Search:

Nashville is a great place for mandolin related stuff. If you have to pick a single spot to go, I'd recommend going there and hitting up some retail shops like Grunh and Carters. They have tons of...

Hey all,

I was working this up Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms for a student and figured I'd make a post of it.

The post contains a basic chord / lyric chart, 2 ways to play the melody, 2 ways...

No matter the genre, good practice is the same. No practice can really start without a goal or a reason for you to be practicing. If you don't have a goal, that's just playing music - which is great...

I used to tune my guitar to D A E G B E or D A E G A E for fun. I never actually played any shows or wrote any songs with those tunings, but they were fun to play around in.

Great stuff man! Really clean and well put together :)

Glad y'all like it and thanks for the compliments :)

I have 3 I'm working on now:

- Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms
- Swing 42
- Clinch Mountain Backstep

If you have any suggestions for...

I just posted the next lesson in my Chord Shapes series covering basic minor triads.

Check it out here https://mattcbruno.com/2022/06/27/chord-shapes-minor-shapes/ and let me know what you think...

Good recording quality and nice break on this too. Good stuff man! Nice swing type feel!

If the Windermere is Windermere in Seattle WA, we're neighbors ;)

Hey all - here's a quick breakdown of Salt Creek including the basic melody, chords, a harmony idea, and a few chord options. Enjoy

https://mattcbruno.com/2022/06/23/song-breakdown-salt-creek/

I think there's a good distinction I forgot to make. Playing a percussive "chop" is one thing, and the "Big G Chop" chord is another IMO.

The Big G Chop is just the closed chord shape that...

Haha - no worries. Too bad we didn't connect before - I was at Wenatchee myself and it woulda been fun to jam! On Saturday, I was walking around with an ape costume on ;) It may look funny - but...

Depends on the tune and the jam I think.

For a faster song, I generally steer clear of open chords because they can bleed over each other and I don't personally like the way it sounds. So for...

Are you talking about the Wenatchee festival? The Darrington is in July :)

I'm far from a great song writer - but couple of thoughts:

1. The list idea presented earlier is a great one. A friend of mine does this for her songs - when she doesn't have a starting point...

I took it down since the full post went up here - https://mattcbruno.com/2022/06/20/chord-shapes-major-shapes/

Thanks for the feedback Journey Bear :)

For the 0223 chord, I see what you're talking about. I updated the site and added that in as a Full 4 note basically using 2455 and noting that you can...

Hey all - anyone heading to the Darrington Bluegrass fest? This one is real close to my house, so I'm pretty pumped about it!

I was thinking, if there's at least a couple from the MC going, we...

Hey all, Here's the first in my chord shape series which I previewed a bit ago for some feedback. I've made updates based on what I heard -...

Or that the mandolin is not balanced well with the strap. IMO, if I have to hold the mandolin up with my hands, then I'm introducing additional friction with the mandolin resting on my hand that...

Just to be clear - by "fumble fingers" do you mean you're not able to get your fingers to play the notes you intended to play (i.e. trying to hit the 5th fret, but over / under shoot and get the 6th...

Hey all

I've been post a lot more lessons and song breakdowns - so I had to make a change to my posting schedule. I just added a breakdown on Billy in the Lowground for anyone interested. It's a...

You sorta hit it when you said that you're trying to go slow but it's awkward. Start slow and play a tune through till you don't really need to think about it much. Picking a song with a simple...

There's also the Fancy AF one's ;)

The curve of mandolin prices vs quality is STEEP. IMO, until you get to those instruments priced around $1,500, you are mostly just paying for better quality control. You can find 2 low end...

Thanks for all the feedback! Based on the views I got from the Preview, I've rearranged my posting schedule and will be posting Major triads, Minor triads, Dom 7, minor 7, and major 7 chords every...