Video instruction questions

[Ben Cooper]

Ok, can of worms time here. I am contemplating getting/investing in some video instruction. I am interested in basic technique as well as learning songs. I have already purchased some books and find them useful, but I think I want to do vieo instruction.
So... what I want to know is not only what is out there for basic instruction, but what people feel are the pros and cons of the particular ones they have used. If you have done a particular series , let me know what it is and what you found were the bemnefits as well as any drawbacks. Also what "style" of instruction and what genre, if any, the music leans towards. (I have done a little looking around, but for the sake of argument, lets say I have a clean slate whan it comes to video instruction/lessons.) Oh, these can be on-line or DVD format.
Thanks everyone!

[Astro]

I started by watching all the free lessons on utube. Particular attention in the beginning to correct posture and hand position before bad habits emerge. Then on to tuning, fret board basics, and 2 finger chords to start easy songs. Then on to basic scales and more fret board knowledge and music theory. Then 3 and 4 finger chord shapes. There was enough free stuff by respected players to cover all that and keep me going for my first year. Then for my second year, I signed up with Mike Marshall's program at Artist Works for one year. That was worth the money at the time but mostly because I had the basics from the free stuff. I found it too much trouble to send in videos for the amount of free time I have, so I did not renew. If you have time to record yourself and send it in, you will get more out of it. Now I have enough fundamentals to learn on my own for awhile. When I slow down and peter out on the rate of my own learning, I will get more lessons somewhere. I think formal lessons works best for me as an on and off type thing but everyone is different. Before Mando I took guitar for a couple of years so I wasn't starting everything from ground zero. Do a search as there are a lot of threads about good free lessons and the introductory stuff is out there and its as good as anything you can pay for in the beginning.

OOps, I see you are already past the introductory phase so my apologies if this wasnt useful.

[bart mcneil]

You don't mention any particular style of music you are interested in such as bluegrass, blues, popular traditional, Classical, or whatever. Might be helpful if you did because of the great variety of teaching videos available. For instance I could help if you were interested in blues which is my specialty. But I have little interest in bluegrass, classical, etc. I suspect you are at the stage where a little more focus would be good.

[Ben Cooper]

Astro, anything is useful! I am looking at it as a clean slate. Also, review is never a bad thing especially if it helps me to correct any mistakes or "bad habits". I do have Mandolin for Dummies and have been using it to help. The only trouble I have had with you-tube videos is that many of them that I have found do not seem to go in an "order". I like your list though and may try that progression.

Bart, I am interested in many different types of music. I love blues, Irish/celtic/Scottish, rock & roll traditional and some classical. i don't know much bluegrass.

[Mickey King]

I've been doing Matt Flinner's online course and it has definitely improved my skills. It is heavy on fundamental and exercises which is just what I needed. Here's a link to the free session he did back in June. http://vimeo.com/97615906

[Ben Cooper]

Thanks Mickey, I will give it a look!

[Astro]

I started with Pete Martin's free lessons on utube and worked through them in order. I also used Brad Laird's utube videos from the beginning and worked them in order. You can go in order on both. Both of these guys are my unsung heros and deserve a mando medal for sharing these fantastic free introductorey utube lessons. They are both excellent.

I watched most of Mike Marshall's free utube lessons too, and they are ok. Just recently the guy from mandolessons.com posted and his site is pretty good too. Then there are countless other free utube lessons that I have learned from. The problem for me with the Matt Finners type of skype type lessons is that there is just too much waisted time with internet connectivity problems, reversed screen viewing, and extraneous talk and silly participant questions to keep my attention. I prefer the canned lessons.

The reversed image problem is really annoying and there is no excuse for the teacher to broadcast that way. As a mac user, I was frustrated by this problem when I signed up for Artist Works with MM. He would say to just get with the technical people at Artist Works to fix the problem but they werent very responsive and I was never able to fix it easily. I would have to download the whole recording into a movie viewer that had the reverse image option and then redownload and it was just too time consuming. Maybe newer macs have fixed this annoying problem ?

[Ben Cooper]

Cool Astro! I like it! Not sure about the reversed image problem.

[Ben Cooper]

You don't mention any particular style of music you are interested in such as bluegrass, blues, popular traditional, Classical, or whatever. Might be helpful if you did because of the great variety of teaching videos available. For instance I could help if you were interested in blues which is my specialty. But I have little interest in bluegrass, classical, etc. I suspect you are at the stage where a little more focus would be good.

Do you have some you tube videos Bart? That would be cool!

[Ben Cooper]

Astro, I have watched the first 4 of the Pete Martin free "basics" videos and they have been helpful! Nice to work on the basics of holding and be more ergonomic.
Mickey, I got the free session from Matt Flinner and I am going to check it out tomorrow. Thanks!

[Ben Cooper]

Really liking those that have been suggested! Any others that people like?

[Pete Martin]

You can also see my "Mando Tips" series at www.PetimarPress.com

And my "Jazz Mando Tips" series at www.Jazz-Mandolin.com

Have fun!

[bigskygirl]

Have you thought about Skype lessons? I've been taking lessons with Emory Lester for almost a year now and it works out great. I'm learning a lot, we build on prior lessons and find time to go over any new stuff I ask him about. We've done bluegrass, old time, jazz, and Irish tunes. The nice thing is its an individual lesson tailored to my interests rather than a canned video presentation (not that there's anything wrong with that...) so if I run across something that interests me we discuss it.

We mostly swap PDFs and mp3s rather than video which doesn't seem necessary as we can see each other during the Skype lesson. There is a delay to get used to but it's really not an issue.

[Ben Cooper]

You can also see my "Mando Tips" series at www.PetimarPress.com

And my "Jazz Mando Tips" series at www.Jazz-Mandolin.com

Have fun!

Wow, cool! Thanks Pete!

Will check it all out!

[flynyrdskynyrd]

Ben, if I may, just to clarify...

In the Bluegrass 101 program, I've tried to create several options for students to learn and practice to improve their skills. Hopefully these options give participants some ability to tailor the program to their needs or tastes.

First, there are the live sessions, which happen twice per week. As long as you've got a decent internet connection (let's say, 1-2 mbps download speed), connectivity is rarely an issue. And part of the point of these sessions is to allow you, the student, to ask questions in real time and get answers in real time. We also run through all of the exercises, tunes, etc. for that week. It's a classroom-type setting, and it's not for everyone. But even just playing along in an organized setting twice per week seems to be beneficial to most of my students; besides learning new material each week, I feel it also encourages good practice habits.

Second, there are short practice videos (usually between 30 seconds and 3 minutes long) students can access which focus on each exercise and tune (if you're annoyed by student questions etc. during the live sessions, these are the videos for you), as well as short practice mp3s of the tunes to play along with. I do my best to make it all as user-friendly as possible, and to give students several ways of going about practicing and learning.

Third, there are video recordings of all of the live sessions, which students can revisit any time. This is where the reversed image issue comes in. Thus far, I haven't been able to resolve the issue of the reversed image recordings (I can't speak to Artist Works), but will correct it as soon as it is technically feasible for me. If the sessions are reversed when viewing them live, I'm not aware of it---Astro's comments here are the first I've heard or seen from any students about this. Either way, for now I recommend my students use me as a "mirror" when practicing with those videos (assuming they're playing right-handed); this seems to work well for most students.

Astro, I'm sorry the program didn't work well for you, and wish you the best of luck in your mandolin pursuits. I know that both Mike Marshall and I try to make our programs the best they can be, and are always working to add to and improve them. I hope you'll revisit both sometime in the future.

I hope that helps, Ben! Feel free to message me with any questions about the program.

Good luck!
Matt Flinner