Classical Music needed

[Wayne Bagley]

Hi Everyone
I would love to learn classical music. That is my ultimate goal with the mandolin and with practice I feel that I can accomplish it. At the very least I intend to try.

Being a novice I need to start slow. Can you recommend a entry level book that I can purchase that may help. Hopefully there is something out there.

Although I am making the effort to learn Standard Notation, I’m not there yet so I do require a book that includes tabs.

Thanks in advance.
Wayne

[Louise NM]

The "Classical…" section of the "Music by Genre" division will have a lot of information. I don't have specific answers for you—especially about tab—but someone else will.

[Beanzy]

Simon Mayor The Mandolin Tutor and Mastering The Mandolin should be a good start to get you going while using Tab but migrating to standard notation. http://mandolin.co.uk/shop/ it’s not a totally clasical repertoire, but it is an approach based on classical techniques etc. I made up a cardboard frame with moveable horizontal strips of card to blank out the Tablature lines, to make sure I was only looking at the notation and to cut down on the visual clutter on pages with both Tab & notation. That might help you to migrate once you’re a bit more familiar with the dots.
After that Marilyn Mair’s The Complete Mandolinist would be a good follow-up as you advance. http://www.marilynnmair.com/books/
Once you have got the dots under your fingers then the world is your oyster in terms of directions to take from there. There are shed loads of old methods available for free online.

What’ll really accelerate your learning is to get together playing with others; duo, trio orchestras etc. That’s when you realise how ‘flexi’ our timimg can be & learn to count for real. I would definitely get a metronome app you can tolerate the sound of and use that a lot.

[DavidKOS]

Although I am making the effort to learn Standard Notation, I’m not there yet so I do require a book that includes tabs.

I'm happy to see another person interested in classical mandolin.

I do make this suggestion - drop the TAB asap.

It only gets in the way of reading staff notation. Good mandolin books give you the fingerings anyway along the way, so you'll learn to read music faster AND play the mandolin easier if you stop using the TAB and just jump in head first.

You can download many books at:

http://www.mandoisland.de/eng_index.html

I suggest:

Munier:

http://www.mandoisland.de/bilder/sch...l#.Wc0IcyMrLm0

Calace:

http://www.mandoisland.de/bilder/sch...l#.Wc0ILCMrLm0

and a more American book from the mandolin boom

http://www.mandoisland.de/bilder/sch...l#.Wc0IOyMrLm0

[Nevin]

I agree, trying to do a gradual transition from tabs to standard notation will hold you back.

Since most begining classical pieces are pretty much in one key, I found learning scales to be a big help in reading notation. You already know where the notes are.

[Wayne Bagley]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I do realize that I need to drop the tabs. I will certainly continue to work on that. And I will follow through and check out the links that were so graciously provided.
Once again thank you.

[JH Murray]

Caterina Lichtenberg's Artist Works video lessons are well worth it. The beginner section alone has lots of technique that will get you started.

[Wayne Bagley]

Thank you.

[Joel Glassman]

Bach for beginners discussion:
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/g...727&do=discuss

[David L]

You don't really need a book for mandolin. If you can read notation, you can read directly from any sheet music or book. You can read the right hand part of anything in the Anna Magdalena Bach book, or violin or flute (you might have to play an octave lower) music. Why limit yourself to music that was originally for mandolin or music that someone else decided to play on mandolin?

[Jim Garber]

Some good suggestions above for sure. Assuming you can read rudimentary notation you also might want to look at some of the Suzuki violin books. You may even find them at your local library. They have simple classical pieces in the begining grades and they progress in difficulty.

[Macabre]

Caterina Lichtenberg's Artist Works video lessons are well worth it. The beginner section alone has lots of technique that will get you started.

Absolutely this! I switched from tabs to standard notation and advanced quickly in her school.