Beginner

  1. Beemer
    Beemer
    Hi I'm a total beginner.
    I bought my mandola 6 weeks ago and I am learning with tabs cause I can't read music yet.
    So this group might be helpful for me.
    I hope that I'll be able to contribute as well.
    Oh, btw, I live in Sydney, Australia.
    Cheers for now.
  2. Explorer
    Explorer
    Welcome, Beemer! Hopefully you'll find something helpful to you!

    You know, I'm planning on looking through some of the tenor banjo methods available free online, with an eye towards posting about them here in the group if they're useful. Tenor banjo is tuned CGDA, identically to mandola, so the older out-of-copyright books would be a way to learn to mandola without any monetary outlay.

    Cheers!
  3. Beemer
    Beemer
    Hi Explorer,
    I thought I should stick to the Mandola forum for most of my activities as follows:

    "Beemer, have you tried fretting it? Give it a shot, and see which one works more easily, and which works *less* easily.

    Looking purely at the upper three courses, there's the 4-5-5, which would be easily fretted with one finger on the 4, and a single-finger barre on the remaining 5-5. In fact, one of the movable chord forms, for G as an example, can be formed as 2-4-5-5.

    Using the middle finger for the 4 and the index on 5 as you propose requires the middle finger either wrapping above or below the index fnger used on that 5. To me, that seems pretty twisty and unnecessary.

    That being said, my personal chord book consists of what I came up with as easily applied with *my* own hands. This was after I found that available books had chord forms which didn't fit my particular needs. The great thing is, you can also make decisions based on what works specifically for you."

    I tried it and it works fine, thanks.
    Thanks for the help.
  4. Beemer
    Beemer
    I'm pasting this here for my future reference:
    "Hi Beemer, and welcome!

    There isn't a huge library of books written soecifically for the mandola. However, one can sometimes have luck when searching by looking for books written for the identically-CGDA-tunes tenor banjo.

    In this case, I didn't find any books of Beatles arrangements in CGDA tuning, but I did find some are-bones melody-only tabs over at the Tenor Banjo Tabs site. Here are the specifically tenor banjo Beatles pieces, courtesy of Google, which on the site aren't gathered in one place.

    If you (or anyone) are just starting out, or even for those who have had a mandola for a while but are just looking for some ideas to start moving forward, I'm starting to post some resources over at the Mandola social group here on the Mandolin Café. The groups aren't necessarily that obvious, but can be found in general at the top of the page as the second option under the Learn/Listen button heating.

    Here's a direct link.

    Mandolin Café Mandola Social Group

    Good luck!"
  5. Beemer
    Beemer
    "Hal Leonard published The Beatles for Mandolin book about ten years ago. I can't speak to how well its been received but it might be a good start. The tablature is going to match up for mandolin, mostly, I'd think."
  6. Beemer
    Beemer
    "There's also The Beatles for Solo Mandolin."
  7. Explorer
    Explorer
    Hi, Beemer!

    Just as a suggestion for the regular forum, in any forum topic, on any given page just above the first displayed post and to the right of the screen, there is a little drop-down menu labeled "Thread Tools." That menu has the option "Subscribe to this Thread." Using that option will add a topic to your own personal list.

    Your subscribed topics can be found at the top of the screen, under the menu "Quick Links."

    When I find something of interest in a topic, I subscribe to it. When I later look through my list of topics, I read through it, often finding what I originally subscribed for, and aometimes finding that my growth as a player has made something else more comprehensible.

    Cheers!
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