Mandolin Picker's Guide to Bluegrass Improvisation

By Mandolin Cafe
March 9, 2010 - 8:30 am

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Pacific, Mo. — Mel Bay Publications, Inc. has announced the availability of Mandolin Picker's Guide to Bluegrass Improvisation, a new combination book and audio CD by Jesper Rübner-Petersen presented in both tablature and standard notation.

Over the course of 200 pages, a series of exercises designed to help the player develop improvisational skills are presented in a fashion that can be combined with the instructor's individual philosophy or by a student wishing to study alone.

All 292 examples contained in the book are found in the recordings. In order to give the reader the best impression of the examples and to make it easier to play along, they're recorded at a medium tempo accompanied by an acoustic guitar. The recordings also contain some rhythm tracks to be used for training improvisation techniques.

The major-themes in the book include:
- The pentatonic sound
- Double-stop improvisation
- Minor chords and Keys
- The blues sound
- Melody oriented improvisation
- How to use Monroe Style, Cross picking, Hot licks
- How to simplify a lick
- Slow/stationary/scale and major-chord based improvising with any Bluegrass-Tune

Additional information:
Purchase: from Elderly Instruments
Purchase: from Mel Bay
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