Your first mandolin method book?

[crisscross]

It would be interesting to know, what was the book, that got you started? Or did you learn by watching videos and playing along?
My first mandolin method book, was the only one available in the shop, where I bought my first mandolin, it's called Mandolinen-Schule bei Walter Götze. I didn't find the exact date of the appearance, but it must be from the first half of the last century.
Walter Götze has also written a guitar method that is still quite popular here in Germany and some collections of German folk dances. One of them is available for download at IMSLP. It's called Deutsche Volkstänze and is arranged for guitar and violin or mandolin.http://imslp.org/wiki/Deutsche_Volks...alter_Wilhelm)
His mandolin method also consists mainly of German folk songs such as Muss I denn
Well, I used this method to get a basic knowledge of the fretboard of the mandolin, and then, on a trip to Munich found Bluegrass Mandolin by Jack Tottle and some other more modern books.
Recently, I rediscovered the Mandolinenschule and played the Bandtanz that's at the end of the book.

So, what was your first mandolin method?

[Roger Moss]

I don't do books well so that's never been a method that worked for me personally. I do videos well so I get my mandolin, guitar, etc lessons, info, etc from YouTube videos. You might be surprised what instructional videos you can find there with a little industrious digging around. In fact, I have found YouTube to be a vast treasure trove of content of all sorts.

[Denny Gies]

Jack Tottle's Bluegrass Mandolin. It helped me a lot when I was just starting.

[JeffD]

When I first wanted to play mandolin, after seeing a friend's bowback, I got out one of fathers banjos, tuned it in fifths, and as I used to play woodwinds, I got out one of my beginner clarinet books, and I just started in learning out what notes were where. My friend had showed me what the strings were tuned to, and I just figured it out from there.

Months later my father got me an inexpensive mandolin and I was off to the races, trying my hand at anything and everything I could find or hear.

It wasn't until many many (quite a few) years later, after I could play well enough to hold my own at a jam, that I ever tried to systematically work through a method book, and it was Marilynn Mair's Complete Mandolinist.

Now, as I pursue classical mandolin with some rigor and seriousness, I am paying attention to method books and etude books, working on exercises assigned by my teacher.

I sometimes wonder if i would have been better off being rigorous from the beginning. And it is not clear to me. I might have just given up if it became less than fun. And I think where we start is perhaps not as important as starting, for no matter what we will have regrets and bad habits and things to learn all over again. No matter what.

[vetus scotia]

I started with the Mel Bay Complete Mandolin Method https://www.amazon.ca/Complete-Mando...andolin+method

then moved on to the Rich DelGrosso method from Hal Leonard https://www.amazon.ca/Hal-Leonard-Ma.../dp/0793585864

Glad I moved to the DelGrosso book, as the Mel Bay book had me playing the fifth fret with my pinky!

[MikeZito]

I flipped my guitar upside down, figured out the 7 basic major mandolin chords, used some of my prior music experience from several other instruments, and went on from there. I'm not a very good player, but I enjoy myself immensely, nonetheless.

[Austin Bob]

This is the first book I bought back in 85 or so. I never made it all the way through, but it did help me to get started. It was the only one the music store had, other than the Mel Brooks chord book I bought. I'm surprised to see that it is still in print.

[AlanN]

Jack Tottle's Bluegrass Mandolin. It helped me a lot when I was just starting.

+1. Also, Jethro's Mandolin Player book (the first one, with Flickin' My Pick, Sam's Bush, etc.)

[vetus scotia]

the Mel Brooks chord book

Oh, if only that were not a typo!


It would go nicely with the Jethro book...

[mandopops]

“Fun with the Mandolin” by Mel Bay for $1.50. I still have it sitting on the shelf. I learned about a half dozen chords. At the time, that was all I was interested in learning.
Joe B

[Randi Gormley]

Mine was Mel Bay too; had a picture of a bowlback on the front. if i can find it, i'll post a photo. i've always wondered who the guy on the frontispiece was, come to think of it.

[Jim Garber]

I played guitar since about 12 and got myself a mandolin in college but never learned from a book. I started fiddle right after college and figured the mandolin was a great transition instrument—left hand like a fiddle and plucked with a pick like a guitar.

I was in an old time band originally playing mostly guitar in my mid-twenties then two guitarists joined up so I started playing a lot more mandolin. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

[Alex Orr]

The Greg Horne books, volume 1 and 2. I still think both are excellent intros to the instrument.

[Austin Bob]

Oh, if only that were not a typo!


It would go nicely with the Jethro book...

LOL, you know what I meant! I was up at 4:00 this morning to drive my nephew to the airport and have been fighting exhausting all day.

[Dave Hanson]

The only one you could get here in England when I started playing was ' How to Play the Mandolin ' by Mario De Pietro, subtitled ' the radio virtuoso ' pretty much useless IMHO.

Dave H

[DavidKOS]

It was about 1971, had just gotten my first mandolin, and found one of these in a used book store:

https://archive.org/details/bickfordmandolin01bick



Bickford Vol. 1

I found copies of the Stahl and Odell books soon after.

[Radish]

The first book I really got on with was 'The Mandolin Tutor' by Simon Mayor. Bought 'Mandolin for Dummies' first, didn't get on with it, got the Simon Mayor book from a friend and went from there. Now 'Mandolin for Dummies' suddenly clicked with me and working through that at the moment.

[CES]

“You Can Teach Yourself Mandolin,” by Dix Bruce. Could have been better (I like having a CD or, more commonly these days, YouTube or online links), but could have definitely been worse. Got me started with correct fingering, explored the conveniences of fifths tuning, and had appropriately basic tunes.

I’d let someone borrow my copy if they wanted, but think Mandolin for Dummies or the Greg Horne series are probably both better. Have never seen Marilyn Mair’s book...

[Scott Rucker]

The Tottle book here, too. Plus, I bought a cheap "Fiddle Tunes on the Mandolin" or similarly titled book that got lost over the years. Another great resource for me later on was the CoMando tef file library.

[Roger Moss]

“You Can Teach Yourself Mandolin,” by Dix Bruce. Could have been better (I like having a CD or, more commonly these days, YouTube or online links), but could have definitely been worse. Got me started with correct fingering, explored the conveniences of fifths tuning, and had appropriately basic tunes.

I’d let someone borrow my copy if they wanted, but think Mandolin for Dummies or the Greg Horne series are probably both better. Have never seen Marilyn Mair’s book...

I had the DVD for that book. Way too elementary. You can get all the information in it from a 5 minute YouTube video. After only one viewing, all it was good for was a coaster.

[LemonyLobster]

I'm still in the midst of my first book, which is "Alfred's teach yourself to play the mandolin." I'm on the last pages and plan to take a break to learn a few songs before starting "Marilynn Mair's complete mandolinist." I think it will be more challenging and far more in depth, which will be great to transition into. Alfred's taught me the notes and some very basic basics, which I do appreciate, though there are some things I didn't like about it.

[Bob A]

I mostly learned without a book. That said, once you've mastered the basics of reading music, August Watters's "Exploring Classical Mandolin" is a treasure trove of great techniques and great music. The sort of techniques a lone woodshedder takes years to discover on his own can be accessed early in the learning process, making further growth rapid while building a solid technical basis.

Don't be put off by "classical". Just as all dancers benefit immensely from studying classical ballet techniques for proper body mechanics to avoid injury, so too learning the techniques presented in this book will provide a great basis for evolving in whatever direction your mandolin takes you.

Shameless plug:
https://www.amazon.com/August-Watter...gust%20Watters

[grassrootphilosopher]

Bluegrass Mandolin by Jack Tottle was my first book. I didn´t even have a mandolin back then. I found its content (including the "mistakes" that were built in for to evade copyright issues) okay as an introduction but otherewise sometimes lacking.

My second book was "The Pentatonic Mandolin" by our mandocrucian Niles Hokkanen. It was not only an eyeopener at the time. Even though it explored things that were way over "my paygrade" it was an extremely nice and informative book and a gateway to musical outer space.

[Simon DS]

I remember years ago having to decide at the time between one of those rock guitar method books and D Brody's most excellent Guitar Pickers Tablature Fakebook. So with the Fakebook my method came from practice, not even a metronome... and it was a long road. Then at a garage sale in Palo Alto in the late eighties I stumbled on Brody's violin/mandolin Fakebook. This was music notation -the real thing! All I needed was a mandolin, I was sooo lucky. But a friend of mine needed the book as he had to leave the country suddenly, on the first flight the following morning.
He said, 'You wouldn't let a friend travel to THAT country with no Fakebook would you?' -so how could I say no?
For for me, learning the mandolin would have to wait another thirty years...

Anyway, here's a bunch of the old method books from archive.org etc, a lot of them have been mentioned so far but there are also some French, Italian and one Spanish one I think, as well as a HUGE old German Folk Song book (!) -if only these had been in tablature and translated all those years ago... But it's kind of cool to glance through them and see how music theory has been taught differently over the years. Enjoy!
Mandolin Method Books in PDF format:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ko1ooc9ws...-rYTzHAPa?dl=0

[Loubrava]

The only one that seemed made for me, Mandolins for Dummies
Lou