Greetings from Oakland CA. While not new to music, I am new to playing the mandolin, and have only had mine for a few weeks. It's a Recording King RAM-3 Dirty 30's A-style. I purchased it as a new but blemished instrument, and it needed a complete setup and some fret work, which I did. The first tunes I am working on are Colored Aristocracy, and Ashokan Farewell. Having played Renaissance and Baroque music on classical guitar, has helped because I can take advantage of both the tablature for finger placement along with conventional notation to get the rhythm and counting correct. Eventually I hope to rely on reading just the notation, but that's probably many months away. I'm also working on my tremolo, which being in my middle 80's, is proving to be a bit of a challenge. It's keeping me off the streets and out of trouble, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. David
Welcome David and congratulations on starting this leg of your musical journey!
My welcome, too, David! I'm in my later 70's and all I had to do to get a tremolo was learn how to get my tremors to appear on command. Getting them to stop is another story. Since you read standard music notation, I would point you toward collections of fiddle music as well as for mandolin. No tablature, but much more is available out there than for mandolin. O'Neil's Irish tunes books, Howe's collection, etc, from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are gold mines and are freely downloadable.
Hank, I get you on the hand tremors! Things I used to do that were easy, especially fine bench work now require 3 hands one of them keeping the other steady. 😛 I probably don't have enough time left in my life to become a proficient mandolin player, but it's a great way to occupy my time while retired. I feel the same regarding classical guitar. When playing Renaissance and Baroque music, it's a time machine transporting me back to the royal courts of Europe. I believe a life without music just sucks.
