What is the easiest kind of music to play

[Mental Floss]

I have been reading the thread on " What is the hardest music to play on the mandolin?"
I come from the other end of the spectum...where having zero experience with ANY insturment...I would like to know what is the easiest kind of music to play on the mandolin.
I am starting with bluegrass and I am moving forward little by little.... SOOOOO WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[JeffD]

Well I don't think bluegrass is the easiest, thats for sure. The expectations are too great, the bar is too high. You can't get away with playing poorly.


I would say the easiest would be southern old timey. Not because the tunes are easy mind you, but because you generally play in unison and get to play the tune over and over 825409234 times, so eventually, despite your best intentions, you do get it down.

[Bob Wiegers]

hmmm....twinkle, twinkle little star perhaps? mary had a little lamb? 4'33? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3)

seriously, the easiest stuff for me to play is the stuff I make up. I'm too impatient (and not proficient enough) to learn someone else's tune, and it's too much fun for me to noodle. but that only goes for when I'm by myself.

[JEStanek]

I've discovered that even an open A, D, or E drone on an OM can contribute to an Irish tune.

Jamie

EDIT: Ok Serious edit. A tune I know the tune too and can sing/hum it in my head I can learn the melody much better than something from notation or tab alone.

[mandopete]

Polka.

[John Flynn]

Well I don't think bluegrass is the easiest, thats for sure. The expectations are too great, the bar is too high. You can't get away with playing poorly.

For solos, maybe. But once you get the basic chop chords down, rhythm in bluegrass can be very easy at its most basic level. I'd say if the OP is interested in bluegrass, he should learn the basic chop chords and just pass on the solos until he learns some melodies. Many of the melodies in bluegrass are pentatonic, which helps. He can start soloing just playing melodies, later adding tricks to them. Also, another advantage to bluegrass is many people tend to call the same tunes over and over at jams.

Old-time may be a decent choice if you can find slow/beginner jams, but you come around the Midwest, we tend to play esoteric tunes that aren't hardly in any books or on any CDs and those simple tunes are played so freakin' fast even the 'grassers just have to give up most of the time.

There is no panacea. Any kind of music can be simple at its basic level, but hard at the higher levels. Blues and rock can be just three chords with five note solos, but not the way the pros play it. The real answer is the easiest kind of music is the kind you are really interested in, because you will put in the time on that genre, where you wouldn't on some other genre.

[Gutbucket]

2 chord Folk type songs with open chords. Pete Wernick's slow jam for beginners DVD is a good example.

[TomTyrrell]

The jingles from TV ads. The Big Mac jingle, the Oscar Meyer bologna jingle, the freecreditreportdotcom theme, all those ones you already know and wish you didn't.

[Elliot Luber]

Start with simple tunes that you know how to sing or whistle. Listen to them and develop your ear. Imitate them on the mando. Learn to read simple songs too. After a while you can make them more complex. Lessons make a real difference if you can afford them. Practice slowly, it's the technique you want to remember. Speed teaches you sloppy habits. Eventually you can speed things up.

[JEStanek]

For Grass one of the first bits of advice I got from Anthony Hannigan (now with musicmoose.org) is just chop along not with any chord shape but just dampening the strings with your left hand to learn rythm.

Jamie

[Tillmanator]

hmmm....twinkle, twinkle little star perhaps? mary had a little lamb? 4'33? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3)

seriously, the easiest stuff for me to play is the stuff I make up. I'm too impatient (and not proficient enough) to learn someone else's tune, and it's too much fun for me to noodle. but that only goes for when I'm by myself.
4'33.... LOL. That's too funny. Did you know this song is on NPR's list of 100 must influetial American compositions?

http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/list100.html

[allenhopkins]

Harvey Reid & Joyce Andersen have a book/CD combination called The Song Train with over 50 one- and two-chord songs, with acoustic guitar accompaniment. Might be a good place to start if you're looking for "easy and accessible."

Here's a link to the website. (http://www.songtrain.net/)

[MikeEdgerton]

...I would like to know what is the easiest kind of music to play on the mandolin...
Bad music. I speak from experience.

[Tim McTigue]

Start with simple tunes that you know how to sing or whistle. Listen to them and develop your ear. Imitate them on the mando.
That's great advice, and in fact you've received a lot of good advice here. The first thing I ever learned on the mando was "Never On Sunday", kind of a Greek-sounding tune. I just figured it out by ear. It wasn't that hard, and it also has tremolo-picking possibilities, so you can experiment with that, too. Main thing is just to noodle around at first, become familiar with the instrument and the sounds it makes. Go to the "Chords" link off the main page of this site, and experiment with various chords - they're all shown there in tabulature. I just learned a bunch of chords this past week, and I've been "playing" the mando for over 30 years (but most folks here would call me a beginner, even for that). Anyway, take it slow, have patience with yourself, and don't try to go too fast - but you'll be surprised how much you'll learn in what seems like a short time...

[Eugene]

I don't believe there is any easy "kind" of music. #You can find well-played and difficult music in any genre if you take the time to look for it. #Likewise, there is also an easy way to play in any genre if you take the time to look for it. You should pick the "kind" of music to emulate for love of the sound of the music, wholly independent of any erroneously perceived genre-wide ease. Start easy in your chosen genre, then work towards more advanced. ...And, above all, enjoy.

[David Lloyd]

Learn to play the chord (rythm) part to any song that you want to learn first.There are some really easy to play Bob Dylan ,Birds,and Creedence Clearwater tunes. The list could go on for a while! Dylan's "you ain't goin nowhere is G ,Am ,C over and over. All 2 finger chords! Hey Mr. Spaceman is pretty easy. There is a free download bluegrass version of the song by the Cowlicks http://www.thecowlicks.com/ ,under the music section. A pretty cool band.
Dave

[jim_n_virginia]

I think the easiest is most children songs

[fishdawg40]

I think the easiest is most children songs
Garcia thought so too (or was that Grisman who said that in Grateful Dawg)....

[tango_grass]

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

You've never heard a Finnish Polka!!

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

[Mattg]

Eugene is correct in so many ways. I would add that it is easier to practice the kind of music you love.


Otherwise, think about fiddle tunes. Redhaired boy, whiskey before (for) breakfast, etc. They are not as easy to play as a chord progressions but they are easy in a sense that you can learn something that sounds cool and complicated by breaking the tune down in to smaller phrases and learning the parts by memorization. Put all the parts togather and you have something. Most fiddle tunes are not terribly technical and can be learned with some effort. If all you want to do is strum, go get a guitar. This is not an insult rather, the guitar is great for strumming and it is easier to add hammer-ons, pull-offs and other textural embellishments. I find that playing melodies too is much more satisfying than just playing the chords.

One fiddle tune leads to another. I found them addicting early on. Besides, if you want to play bluegrass jams, most of them will pull out a fiddle tune or two. Lots of fun. One warning though, I'm talking about 4/4 tunes. Some Celtic tunes are in more difficult timings 6/8 (?) but are fun to learn later on.

Mandozine has lots of fiddle tunes in Tabledit format which is a free interface to see and hear the music at the same time on you PC. You can stop and start at will and it helps you to work on the song one piece at a time.

[BlueMountain]

Hymns are easy to play if you already know the hymns. Generally quarter notes or slower and three chords.

In May one of my sons did his senior vocal recital of opera. For the intermission, his pianist "played" John Cage's "4:33". It was amusing to watch it (well-performed by the pianist, but silent) and to watch the audience gradually catch on and begin to laugh. That's a pretty easy one to learn.