Favorite Mandolin Cafe User Blogs

[Mark Gunter]

The cafe website has an enormous wealth of somewhat hidden resources. There are many less obvious areas on this site, kind of like an underground labyrinth of caverns and it's amazing what gems can be found in some of the dark, hidden recesses.

Some of this info gets promoted, like the interviews, the Mandolin Mondays blog, etc. and they are fantastic - but there are a bunch of other user blogs that are great to follow as well. I just wanted to mention a couple of my favorites here, and if any of you have favorites you'd like to share, I'd like to hear about them here.

First, the blog by JeffD titled Notes From The Field. I think he started this in August of 2009, and there are a lot of entries there. What I like about it is that most of the posts are very well written and very thoughtful. I always enjoy reading a few from the archives there because Jeff has a way with words and the thoughts are sure to make me either do a "He77 yeah, you nailed it!" or a "Hmm, maybe I should think a bit more about my paradigm here." See Notes From The Field Blog

Second is a big favorite of mine, and not to be found in the actual blog section of the site; rather, it is a running post in the MandoCymru social group titled Historic Sites for FFCP Practice by greenwdse. Here is another interesting writer, preserving a log of his mandolin learning journey as he wanders around the historic sites of Wales. Each post is complete with beautiful images of the historic location, the author's review/ratings of the experience, often a bit of history spiced with great humor, and musings about progress with the instrument, snatches of music, etc. It's a must-read for me. Check out Historic Sites for FFCP Practice.

So anyway, if you're becoming a mandolin cafe junkie, and run out of threads to read in the main forum, check out one of these - or just browse around the many links found above all around the header area - lots of gold and jewels hidden all down in the labyrinth of locations here. Let me know about any hidden gems you'd like to share with the rest of us here.

[BrianWilliam]

Sadly, the MC blogs are not mobile friendly so I rarely see them.

[Mark Gunter]

Sadly, the MC blogs are not mobile friendly so I rarely see them.

Yeah, that's one really big problem with all the extra stuff here, and so many people are browsing via mobile these days. I compromise by viewing the full site on my phone, rather than the default mobile version. As you probably already know, there's a link near the page bottom where you can choose this option on a mobile device. It's a big compromise, since the full site view is of course not optimized for a mobile screen, but I spend so much of my time reading group posts, it is a workable alternative.