Have you used this book?

[Chris "Bucket" Thomas]

Have you used this book, Mandolin Ear Training Course?

I am week in this area and have been considering it? Any input & insight is helpful.

http://musicbooksplus.com/mandolin-training-course-p-5407.html

Thanks,

Chris

[MDW]

I've got it and use it. However there are some caveats. It isn't a book. It's two CD's. And in some ways it isn't really ear training as it is generally thought of in other music training (for example jazz) where you learn to recognize/identify intervals, chords, relationships betwen notes, etc. It is a series of licks that Davis has recorded and he teaches some about singing/humming the lick and learning to reproduce what you can hum on the mandolin. So it does help you get better at learning elements of melodies by ear and then being able to play them on the mando. The biggest weakness of the method is that Davis didn't do a very good job of graduating the exercises. CD1 (the easy lick CD) is very approachable, but CD2 takes a huge jump up in degree of difficulty. I consider myself an intermediate level player and would not be able to play many of the licks on the CD, even if I had tab for them, and figuring them out by ear was impossible for me. I guess that will come in a few more years.