Mandolin Book for Beginners

[Paul 1401]

Hi All,
I am looking for a fun book to learn from. Any suggestions ? I can read music (although a bit out of practice) and know a bit about music theory. I was looking at Don Julin Mandolin for Dummies ?
Thanks

[DaveGinNJ]

Hi All,
I am looking for a fun book to learn from. Any suggestions ? I can read music (although a bit out of practice) and know a bit about music theory. I was looking at Don Julin Mandolin for Dummies ?
Thanks

The Dom Julin book has a huge amount of info. Personally I found it overwhelming. I used Bert Casey’s book and found it way easier to follow. Of course his book is 100% bluegrass, so if that is not your thing you’ll probably want a different option

[Dan in NH]

Nothing wrong with Mandolin For Dummies at all. Although I wouldn’t call it a method book. More of a reference book.

The best Zero to Hero mandolin method book for someone who can read music is The Complete Mandolinist by Marilyn Mair. Available for cheap on Amazon.

[Dan in NH]

I should mention Marilyn’s book is mostly classical music.

[David Lewis]

Jim richters books are good

Mel bays mandolin beginners is good too

[Paul 1401]

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

[DCHammers]

I'd say take that book money and spend it at Artistworks or Peghead Nation for beginners lessons. More bang for your buck than books. If you want notation on paper, you can also download notation for the tunes you are working on.

[Dan in NH]

I own just about every mandolin method book Amazon knows about, plus a pile that they don’t. While I stand by my recommendation for OP because he can read music, I can’t and my favorite mandolin method book out of the bunch is Mandolin From Scratch by Bruce Emery. See all his music books at his website skepticalguitarist.com.

[Phaedrus157]

I agree with the advice of Peghead Nation courses. I am currently taking beginning mandolin with Sharon Gilchrist and she is wonderful. She starts right from the beginning and trains by ear but really got me playing IMO with all the basic techniques. I'm a classically trained musician but beginner on mandolin and even though I've played guitar for more than 30 years, learned so much about how the mandolin is different and she spends time in sections detailing how guitar is a different beast. I came as perhaps other guitarists, thinking of the mandolin as a small guitar, it was easy to pick of and get sounds and I thought "wow, this is easy". But once I shed my guitar bias and realized what I was playing, more like playing a violin with a pick rather than a guitar, my progress was faster.
Sharon does not provide transcripts and being good at reading music, I was initially put off but have discovered that I use sheet music as a security blanket and it has been a growth experience to learn by ear and memorize the tunes. I feel I am worse than most musicians at ear training so this has truly been growth. Sharon provides a lot of practice on pick direction, analogous to fiddle bow strokes. I have had some experience with a bowed string instrument, classical upright bass, and there is so much emphasis on bow stroke direction. That was what helped me make the leap to think of the mandolin pick as analogous to a bow. IMO, it is very difficult to learn bowing from a book, I really needed a hands on live person to get it and it is a many year process IMO. On the mandolin, it is very helpful to see Sharon's slow teaching on how to use the pick strokes with ghost strokes in between down or up strokes to really dial in the rhythm. IMO, it would be very difficult to get that right out of a book.
I'm also in Marla Fibish's Irish mandolin course (Peghead Nation) because that is my main focus. It is also amazing but she provides transcripts of all the tunes and exercises. Her course is more advanced but if you already are good with picks and strings, easily accomplished. She quickly gets into trickier techniques than Sharon's course and also spends some time with the history of these tunes which is fascinating.
I started the Theory course by Chad Manning. He is great. I went there since I felt comfortable with stringed instruments and wanted to learn the fretboard quickly. His course is so very informative but is detail rich. I plan to return but realized I was spending so much time practicing scales and arpeggios that I did not really have any tunes to present! I will definitely return after I get through the above 2 courses which will leave one with a repertoire for performance or pub sessions.

For those who want a method book, I have downloaded from this site and other internet sites method books by Ranieri Vol 1-4, Bickford Method, Stahl Method. They seem pretty complete and oriented towards classical. Why did I download them even though I am not using them now? Well, being initially trained as a classical musician, it simply felt comfortable but also, I intend to get into them eventually, perhaps in 1-2 yrs and plan to play classical once I get my feet on the ground. I won't comment on them because right now I am intentionally focusing on the 2 courses above. IMO, what the method books provide is specific exercises or studies that focus on specific difficult techniques, ala Arbans (trumpet) or Suzuki (strings).

Just my 2 cents.

[Sue Rieter]

I'm a fairly new player (4 years - wow they went fast) with a stack of books to rival Dan's, and I agree with DCHammers and Phaedrus157 - take a class. Hindsight is 20/20.

Don Julin's book is a good one for reference, and I've thumbed through it more than all the others combined.

[Leester]

+1 for Sharon Gilchrist on Peghead Nation. I've worked through several of her courses and found them to be well done and a great help.