Practice? Practice!

I have been tinkering for about 18 months. I still consider myself somewhat of a newbie.
I thought I would start off with a question for all of us.
First, how are you approaching learning to play? Practice seems like the only thing I can think of. Anything you have noticed with respect to practice that works for you.
FreeFree....the eternal plinker

I try to practice for about 1 to 2 hours each day. I practice some chords, and play tabs. And I have found that playing the same song over and over helps with tone and the movement of your fingers.

I pick songs that I've learned on other instruments and transfer them to mandolin. This helps in learning the chords. Also I play along with radio or CD's to learn new songs and practice jamming/improv. Jamming with others regularly is great for developing rhythm as well and learning from other players.

I usually spend about 30 minutes in the morning just whailing away with some 2 finger GCD songs since everyone is out of the house and I can make a lot of noise. In the evenings I try to spend 30-60 minutes working on stuff in my Greg Horne beginner book and then work on a few tunes like Whiskey Befroe Breakfast just so I can have a few to play so I can feel like I know something.

hi every body
im new in the mando world, try everyday to put along my fingers, but ive been playing guitar for years and my fingers go to the place they use to be on the guitar.
im sure i will learn a lot on the mandoline cafe, it is a chance for me
sorry for my english (im from vigo-galicia)
ill keep practising

Hi
well I started on the mandolin the way I do on every instrument, by buying a good book and and instructional dvd

I go the traditional way by learning to read normal sheetmusic and play from it, so books are more accessable to me, and I am not so limited, I read tabs too so sometimes I use a tab to learn something if necessary

but I also play/learn chords by playing songs I know,( am a guitar player also) and those don t cause me so much trouble to learn really, even though they are in a different spot, it all seems so logical on the mandoline

also I practise cross picking patterns every day, trying to keep up a nice speed and to get a little faster every day, and when I get it right I try some chord changes with those.

so what I do is;

I work on scales for fifteen minutes or so
play a song a couple of times
work on my chords for a while
practise crosspicking patterns

I play around two hours a day

I hope that in time, the scales that I practise will help me to learn to improvise solo s

the only thing I need to find help for is good backup playing in the bluegrass sessions,but I am sure that problem will solve it self in time

I'm lucky if I get a solid hour of serious practice in a day during the week. That doesn't include fooling around with the mandolin while watching TV. When I started on the mandolin, I realized that I didn't know much about how to practice.

Here's what I generally do:
1. Tune up.
2. Loosen up with scales or tunes I know or improvising for a few minutes.
3. Practice reading for as long as I can, going over a section from the method book I'm using until I feel I've made some progress.
4. Practice some fiddle tunes that I like, or some bluegrass songs and chords.
Sometimes step three becomes playing a tune for half an hour to work on getting it down and memorizing it eventually.
At least that's what I'm doing currently.

Here are some interesting articles from the net about practicing:

http://www.cleverjoe.com/articles/ho...metronome.html

http://cnx.org/content/m11883/latest/

http://www.singingwood.com/NewFiles/...ePractice.html

nice articles phil, I ll read them tomorrow morning, I have to go to bed now..put my mando under the pillow haha

i think i score two goals in here, 1st find a place to learn more about mandoline, patterns, tab, etc...
2nd to learn some english too
thank you

I also I pick songs that I've learned on the hammer dulcimer and transfer them to mandolin. I also chain tunes together,as this makes it easier for me to remember them.
I had no formal training on the dulcimer and am basically teaching myself the mandolin by ear.

As a "newbie" what has been your experience with learning bluegrass vocal songs, or any vocal songs for that matter. Seems there is a bunch of fiddle tune tabs out there, but not much with regard to vocal tunes, which I can only assume is because a vocalist may choose any key. As a banjo player, it was easy to find tab for vocal selections cause you could always use a capo, but not so much with mandolin tab.

<quote: As a "newbie" what has been your experience with learning bluegrass vocal songs, or any vocal songs for that matter.:>quote

I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you mean learning the chords to songs? I know I've been concentrating on melody for some fiddle tunes, and find some chord progressions hard to retain (on any instrument). For transposing from one key to another, I think of the chord numbering for progressions, I - IV - V, for example, which translate from C - F - G, and so on. Then again, I couldn't remember the F#m the other night. There are lots of bluegrass books out there with songs. I've got the Dix Bruce Parking Lot Pickers for Mandolin, which has notation, chord references, and tab.

Your right Phil, there is the Dix Bruce book. But if you notice, they show a note for almost every syllable sung. I don't know many mando players who do that. Most good players add slides, double stops, etc. Where can you find tab showing that kind of stuff? Also, I've not run into the "lots" of books out there that you are referencing. Can you recommend any others.

Ah, I think I misunderstood the question. So you are looking for books that would provide ideas on how to enhance playing a particular song on the mandolin rather than just the straight melody, I gather? In that case, then I don't have any particular suggestions, I'm afraid. I'm having enough trouble trying to play the melodies I would think that adding to the melody is part of the whole learning package as our skills on the little beast improves. Wiser heads than me could perhaps make suggestions on particular learning material.

There are tons of books out there. If you are looking for how to play with adding those extra notes in the melody, it is called cross picking. And you can find a lot of cross picking books out there. I am not that far along yet. And if you want to find tabs with more than just single note melody, go to mandozine. They have a lot of tabs for beginner, intermediate and advanced.

Something I'm having fun / pain with now is arpeggios from Matt Raum's book Mandolin Technique Studies. They're kind of like scales only harder. It forces my left hand up and down into the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. positions on the fretboard and my right hand across all of the strings for each arpeggio.

Initially, practice was very chaotic. It just did what I felt like doing, mostly practicing and learning new tunes. I used my home office as a practice place. I got myself a software metronome. Turn on metronome, layout music on desk, play.

After a while, I decided I wanted a space just for practice. Rearranged my living room. Got myself a music stand. Put up some shelves for music and books, and an old laptop with speakers. Now I have this space and it has a specific purpose. I try to set a specific time, doesn't always work but it's there. I don't schedule anything during that time and try not to allow anything to interfere.

I found a bunch of practice scales from Mickey Cochran at Folk of the Wood. Lots of different keys and left hand finger exercise. Those are always on the music stand. I warm up with Bb (b-flat) scales. Forces me to use all four fingers on the left hand and stretch.

I used to try to work on everything at each practice--tone, speed, tunes, chords, left-hand, right-hand, but I think spreading out my time like that was not so productive. Now, I'm trying to devote each practice to a particular thing.

Scales and arpeggios working on clear tone. Nice a slow.

Chords. Learning new ones. Developing finger strength and pain tolerance.

Tunes. Replaying the ones I've learned and learning new ones.

Speed. Playing tunes, scales, arpeggios, and cranking up the metronome with a focus on speed and clarity.

Right Hand. Working with right hand exercises--banjo rolls, cross-picking, tremolo.

It seems to me that focusing on a single goal over the hour or two that I devote to practice yields better results. There's always a point during a practice where I notice some small improvement, a sense of greater ease, a feeling that my brain is less involved and my hands know what they're doing.

Right-hand Exercise - I think I found this in the MandolinCafe somewhere, but I can't recall where. When I first looked at it, I thought it would be easy and not so useful. Was I ever wrong. I use this all the time.

Software Metronome (Free) - I love this thing. It's very versatile and light weight. If someone uses it, or is already using it, and hates the click sounds, I created new audio files using audio from an old style wooden metronome. They make the metronome during long practice sessions less annoying. Let me know and I'll post them. (Stay away from the Toolbox button. It generates a boat load of empty directories on your computer for other software packages that NCH offers for sale.)

I'm still looking for practice materials for chords and chord changes. If anyone's got some links or pointers, bring it.

Christian (aka DenBear)

I have played at the mandolin for 12 years or so, picking it up once or twice a year, sometimes not so much. This last summer I picked it up, got manic, started taking lessons, reading books and going insane. I've been practicing as much as 5 hours some days. I've gotten up and actually played at a local club three times in the last couple of weeks, playing three different songs each time on my octave mandolin, a recent acquisition.

The three books that have helped me the most in my practice are not "mandolin" books at all. Here they are. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Gr...8644099&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrat...8644467&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story...8644519&sr=8-3

They each in their own way discuss practice and what it takes to get really good at something.

I read them on my Kindle, so it cost me a little less than the list price, but your library may have them.