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Mark is right, and shame on me for not mentioning Harmonious Wail! Sims plays fantastic gypsy swing mandolin, and the group is just plain tight. If they have a gig in your area, go see them. You...

Ouch, Benignus! Switching vocals from C to G? That had to hurt. Like you, I don't have a proper "bluegrass voice", I can't sing very high into the tenor range. So when I pick a tune to sing at the...

Here's a great page with some history of the tune, and a bunch of wonderful old recordings of Soldier's Joy. Mostly fiddlers, but includes one harmonica player.
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Training on what?

There is a purported bluegrass jam at the Dry Bean, which is really more of a country and western jam. Fewer than half of the songs are really bluegrass at that jam. That is on...

I've started working on the FFcP scales that are linked in the mandolin cafe "lessons" area. It looks like a great approach, but I'm a bit confused.

There is only one way presented to play a G...

OK, since I haven't participated in any of the previous threads on this topic, I'll bite. Here's my list:

--Taylor 712 guitar
--old Yamaha nylon string guitar I've had since I was 16
--Weber...

I voted for Blackberry Blossom, since I missed it being done a few months ago. I really struggle with that tune, so I need a good excuse to work on it for a few weeks straight.

Kelly

Thanks for the recommendation. I saw the Homespun sale catalog, and the Monroe 2 DVD set looks very tempting indeed.

Hallelujah! I can pick faster, with a much cleaner sound now! I'm still probably in the "slow" category compared to you real mando players, but I've been struggling with speed and clean sound since I...

John, it sounds great in theory, that nobody should have to pick up their fingers to play the pattern you're talking about. And it isn't a matter of small hands. I'm 6'1", and I can play the...

John, that's excellent advice, but my fingers simply cannot do that. My middle and ring fingers come down 1 fret apart, and can't come down 2 frets apart, no matter how hard I try. So I could maybe...

Yeah, MikeB, that was great. I think I need to do the same, go back to really basic tunes and see if I can improvise over those melodies. I think I'm picking songs that are way too complicated, so...

I bought one of those Steve James DVD's off of eBay, and should have read the description better. The seller is obviously just copying the DVD and printing a copy of the DVD label onto it. I received...

Yellomandolin--Lane Venden is the luthier who worked on my A-12, and since he was resetting the neck, he apparently had some flexibility in choosing the neck angle. This mando doesn't have a...

Lowering the bridge sure isn't working with my Weber Absaroka. I just bought the thing last spring and now it seems like the action is much higher. I hope to heck the neck isn't shifting!

I got my...

Yeah, I'm guilty of dropping out of the project for quite a few months now. I've been focusing on jazz mandolin, to the exclusion of all other styles. My lessons are over for now, since I have to...

I'm struggling with the same problem, playing fast while keeping the sound clean. I went 'round and 'round with my instructor (Sims from Harmonious Wail), convinced that it was my left hand that was...

Oh, man. This is why I don't use power tools! The only power woodworking tool I own is a nice slow bandsaw, and I don't use that very often either. No thanks, I can joint a board quite nicely with my...

I think Buckley has the right idea. I'm going to make some stick-on molded urethane scrolls and points, that I can just glom right onto my Weber Absaroka!...

I play that A chord by barring with my index finger. Works great. I also have fat fingers, and I just discovered something last night that seems to help. I lift my fingers off when playing other...

I have an Absaroka I recently bought, with maple upgrade. It has f-holes. I was considering a maple Bitteroot, but I found that I liked the Absaroka tone better for single string playing. It has...

Very nice, Scott! Listening to Nuages right now, and they really do a wonderful rendition of that tune. And they do Lyle Lovett's She's No Lady? Hmmm...may have to get the CD just to hear a gypsy...

Here ya go

http://www.theguitarguy.com/becarefu.htm

You can play that at 200 bpm? I've been working on Little Rock Getaway all this last week. I've gone from 70 bpm up to about...oh, 90 bpm. There's something just really unnatural about that song!...

Susanne, I tried that method. Neither Internet Explorer nor Mozilla was able to download the file to my computer.