years of performance. Much of it is through-composed, but certain sections are improvisational by design, which keeps the bluegrass spirit alive.

There was a sense of discovery, of kind of fighting for it a little bit.

The takeaway: record your music early and record it again later. The first version captures the excitement of discovery. The later one captures the depth that only comes from living with the material.

The Mandolin That Started It All

The emotional heart of the conversation is Sierra's story about Gibson. As a kid from a small town with no music stores nearby, she visited the Gibson showcase at Opry Mills in Nashville to get some fretwork done on her Flatiron mandolin. That showroom, where visitors could watch luthiers at work behind glass, was later destroyed in the 2010 Nashville flood.

At 11 or 12 years old, she met Danny Roberts, a mandolinist with The Grascals who was then working as a luthier at Gibson. He had seen her perform with Alison Krauss on the Grand Ole Opry and knew she idolized Adam Steffey, Krauss's longtime mandolinist. Gibson had just released an Adam Steffey signature model. He put one in her hands, asked how she would like to have one, and then simply gave it to her.

About three years ago, Gibson called again. They were launching a Lloyd Loar hundred-year reissue and wanted to talk about a Sierra Hull signature mandolin. The result is two US-made models, a Master Model and an F5G, with an Epiphone version in development to offer a more accessible price point.

Heroes, Lineage, and the Next Generation

Sierra still struggles to imagine young players feeling about her the way she felt about Adam Steffey.

My heroes are my superheroes really. Adam Steffey is my Michael Jordan.

She is especially encouraged by how many young women are now coming up on the mandolin, something that was far less common when she was a kid. Bluegrass has always been passed down through direct lineage: players learning licks from records, then sharing stages with the people who made them. That chain is alive and well.

The lesson for guitarists is simple. Pick a hero and study them deeply. Sierra learned Adam Steffey's licks note for note from records. Transcribing a single player thoroughly will teach you phrasing, tone, and taste in ways no method book can.

Saying Yes to the Hard Gig

Sierra's year also included a last-minute call from Béla Fleck. With about a week's notice, she joined Béla Fleck and the Flecktones for a Christmas tour after Howard Levy had a health issue. Béla warned her that their arrangement of The Twelve Days of Christmas moves through twelve keys and twelve time signatures. She said yes anyway.

What reassured her was seeing the band themselves relearning music they had not played in roughly fifteen years, counting through sections like everyone was working on a math proof. Even world-class players have to rebuild their command of difficult material. The tour also featured Alash, a group of Tuvan throat singers, which made for a musical experience unlike anything she had done before.

From there, the whole band heads to Finland and Norway to open arena shows for Brad Paisley, followed by the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and a headline date at the Ryman Auditorium. Sierra notes that Scandinavian audiences listen intently and seem to connect naturally with string band music, which makes sense in a region with deep folk traditions like the nyckelharpa.

Practical Takeaways for Guitarists

• Finish your ideas with a framework. Use a fast, slow, fast structure to turn scattered voice memos into a complete instrumental suite.
• Explore uncomfortable keys. Write a section in A flat or another key you avoid, and try a half-step modulation to create dramatic contrast.
• Use your instrument's quirks. Build a melody from the pitches behind your nut or from any unusual sound your guitar makes.
• Test parts, then play them. Notation software can check whether lines fit, but refine music by playing with others.
• Record early and record again. Capture fresh energy first, then document how the music matures.
• Balance composition and improvisation. Leave intentional open sections so each performance stays alive.
• Say yes, then prepare. Stretch opportunities grow you fastest, and even veterans relearn their parts.
• Study one hero deeply. Learning a single player's language thoroughly shapes your own voice.

Final Thoughts

Sierra Hull's story shows that great musicianship is built from curiosity, generosity, and steady follow-through. A gifted mandolin sparked a lifelong relationship, a festival commission turned old voice memos into a concerto, and a last-minute phone call became an unforgettable tour. Whatever instrument you play, the path forward looks similar: finish your ideas, play with people who push you, and keep learning from the players you admire.