the first 3 tunes you learned?

[mandocrucian]

What were the first three tunes you learned when you started playing mandolin? (Or started playing, if on some other stringed instrument)

NH

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>The first tune I learned (on acoustic guitar) was "The Irish Washerwoman". I also learned "Greensleeves"

On mandolin (maybe a year or so later), the very first tune was also "The Irish Washerwoman". "Soldier's Joy" and "MacLeod's Reel" were probably the next ones.</span>

[jasona]

Father Kelly's Reel, the Dominion Reel, and oddly the Butterfly. I would recommend that you comment to beginners to NOT start with the odd timing of a slip jig Niles--it gave me quite a bit of difficulty!

[John Flynn]

Decades ago, when I started playing guitar seriously, the first tune I learned the chords to was "Mr. Tambourine Man" by Dylan. Much later, the first tunes I learned the melody to on mandolin were "Woody's Rag," "Wildwood Flower" and "Boil 'Em Cabbage Down," from the Tottle book, "Bluegrass Mandolin."

[Kirby161]

swallowtail jig, anne the baker, and the cotton patch rag. (the last one took me forever and i was foolish to try and learn it all at such a low skill level but it was a good experience that taught me to look before you eat.)

[pickinpox]

Down Yonder
Red Wing
Ragtime Annie

[SternART]

Opus 38
Japan
Soldier's Joy

My first instruction book was Grisman's 10 Tunes in 9 Keys.

[PhilGE]

Dubuque
June Apple
Barlow Knife

I think... I first picked up mandolin around 18 years ago. Played around for a couple of years, then put it down until 6 years ago or so. These were straight out of the Fiddler's Fakebook.

[drelb]

Boil 'Em Cabbage Down
Cluck Ole Hen
The Queen's Polka

[Ray Neuman]

Arkansas traveler
StAnnes reel
Whisky before breakfast

Soldiers joy is on the list now

Jump in with both feet I always say!

the fleet fingering professir lol

[Darren Kern]

Copperhead Road- Steve Earle song that is the reason I became interested in learning to play the mandolin

Ashokan Farewell-I find Waltzes easy for a newbie to learn

Old Joe Clark

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Two Soldiers
Ashokan Farewell
Cripple Creek

Daniel

[billkilpatrick]

"oh susannah" from the very helpful mp3 collection on this site
"on the street where you live" from "my fair lady" (thanks to oddnamnool)
"ecco la primavera" by landini one of the many early music tunes i enjoy playing.

eclectic?!? nahhh ....

[bratsche]

Well phoo, since I started on violin when I was 9, I'd have to say my first tunes were Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle, and Lightly Row. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif #

But on the mando-kin, I jumped right in feet-first on the Bach cello and violin sonatas & partitas...

bratsche

[Michael H Geimer]

My first tune (on guitar) was 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen', that along with the C major scale .. one reinforcing the other.

On mandolin the first melody I picked out was the Ode to Joy. I was sitting around with some friends on a sunny afternoon just trying to find a scale or two on this brand new instrument I'd just bought. My buddy Rick said, "Is that Beethoven?" It wasn't, but that got me thinking and pretty soon I was playing something resembling the Ode in G. I still find it's a fun melody to pick.

- Benig

[Pedal Steel Mike]

My first mandolin tune was "Woody's rag" as played by Pete Seegar on the famous "Weavers at Carnegie Hall" album.

Pete Seegar doesn't really play the mandolin. This was his attempt to show how versitile he is. The tune has to be one of the easiest mandolin tunes ever written. Perfect for a beginner.

[YoungFolky]

I think it was Worried Man Blues, Wildwood Flower & Boil Dem Cabbage Down

[bones12]

Soldier's Joy, The Girl I Left Behind Me, Red Fox.....suprisingly I still like to play them still.Doug

[Bobbie Dier]

Farther Along, Soldiers Joy and Old Joe Clark.

[Jon Hall]

The 8th of January
Soldier's Joy
Red Haired Boy

[Wadefox]

Sandy Boys
Soldier's Joy
Kitchen Girls

[Dfyngravity]

I first learn the melody to these 3 tunes and then their chords.
Blackberry Blossom
8th of January
Arkansas Traveler

[Rick Schmidlin]

On Guitar

Hollis Brown
Master Of War
Blowing In The Wind


On Mandolin

Bile 'Em Cabbage Down
Soldiers Joy
Cripple Creek

[gnelson651]

Tennesse Waltz
Boil 'Em Cabbage Down
Cripple Creek

[Karen Kay]

Bile Them Cabbages Down
Red Haired Boy
Cuckoo's Nest (I still sort of hate it)
Karen

[JEStanek]

My First three were (are) ;-)
Jesse James
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Lisa Jane

Jamie

[Steve Williams]

Buffalo Gals
Chinese Breakdown
Liza Jane

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[Greg H.]

My first songs (i.e. fiddle tunes)on guitar were '8th of January', 'Arkansas Traveler', and 'Cross the Big Sandy' thirty some years ago. When I switched over to mandolin (a few decades later)it was just a matter of transposing between guitar and mando, so pretty much anything I knew on guitar could be translated into mandolin (with some notable exceptions--that required the lower strings on guitar as drones etc.).

[Brad Weiss]

Fisher's Hornpipe
Yankee Doodle
Simple Gifts

[Aran]

Heres my 2 cents.

Blackberry blossom (very first tune, Should have known better than to go straight in on page 89 of Tottle's book)

Cripple Creek
Soldiers Joy

[MOP]

Soldier Joy
New campton races
out of join

[Stephanie Reiser]

I had gone out and acquired Thiles intructional Cd, which came with sheet music. Therefore, my first were:
Red Haired Boy, Swallow-tailed Jig, and Hop the Fence.

[Taube Marks]

Angeline the Baker
June Appal/Apple
Miss McCleod's Reel

(on violin, aged 9)Mary Had a Little Lamb


Taube

[AlanN]

8th of January
Arkansas Traveller
- can't remember -

[MandoJon]

Guitar:
12 bar blues in A
12 bar blues in D
12 bar blues in E
(four more and I would have had the complete set!)

Mandolin:
Teir Abhaile
Pat's Top Coat
As I Roved Out
(Some of you will now know EXACTLY which book I first picked up!)

[Jim Yates]

When I got my first mandolin, a 1918 Martin bowl-back for $20 at a "WE BUY SELL ANYTHING" joint circa 1963, I thought it sounded oriental, so I learned SAKURA. I soon after learned MY GAL from the first Jim Kweskin Jug Band record. I think the next tune was THE WRECK OF THE OLD 97 from a Patrick Sky record.
I know my first flat picked guitar tune was WILDWOOD FLOWER and the first finger picking tune was RAILROAD BILL.
The first banjo tune, of course was CRIPPLE CREEK.

[bluesmandolinman]

Midnight Special (my very first song ... with chords only)
Cripple Creek (melody)
Whispering ( melody )

[billkilpatrick]

the songs i listed earlier were the first songs i learned on the mandolin. i can't remember the first songs i learned on a guitar some 40-odd years ago - something folksy, to be sure - but whatever they were ... until recently, i was still playing the same monotonous, dirge like chord changes i learned them in.

when i discovered the mandolin i discovered music.

[Joe F]

Golden Slippers
The Girl I Left Behind Me
Soldier's Joy

[Mando4Life]

Red-Haired Boy
Cripple Creek
Brilliancy

Talk about a steep learning curve http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif But well worth it for sure.

WBL

[glauber]

I started on mandolin last December. My first 3 tunes were: Kesh (jig), Morrison's (jig) and The Maid Behind the Bar (reel). Mrs McLeod's (reel) was one of the next ones. I know quite a few Irish tunes on flute, and they translate well to mandolin.

My first instrument was classical guitar, way back when, and my first important tune there was Greensleeves.

[groveland]

On guitar ca. 1966. I'm surprised a similar list hasn't been posted yet...
Louie Louie
Gloria
House of the Rising Sun

Mandolin was something my uncle played back in the Ukraine.

[Slim Pickins]

Solders Joy. I now use Wheel Hoss. I love the sound of the G string on my Weber. A good drill.

[John Ritchhart]

Arkansas Traveler
Old Joe Clark
and then the **!!@@ gave me Blackberry Blossum after which I didnt play for five years.

[otterly2k]

Over the Waterfall
Banish Misfortune
Whiskey Before Breakfast
...then I got really ambitious (after an Andy Irvine concert) and spent a summer trying to figure out Smeceno Horo...

[fatt-dad]

(Also from the Tottle Book)

Boil 'em Cabbage Down
Old Joe Clark
Cripple Creek

f-d

[straight-a]

Bile Them Cabbages Down
Ragtime Annie
Chinese Breakdown

[mandodebbie]

Ode to Joy
Wildwood Flower
Liberty

[rmcintos]

First tunes on the whistle were Fool's Jig and Fisher's Hornpipe.
First tunes on the mando were Liberty, Fisher's Hornpipe, and from Rich DelGrasso's book Old Joe Clark.

Not to hijack the thread, but how many tunes do you know? You don't have to list them all, just give a number.
I think I know about 35 or so...

[cbarry]

On guitar 25 years back:
Salt Creek
Devil's Dream
Sailor's Hornpipe

On mandolin--Fall of 2004:
Ashokan Farewell
Tennessee Waltz
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (for Christmas--forgot it already!)

I think I can stumble through about seven to nine tunes so far.
Chuck

[luckylarue]

Guitar: I Don't Live Today - Jimi
Fly By Night - Rush
Livin' Lovin' Maid - Led Zep
(What do ya expect at 15?)

Mando: Arkansas Traveler
Soldier's Joy
Old Joe Clark

[Rick Crenshaw]

I'm not sure of the name of the tunes but one of them must have been, "Hey, Can You Close That Door?" At least that's what the family kept calling out as I was playing it.:p

[Jonathan Rudie]

See Saw Waltz
A Minor Waltz
Russian Marzurka
(All great mandolin tunes composed by William Place Jr.)

[HarmonyRexy]

In the Garden

Blowin' in the Wind --- Did that one because I wanted to play the harmonica part w/it.

Spartan Fight Song --- Learned it a couple of years before I went there for school.. but the OLD book that we got it out of had it listed as "The AGGIE FIGHT SONG" from pre-Spartan days when it was the 'Fighting Aggies' all the way. If any of you are from Lansing or went to MSU, you'll probably get a chuckle!


http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[luckylarue]

"...On the banks of the Red Cedar...!" Takes me back to my childhood, growing up in E.L. A Spartan fan forever.

[Tom C]

<span style='color:purple'>Golden Slippers</span>
<span style='color:red'>Soldiers Joy</span>
<span style='color:orange'>Ashokan Farewell</span>

[mando bandage]

Amazing Grace (Mel Bay pocket book came with the case)
Fade Away by the V-Roys
Red Haired Boy.

Funny how you can remember this stuff. (And then St. Anne's Reel, and then Arkansas Traveller....)

R

[Windflite]

Thanks cafe... #This thread just made me smile with memories from 30 years ago and my dad teaching me my first three tunes...Devils Dream, Ragtime Annie and Golden Slippers. #


http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[tommyoliverio]

red haired boy
wayfairing stranger
steampowered aereoplane

[Fred_Murtz]

Sailors Hornpipe
Arkansas Traveler
3rd tune = http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif?http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif?http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

I learned these in the 70's from a thin mando tab book. I can't remember who the author was It had a yellow cover and drawing/painting of a guy playing mando on the cover. I think I bought an accompaning full sized instruction LP that had all the tunes in the book on it.

[maynard g. krebs]

COPPERHEAD ROAD
BILLY (DYLAN)
WORRIED MAN BLUES

[Moose]

I honestly can't recall(?!#). The exuberance of youth ; the ravages of time ; too many nights, lights, cigarette smoke, liqour and women... - Ya' know..., at times I sure miss those days.... Well, anyhow... Moose. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[B. T. Walker]

Redemption Song -- Bob Marley
The Golden Triangle -- The Austin Lounge Lizards
Wilhelmus von Nassouwe -- the national anthem of the Netherlands (no kidding!)

[Dixieland]

She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain
Amazing Grace
Banks Of The Ohio

[edawg]

soldiers joy
old joe clark
golden slippers

[Nora]

Worried Man Blues.
Crooked Creek.
Sittin' Alone In the Moonlight.

[RJ Rummie]

"Red Haired Boy"
"Uncle Pen"
"Blackberry Blossom"

[FlawLaw]

Sally Gooden
Blackberry Blossom
Amazing Grace

[Sue Rieter]

Ran into this thread, thought I might revitalize it :)

Amazing Grace
Cindy (Mandolessons - your first song)
Arkansas Traveler (for my brother)

Sue

[lowtone2]

Whatever the first three in the Jack Tottle book were. Arkansas Traveler, probably Cripple Creek, maybe Blackberry Blossum.

[Mandophyte]

Ba, Ba, Black Sheep
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Maids of the Morne Shore (tune used with Yeats' Sally Gardens)

As I was mid 50's when I started, you might ask why nursery rhymes?
I had no previous musical experience.
I had to decide on tab or staff, and settled on staff because so much more music is available in that format.
I had bought a cheap starter set with a Simon Mayor (UK) tutor, which good as it was, only uses his own tunes, which I didn't know.
I needed tunes which I already knew, and we all have a wealth of them in our brains - nursery rhymes. So I ordered a book of piano music, and sat down.
Just beginning, first I had to work out the notes and then the fingering: D D A A. Lights lit up, and I was on my way!

[Cobalt]

I don't know what was third. First two were Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Followed by Good King Wenceslas, which was also my first experience of learning to play by ear. A lot of trial and error involved, until I discovered where to find the fingering to give the note I wanted. The first phrase is incredibly simple, requiring just one fingered note from the left hand, the rest being open strings.

[Sue Rieter]

Come to think about it, does playing a scale while you sing out, "Do Re Mi....." count?

[Mike Scott]

On Mandolin:
Angeline the Baker
Cluck Old Hen
Golden Slippers

I'm such a hack, I still play them anytime I play and have recently found my timing is way off on the B part of Golden Slippers, so I'm back to using the metronome on it. ACK!

[Darwin Gaston]

Flowers of Edinburgh
Red Haired Boy
Over The Waterfall

[archerscreek]

If I recall correctly, I first learned Brown Eyed Girl, then Old Joe Clark, then Billy in the Lowground.

[Eric Platt]

Guitar - Girl I Left Behind, Red Haired Boy, Liberty. That was about 25-30 years ago.
Mandolin - Cowhide Boots, Appelbo, Storm.

Originally learned Cowhide Boots from Chirps Smith a number of years ago, but then stopped playing mandolin. Was surprised when I picked a mandolin up again a few years ago that I could still play the tune. It's morphed a bit from what Chirps (or Lyman Enloe) played, but still makes sense.

[DavidKOS]

I read through this whole thread, and it seems I learned in a whole different world of mandolin than the rest of y'all!

The first real tunes I learned on mandolin were most likely these traditional Italian ones:

Santa Lucia
Oi Mari
Ce La Luna

I still remember when I got my first mandolin, circa 1971; I was at my Sicilian grandparents' house with a guitar, and Granny asked if I wanted to play mandolin. I said yes, but had no instrument.

She brought me down to Werlein's on Canal St. (now defunct, once New Orlean's largest music store) and bought me some inexpensive but decent imported flatback instrument.

I loved it immediately...and honestly the first thing I played on it was the end to "Maggie May"! So it had to be after July because the record was new.

That mandolin only lasted a short time, as one of my friends accidentally sat on it. I found a used Japanese bowlback - one that sounded good - for 30 bucks and played that for many years.

[pbrad74]

I do not remember my first 3 songs on guitar but as I am a new mandolin player my first three would be "Cindy", "Turkey in the Straw", and "Cluck Old Hen. I have learned 2 others and currently working on "Angeline the Baker" at PegheadNation. Having a blast with these.

[Mark Gunter]

I started with guitar around 1966, didn't pick up a mandolin until 2014!

My dad showed me a few chords on his guitar, then gave me a book to learn from. So I first learned On Top Of Old Smokey and Shenandoah.

My first mandolin was a little bowlback that I bought out of curiosity on Ebay. I fixed it up, looked up a couple chords, and picked out the Johnny Cash tune Flat Top Box which I had been playing on guitar. I practiced that one and Grandfather's Clock with a neighbor, and we played them together at a local jam. Then I gave the bowlback to a friend who had been a violinist in his school years.

Before a year had passed, I got a hankering to buy a mandolin and begin learning how to play it. The bug had bitten me, so I got a cheap little Ibanez and started learning fiddle tunes from Mandolessons: Julia Delaney's, Shove That Pig's Foot A Little Closer To The Fire, Coleman's March, Whiskey Before Breakfast.

The sound of the mandolin has captured me, but I can't seem to capture the tone or cadence I want.So still trying six years later! :mandosmiley:

[bigskygirl]

I find I remember tunes I learned by ear better than ones I memorized. I can remember all the words to 80s power ballads but sometimes can’t think of how Red Haired Boy kicks off and I think because growing up listening ingrained them in my brain.

So...all these years later the tunes I learned by ear are also ingrained and they just come out. One thing that helps me immensely is when presented with a new tune I listen and play the chords until I can hum along, then tackle the melody - a method described above. It may not be exactly the way it’s “supposed” to be played but its a good approximation, its making me a better improvisor, and I can pick up tunes pretty quickly now.

I’ve also put in the work learning and playing alot of fiddle tunes - probably over 100 during the past 5-6 years. Although not required I also know scales, arpeggios, licks, etc and all that has helped me. Of course, I dont remember all of them because some I just learned for that weeks lesson but some have stuck with me because I used the method described above.

[GaryS]

Liza Jane
Old Joe Clark
St. Anne's Reel

New to the mandolin as of April this year.
Many thanks to Baron Collins-Hill for the online lessons.

[LastMohican]

Yankee Doodle, Oh Susana, Worried Man Blues. Thanks, Bert Casey!

[T.D.Nydn]

I know the first tune I tried to figure out was foggy mountain breakdown,,after that I'm not sure...

[Cobalt]

After cutting my teeth on some self-taught stuff, I started to play with some other beginner mandolinists.
The first tune I learned with them was Човен хитається.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pEzqbgOMds
Our playing sounded pretty rough I think, but our parents politely pretended to like it when we performed. ;)

[SammyV]

Whiskey Before Breakfast
Rise - Eddie Vedder
Pachelbel's Canon

[Jess L.]

1. Yet another "Soldier's Joy". :whistling: Must be the most common oldtime dance tune ever!

2. Either "Cielito Lindo" or part of "La Traviata", can't remember which of those preceded the other (simplified versions in any case), both right around the same time though. My dad played versions of those (and other Texas waltzes etc) on harmonica and mandolin. I tried (and completely failed) to learn harmonica, :crying: but I did ok with the mandolin except I didn't much see the need for all that incessant tremolo (which my dad used a lot).

3. "Mississippi Sawyer".

After that was a passel of other dance music (fiddle tunes and various waltzes), by then I'd decided I really liked GDAE tuning so I'd plunk around on whatever instruments I could get my hands on that I could tune (or re-tune, as the case may be) to GDAE :grin: or some other version of all-5ths tuning. I even had a cheap funky old $5 junkstore cello for a while, the bow broke so I plucked the silly thing (badly) like a mini bass. Later on, my grandma (on my dad's side of the family) came to visit for a few weeks (I only met her twice, she lived in a different state and people didn't just casually travel long distances like they do nowadays) and it turned out that she played piano (rowdy honky-tonk stuff :disbelief: and reverent church tunes, :confused: strange combination eh), so after she left (and after I heard a little girl at school play a certain pretty classical piece) I decided I wanted to learn piano so I took piano lessons from the wife of a local family friend for a couple years... not the most high-quality teaching (nothing at all about improv or composition, it was just exercises and practice pieces from 'student' books) but still a good intro to basic music theory stuff... the piano lessons de-mystified the whole written music thing.

[DavidKOS]

but I did ok with the mandolin except I didn't much see the need for all that incessant tremolo (which my dad used a lot).
.

It sounds like your dad played like the folks that taught me....but I like tremolo!

[Zeb Williams]

Bile Them Cabbage
Liberty
Red Haired Boy

[Jess L.]

It sounds like your dad played like the folks that taught me...

Some of the music styles, probably yeah. But mandolin was not my dad's main/best instrument by far, and his mandolin playing could probably have benefited from more dynamics or expression or something. He had picked up a modest assortment of tunes by ear, some of which he adapted to mandolin to where they sounded (as he referred to it) "close enough", they were recognizable, even though sometimes missing various portions like his abbreviated version of La Traviata. (He also sometimes inadvertently created 'crooked' tunes on various of his other instruments, by somehow leaving out an entire measure, or adding an extra measure or two, without even being aware of it.)


...but I like tremolo!

Well I think my early lack of enthusiasm about tremolo, was likely further influenced by these things:


The tone of that particular instrument. It was a harsh tinny-sounding cheap plywood Kay, and it was impossible to keep that thing in tune for more than about 3 minutes on a good day. Just one plucked out-of-tune note could be tolerable, but it was something else entirely to hear the machine-gun tremolo of that same slightly-out-of-tune note over and over again in quick succession.


My high-frequency hearing range was always a lot more sensitive than normal. As a result, to me, the Kay's sharp brittle tone was even more difficult to bear especially with so many notes in quick succession like with tremolo.


In recent times, I'm come to the conclusion that good tremolo must be truly an art form, :mandosmiley: rather than just a mechanical repetitive motion of the pick. It can sound pretty darn nice, or incredibly annoying, depending - apparently - on how the player deploys it.

[Cobalt]

I must admit, I so rarely hear other mandolin players (live, in person) use tremolo that if I do chance upon an example, I'm overjoyed, no matter what the quality. I used to look forward optimistically when I saw a player with a mandolin walk into the room. But gradually I came to realise that all I was going to hear was the three-chord trick, and then they'd switch back to whatever other instrument was their main one.

[tooloud]

Being a classic rock guitar player my first 3 songs were
Styx "Boat On A River"
REM "Losing My Religion"
Steve Earl "Copper Head Road"

[Bob Buckingham]

Too many years ago to remember but I know they were fiddle tunes, as I played fiddle and guitar when I took up mandolin.

[JeffD]

I took up the mandolin, not so much to be a mandolinner, but because it was distinctly not a guitar. Lots of my friends at the time were going guitar, and I have always been a contrarian.

The first tunes I learned were from records and music around the house. Things in the air, things my parents liked. Things that I thought would sound cool on mandolin.

The first things I tried to figure out were movie themes, "Never On Sunday", "Pride of Jean Brodie", "Born Free", and such. Wow I am dating myself. I am really not THAT old, these were movie soundtrack albums of my parents generation.

I spent quite a few years this way, picking out tunes from my environment, all genres, like shells on a beach. It was many years before I met anyone who played mandolin, before I ever heard any bluegrass music, before I started learning fiddle tunes, or ever knowingly heard a recording of a mandolin.

I immediately took to tremolo. It seemed to me at the time what mandolin was all about. Even now, unless explicitly counter indicated, I tremolo everything longer than an eighth note.

All this informs my playing now, and while I do a fair amount bluegrass and old time, my mandolin voice is decidedly different from the main. I don't have automatic or instinctive bluegrass chops.

Of absolutely no influence upon me at the beginning, and very very little to this day, is how any other mandolin player sounds.

Being such a contrarian, I have missed out on a lot of fun, and learned more slowly than others.

[JeffD]

If it is of any interest or helpful, the first fiddle tunes I learned were, in particular order.

Over the Waterfall
Liberty
Petronella
Old French
St. Anne's Reel
Morpath Rant

[k_russ]

Oh Susanna
Devil's Dream
Gavotte II from Bach's 5th Cello Suite.

[Sue Rieter]

The first things I tried to figure out were movie themes, "Never On Sunday", "Pride of Jean Brodie", "Born Free", and such. Wow I am dating myself. I am really not THAT old, these were movie soundtrack albums of my parents generation.

If I had started playing at an earlier age, those sound like songs I would have picked (no pun intended). In fact, I think I will try to play "Never on a Sunday". My Mom loved that song. Also, "Downtown"

Sue

[re simmers]

Wabash Cannonball - very badly, by ear
Irish Washerwoman - tab
Liberty - tab

[Erin M]

First 3 tunes on mandolin (which I've only been playing for a few months):

Angeline the Baker
Arkansas Traveller
Down By The Salley Gardens

And on the classical side, I'm starting to get a decent handle on the Prelude, Sarabande, and Gigue from Bach's cello suite #1 in G (still much room for improvement here though). It probably helps that I was a cellist in another life (back before I switched to bass).

[k_russ]

First 3 tunes on mandolin (which I've only been playing for a few months):

Angeline the Baker
Arkansas Traveller
Down By The Salley Gardens

And on the classical side, I'm starting to get a decent handle on the Prelude, Sarabande, and Gigue from Bach's cello suite #1 in G (still much room for improvement here though). It probably helps that I was a cellist in another life (back before I switched to bass).

Hi Erin, In what key are you playing the Prelude?

[lflngpicker]

There were several songs I sang and played at first with the mandolin: Losing My Religion, Mr. Bojangles, We'll Meet Again, Try a Little Kindness and Song Sung Blue, among others. In terms of instrumental tunes, these were the first three I worked on and got down early on:

Red Haired Boy
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Irish Washerwoman

[soliver]

I think my first tunes were:
Old Joe Clark,
Flop Eared Mule &
Whiskey before Breakfast

Might be wrong though, I can't fully remember.

[Erin M]

Hi Erin, In what key are you playing the Prelude?

Hi, I'm playing in D; mentally transposing up an octave plus a fifth from the cello score. In general, my fingers go in roughly the same places (though not necessarily the same fingers) as on the cello.