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All my life I've heard and liked that tinkly little opening to The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice," and only today did I learn (courtesy of The Wrecking Crew group on Facebook) that it was played...

If I’m understanding this and visualising it correctly, are you saying the arm really does have an important role to play in tremolo?

It always seemed to me that it should, because if you think of...

Oh, the unexpected (but valuable) things we see and learn when we sit in front of the camera to record our progress!

How often have I felt I was chugging along quite nicely on a new tune, only to...

Delighted to see the mention of Michael Daves in this week’s issue of The New Yorker, where a profile on actor Ethan Hawke described Michael coaching Hawke on voice and mando for his role as Ira...

You're welcome. Wish you were here in N. California so we could play our Northfields together!

I think it's a huge value and a must-buy for anyone interested enough in Monroe style to be reading this thread.

How much you get out of it, though, depends on you: Do you need a teacher who...

Re:strings — On my Northfield F5S I tried Straight Up Strings medium gauge, and I think they sound great on it. Never went back to D’Daddario after that. So if you feel like experimenting again, they...

Totally agree. Just one thing to know: If you’re accustomed to a deliberate, very structured, progressive learning curriculum like you’d find on, say, Sharon Gilchrist’s Peghead Nation courses, then...

Purchased!

I think this course really breaks some new ground, compared with other Monroe-style instructional options out there, by focusing on several core concepts, or building blocks, or...

I posted this news item because it gave me a laugh in a dark time.
It just struck me as funny that they singled out harmonicas for the ban — I could imagine some harmonica-hating government official...

I'm not shilling for this, but I did notice Peghead Nation announced Sharon Gilchrist's new course, starting this month, is "Bluegrass Mandolin Fingerboard Method." She gives a preview here.

If you like mysteries (the ones with interesting characters and regional flavor, not the high-andrenaline, high body-count kind),
The Appalachian Mountain Mysteries series by Lynda McDaniel has a...

Thank you, Jesper -- your book is a godsend.

I'm in the midst of really working my way through it (after a couple of false starts)...

I think the reason I put it aside before was that (1) I was...

Another suggestion is to study transcriptions of Bill Monroe solos, particularly fiddle tunes that existed before he did, and feel the difference between how he fingered the phrases vs. the way a...

Great Sunday feature story in the 1/5/2020 New York Times about how luthiers in this nonprofit rural Kentucky shop have been running a successful apprenticeship program to help people find solace and...

Real-time feedback is great, no doubt. The loop between output-feedback-input is instantaneous.

To me, recorded feedback has some distinct advantages over real time, even with a longer wait for...

Tone.

Whatever one’s playing level, and whatever grade of mandolin one has, what are the checkpoints of technique, mechanics, etc., that help pull the best possible tone out of the instrument as...

Mike Compton would be someone I'd really like to hear on your podcast, too.

I'm still pretty new at the mando myself (just 14 months in), but I recently read something that might be apropos:

Someone asked Bill Monroe how he played so fast.
"I'm not fast; I'm quick," he...

My first upgrade happened just today...

My starter mando was a The Loar LM520-VS, which I bought new from The Mandolin Store. The "Pro Setup" that it shipped with was still a little high for my...

It would be a cracker of a true-life story for a musical biopic — but I may have to step out for popcorn every time Ira throws a fit at his mandolin for going out of tune and stomps it to splinters...

Rob Sherman, in the city of Napa. (robertshermanguitars.com)
Mike Marshall likes him and Rob did good work for me, so there you go.

Congratulations and have a blast!

I find that when I’ve got my index finger properly curled in my pick grip, the crease of the first joint on my index finger forms a little pocket or backstop that the back edge of the pick can rest...

That's some really great encouragement there, sbhikes!

Still...

I'm only 6 months into my bluegrass mandolin learning journey, and even though I practice daily and I'm making good progress,...