View Full Version : Mandolin training: What works, what doesn't
Timleo
Sep-25-2009, 10:10am
So as most of you know, I'm new to this instrument and have already had a few social speedbumps lol.
I'm trying to find a good method for learning and training myself on this mando. I've been through the lessons on the sight, and they're great for what they are. Are instructional DVDs a good option? I bought a "learn the mandolin" type of book the other day, but it basically just has music theory in it(I'm already pretty versed on that), So I'm feeling rather stuck. Other than just playing open note crosspicking patterns for hours lol.
I was considering ordering the Chris Thile mandolin lesson dvd thing from Elderly.com. Any thoughts on that?
Alex Orr
Sep-25-2009, 10:29am
Greg Horne's Mandolin books (beginner and intermediate). They're exceptionally good.
montana
Sep-25-2009, 10:40am
Start learning fiddle tunes. I believe a persons ability on the mandolin is directly proportional to the number of fiddle tunes/ bluegrass tune-breaks he/she knows. It does two things for you gives you all kinds of technique and a repitore so you can play with people when you go to jams not just try to play some improve which most people do a ###### job of. Learn tunes in all keys even tunes like New Camptown Races in Bb. Once you can play the tunes by memory try to be able to play varitions on them this will get your improve skills working. A multi time national champion fiddler told me that in making the switch from playing fiddle tunes to bluegrass. Play the melody on the breaks and slowly get so you can play a more embellished version of a break in time you will be playing great breaks right off the top of your head.
Mandophyte
Sep-25-2009, 11:32am
Timleo,
Try FFcP. (http://jazzmando.com/) Don't be put off by the references to jazz!
Basically it's how to play any key using four fingerings, complete with exercises to get your fingers, ears and brain all working together.
Enjoy!
Denny Gies
Sep-25-2009, 11:48am
I agree with Montana, fiddle tunes really teach you a lot about the scales and fingerboard. In the end, playing with accepting people is the best way to improve your chops. There are also some very good CD's you can play along with. Most of the Flatt and Scruggs stuff has minimal mandolin in it. The Dreadful Snakes CD and David Grisman's "Home Is Where The Heart Is" is great to play along with and to try to duplicate David's licks. Good luck.
Scott Holt
Sep-25-2009, 11:54am
My advice regarding the Chris Thile DVD is that it might be a bit advanced for a beginning mandolinist.
I started with Ray Valla's Bluegrass mandolin method. It is a collection of around 30 well known fiddle tunes. The versions they have are not overly stripped down or simplified, which makes it a good resourse to introduce some advanced ideas into playing (i.e., the idea of double stops in playing fiddle tunes, etc.). I second the advice above with learning fiddle tunes as a way to learn the mandolin, so many great turn arounds and licks are hidden in these little gems. Have fun!
Rick Schmidlin
Sep-25-2009, 11:55am
Practice and play what ever you like three hours a day.
Practice correctly and play whatever you want three hours a day.
farmerjones
Sep-25-2009, 12:20pm
Mandolin training: What works -
1. Everyone needs honest assesment and feedback on progress. We'll have to pay for this. Take human lessons, clinics, or instruction as often as you can. Monthly, quarterly, or annually.
2. Playing with others. Sure, you can learn a bunch of tunes, then go look for a jam. But you may save time by first attending a regularly scheduled jam, and note what they play, so you could be ready the next time.
3. There's no such thing as too much practice/playing.
What doesn't work - buying a bus and stage clothing before strings. ;)
Seriously, im notoriously lazy, so im liable to decieve myself.
Don't get caught in that trap. See above 1.
Patrick Market
Sep-25-2009, 12:29pm
Mandolin training: What works -
1. Everyone needs honest assesment and feedback on progress. We'll have to pay for this. Take human lessons, clinics, or instruction as often as you can. Monthly, quarterly, or annually.
2. Playing with others. Sure, you can learn a bunch of tunes, then go look for a jam. But you may save time by first attending a regularly scheduled jam, and note what they play, so you could be ready the next time.
3. There's no such thing as too much practice/playing.
What doesn't work - buying a bus and stage clothing before strings. ;)
Seriously, im notoriously lazy, so im liable to decieve myself.
Don't get caught in that trap. See above 1.
Amen! My best decisions were to find a good instructor and a good weekly jam session. And lots of practice. Correctly, of course...
Pickin' Potter
Sep-25-2009, 12:46pm
I'm just starting out as well, so all of the above info is great for me. I'd like to add that there is a ton of stuff on youtube that you may find useful from Banjo Bens Mando stuff to Anthony Hannigan and many more. Also an online metronome that you can google and a program called Trancribe that you can use to slow down the fast stuff while staying in key to hear stuff you want to pick out.
Good luck!
I believe a persons ability on the mandolin is directly proportional to the number of fiddle tunes/ bluegrass tune-breaks he/she knows. .
I am not sure I agree with that particular, but I agree in general that learning and practicing fiddle tunes is a fantastic thing and really propels ones playing forward.
I am a tune guy, everyone knows me as a tune guy. I must know many hundreds of tunes, and twice that if you count tunes that I know if someone else starts them out.
But there is so much more to the mandolin than playing fiddle tunes, especially limiting yourself to fast single note melody in first position stuff. The mandolin is so much more than a plucked fiddle.
I think too much emphasis on tunes at the beginning ignores some of the right hand (strumming and picking hand) work that fiddle tunes don't exercise, and the musical ear development that doesn't get worked out listening only to the melody.
In my mind its tunes, rhythmic chord back up, tremolo. Any newbie on the mandolin should try and work a little on all three of those in practicing. Any one of those three missing and I don't think you can really be a well rounded mandolinner.
Some would add some rudimentary improvisation skills, and some would add double stops, some would insist on mapping the terrain up the neck, etc. and I can't really argue with that, but in trying to boil it down to its essence, I think playing tunes, playing chords, and having some tremolo gets you the title "mandolinner".
:whistling:
Practice correctly and play whatever you want three hours a day.
Yep, wanging away for hours in front of the TV doesn't count for much. What is correct practice?
Focus. Five minutes of focused practice is worth more than five hours of wiggling yer fingers thinking about who's gonna be on Leno. As soon as your attention wanders (and it will) STOP and reset. That make take a few seconds or you may have to get up and walk away for a while.
Work on music you like. Playing fiddle tunes isn't much good if you don't like fiddle tunes.
Use a metronome. This has been discussed ad nauseam on every musician's forum in existence....just do it and you'll hear positive results immediately.
Differentiate between practice and playing. Practice is where you work on what you can't do well and playing is where your only thought is making music. That said practice should ALWAYS be done with as much musicality as you can summon.
The advice to take lessons and play with other people is important. Do both of these things as often and with the best players you can.
I think the single best thing any beginner can do is find a jam and join in. Even if all you know is three chords and the A part to Soldiers Joy, there's things to learn in trying to play with others that no solo practice can give. And the positive feedback from other musicians rewards practice and sets up a vicious cycle of addiction to the mandolin.
Nothing better.
Capt. E
Sep-25-2009, 2:19pm
I have both the Ray Valla bluegrass book and the Greg Horne books. They compliment each other nicely. Those methods coupled with the FFcP mentioned above and you will progress nicely, especially if you get a teacher and find some groups to play with as well. Then it is a matter of practice, practice, practice.
Charley wild
Sep-26-2009, 12:39pm
I agree with JeffD. Just learning fiddle tunes isn't all there is to the mandolin. If that's all you want to do that's fine. But there is a lot more to Bluegrass mandolin than fiddle tunes. And a lot more to the mandolin than Bluegrass.
I also agree with the "take lessons/jam often" school. When I come back from the little jam sessions I go to my playing has improved much more than the same amount of time with just practice. Practice is great but using what you practice is better!
Baron Collins-Hill
Sep-26-2009, 2:02pm
I recommend Mike Marshall's DVDs. They are a very good overview of most things, and the better you get the more helpful they become. Mike talks at length about technique, and I wish I had payed attention to technique when I first started playing. That being said, after watching his videos and really getting serious about technique, I have been playing a lot better.
Baron
mandroid
Sep-26-2009, 6:05pm
Mine are slow learners, I can never get them to go on the papers I put out. :grin:
Ivan Kelsall
Sep-26-2009, 10:27pm
I'm totally self taught on everything i play & i've managed pretty well by simply practicing the tunes i've wanted to play, & working out for myself where the notes are on the fingerboard & where all the different chord inversions are. That,along with as many hours a day practicing as i could fit in, seems to have worked for me. I think that working things out for yourself,makes it stick
in your memory better - IMHO,
Ivan
I'm totally self taught on everything i play & i've managed pretty well by simply practicing the tunes i've wanted to play, & working out for myself where the notes are on the fingerboard & where all the different chord inversions are. That,along with as many hours a day practicing as i could fit in, seems to have worked for me. I think that working things out for yourself,makes it stick
in your memory better - IMHO,
Some might argue that a teacher, or even a video, gets you there quicker. But at some point, even with a teacher, at some point it always comes down to you and your mandolin, working it out for yourself. In a sense, with or without instruction, we are all self taught.
Maybe that is what binds us as a community, we have all spent hours and hours alone, behind the instrument, fighting it out mano a mando.
:mandosmiley:
Some might argue that a teacher, or even a video, gets you there quicker. But at some point, even with a teacher, at some point it always comes down to you and your mandolin, working it out for yourself. In a sense, with our without instruction, we are all self taught.
Maybe that is what binds us as a community, we have all spent hours and hours alone, behind the instrument, fighting it out mano a mando.
You hit on a big reason for even an occasional lesson. It's been important for me over the years of solitary practice to be reminded from time to time I'm not alone in going it alone. That solitary effort really is something we all have in common.
Marni Sorrick
Sep-27-2009, 10:34am
I would offer this as a suggestion: Roland White's Approach to Bluegrass Mandolin. My instructor has me working through this book now, and I actually had the honor of meeting Roland a couple of weeks ago at a Mando Camp in Owensboro, KY. This book is available thru Elderly Instruments' site, and other places I am sure -
ROLAND WHITE'S APPROACH TO BLUEGRASS MANDOLIN by Diane Bouska & Roland White
"For Beginning and Intermediate Players": Instruction from a master! Starts with holding the mandolin and takes you through learning 30 traditional tunes. Roland covers performance tips and ..more...
#573-1 $29.95
I recently decided to work my way completely through non-bluegrass course of self education. I'm going through "The Complete Mandolinist" by Marilyn Mair (a more classically oriented book), following the exercises precisely in order to get out of it what I can. To prevent boredom, on the teacher/student duets I play the student part, then the teacher part, and then combine them. I'm having a blast working on my sight reading as I go through the book.
After this book, I intend to do the entirety of "Getting into Jazz Mando" by fellow member Ted Eschliman. It covers a lot of ground which is applicable to all kinds of music.
Given that the only way to get good is to learn fiddle tunes and bluegrass breaks, of course, neither of these books will help any mandolinist achieve mastery, at least according to Montana above. *laugh* Who would have thought that an instrument with such a long history predating bluegrass would have its definition for mastery reduced to a relatively recent and fairly narrow music? *laugh*
mandocrucian
Sep-27-2009, 1:10pm
Originally Posted by JeffD
Some might argue that a teacher, or even a video, gets you there quicker. But at some point, even with a teacher, at some point it always comes down to you and your mandolin, working it out for yourself. In a sense, with our without instruction, we are all self taught.
"Teaching" (or receiving lessons) and "learning" are not synonymous. You've all heard the old saying: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Well, a teacher can only point out the waterholes, or show you some portals. If you use the "portal" analogy, it's the student who has got to go through the door - since the instructor has already gone through, he/she will meet you on the other side and lead you towards another.
An instructor only streamlines the process, keeping one from wasting a lot of time on deadends, bad habits, etc., but the student has to do the work - nobody can do your pushups for you.
NH
An instructor only streamlines the process, keeping one from wasting a lot of time on deadends, bad habits, etc., but the student has to do the work - nobody can do your pushups for you.
No but he can show you how to do 'em to get the most benefit. A great teacher is first and foremost an eternal student and learning how to be that is one great reason for a lesson or three. You may not need to study long term with anyone but you do need to be shown certain things you'll never get otherwise....what those things are and their number can differ radically from person to person. None of us see everything we need to do to though. A great teach will be a mirror to see things you can't without one.
I've never taken more than a few lessons with any one teacher and some were a lot better than others but I don't recall taking any I was sorry did. When I think about all the well established, professional players who have taken lessons in their middle age I think it's a real disservice to a less experienced player to lead them to believe they don't need lessons. Even if you don't need lessons you need to take some lessons to find out that out.
"Teaching" (or receiving lessons) and "learning" are not synonymous.
My Dad was a teacher, and he used to say that all a teacher can really do is make the student uncomforable in his ignorance and then get out of the way.
mandocrucian
Sep-27-2009, 5:44pm
No but he can show you how to do 'em to get the most benefit. A great teacher is first and foremost an eternal student and learning how to be that is one great reason for a lesson or three. You may not need to study long term with anyone but you do need to be shown certain things you'll never get otherwise....what those things are and their number can differ radically from person to person. None of us see everything we need to do to though. A great teach will be a mirror to see things you can't without one.
I think I pretty much said that in the previous paragraph:
Well, a teacher can only point out the waterholes, or show you some portals. If you use the "portal" analogy, it's the student who has got to go through the door - since the instructor has already gone through, he/she will meet you on the other side and lead you towards another.
What do you think "pointing out portals" (to progress) is? ..... showing the student stuff they wouldn't 'get' on their own, at that point in time. But the fact is, even if I point out/show things, unless the student actually does the drills and works on the ideas/techniques demonstrated (i.e. doing his/her pushups, mental and/or physical), it's not going to happen. I can show the door, but it is the student who has to walk through it.
NH
Rob Gerety
Sep-27-2009, 6:22pm
There is so much I want to learn and understand about music in general and about playing guitar and mandolin. I sometimes feel like my progress is too slow - I lurch from one thing to another - I do move forward and I have improved overall but I would love to have a teacher that I could commit to, and who would commit to me for a good long time, and who would give me an overall plan or outline of how to get from where I am to where I want to be. Someone demanding to push me and give me specific material to work at every day in a logical progression designed to get me down the road in an efficient way. I'm not getting any younger and I feel time slipping away.
But the fact is, even if I point out/show things, unless the student actually does the drills and works on the ideas/techniques demonstrated (i.e. doing his/her pushups, mental and/or physical), it's not going to happen. I can show the door, but it is the student who has to walk through it.
What you actually said was:
"An instructor only streamlines the process, keeping one from wasting a lot of time on deadends, bad habits, etc., but the student has to do the work - nobody can do your pushups for you."
I strongly believe a teacher not only "streamlines the process" but is actually an essential part of the process for anyone who wants to get past the most rudimentary bashing "without wasting a lot of time". That's really the only point I don't agree with you on. If a lot of what I said sounds like it's echoing you that's because I do agree with you on those things..................OK, it did kind of irritate me that you felt the need to say "a teacher can't do the work for you" to the original poster Rob who is a fifty-eight year old man. I suspect that he may have figured that one out by now......my experience teaching is you need to tell that to fourteen year old boys who want you to show them the same three note Marilyn Manson bassline you showed them the week before.
Rob, what I guess I wanted to say is there are things you can get from a teacher besides the theoretical and mechanical instruction of a lesson. If you're new to lessons maybe you could overlook that in the rush to improve...I've taken and taught a few lessons and I've seen it happen. I don't remember a lot of technical details covered in most lessons I took even though I worked hard and absorbed them. The thing I remember over and above everything any teacher ever said to me is, "Every time you pick up your instrument play it like it's the last time you'll ever get to....because one time it will be." Based on your last post a teacher with any true vocation for teaching would enjoy you as a student. You're more than ready, seek that teacher out and get to it.