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A few thoughts - hope it helps :)

1. Play major scales but do not lift your fingers on the way up the scale - if your playing an A major scale for example, your 1st finger plays the A on the 2nd...

The more one uses the 4th finger in playing, the less unruly it becomes.

This is my latest 4th generation flat top mandolin. This is the culmination of 12 years of work improving the sound of the flat top mandolin. It all started from the fact that it is possible to...

Here are some Acadian (East Coast French-Canadian) musicians from New Brunswick, including Louis Arsenault doing a fine performance on mandolin. They're playing a medley, of which the first two tunes...

If you aren't notation impaired....SEVCIK: School of Violin Technic, Books 1-4
School of Violin Technics (Schule der Violintechnik, four parts, 1880)


Vol I, First Position,
vol. II, 2nd to...

This is what was announced:

208623

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

The venue is a restaurant. The admission is not worth mentioning. The concert took place in a rural area....

Espresso and red wine.

think Italian.

This is not something I'd normally do, indeed some might consider it sacrilege, but I'll post here anyway so you can all criticise me if you want. I might :)

Some time back I acquired a couple of...

Here are some pictures of an Embergher model 5 I recently completed in Queensland Blackwood. The curl in the grain is more broken than in maple, so it was hard to get the same continuity of pattern...

I was lucky to hear Avi Avital in a good-sized concert hall back in 2019. His Kerman stood up to the tasks of being heard over the orchestra, and his encore piece was clear as a bell, from ff to pp. ...

Strung up the little Stromberg-Voisinet inspired mandolin yesterday. For those unfamiliar with these, the Stromberg-Voisinet company was the precursor to Kay and this design lived on for another 30...

A post about a 1920s Stromberg-Voisinet mandolin a few weeks back reminded me that I had traced the body and head outline when I did a bit of work on one a few years ago. So here is perhaps the first...

This is a nice video of a band called Cadene, who seem like they are from Central France. The pipes are certainly from there. (Cornemuse du Centre). Really nice, I think. Pretty funky looking lot as...

200241

The case arrived, today. It appears that it was shipped from Germany, and the box was all torn up by UPS, but the case was fine and arrived in 6 days. I tried both my American bowlback and...

Interesting that the Gewa case is listed on the Thomann USA site at this link: https://www.thomannmusic.com/gewa_mandolinenetui.htm

I doubt they are carrying them either if Gewa can’t get them. It...

Hawk Picks

https://hawkpicks.co.uk/

Lots of choices and customization.

Eugene, I'd be interested in knowing the context of these comments.

Although mandolins are not common in symphony orchestras, Mahler and Respighi used them. Mozart tossed one in an opera score,...

But that's all convention eh. I like this Bartok - that's why I like "early music" it let's us play all the funky old stuff like lutes, harpsichords, weird horns..


https://youtu.be/P7Np-z-Emm4

I am curious about exactly who says that and what they mean. Also eager to see what kinds of replies you get to this, as I will be talking about it in my presentation at the Classical Mandolin...

Real nice, why don't you crawl back in your hole.

Yes, you can trill a double stop. & as my friend, David, said it’s not easy. At a lesson w Mr. Vicari something about trills came up & he was demonstrating how to play them. Then he went into some...

I am not sure that this is universal in all classical mandolin music but when I played in all of Carlo Aonzo’s workshops he directed us to pick all notes of ornaments including trills.

I'd suggest that crooked tunes are not necessarily individual tunes, but often have to do with the style of a musician or a musical culture. French-Canadians, and even more, Metis and indigenous...

Here's a baroque mandolin I completed recently:
https://i.imgur.com/UyoZE9b.jpg

And here's a sound/video sample:
TrwK1ZYW5O8

Here are a couple of pieces recorded by the Celtic Studies scholar and Cape Breton fiddler, John Shaw, et al. Shaw's notes imply that relatives of one musician were playing Cape Breton music on...