Sheet music

[crazybear]

Hello all, I'm new here and just getting started with the mandolin after years of nothing. I used to play the guitar and piano, but it's been at least 10 years since really playing either. While I am sure to have many questions in the next few months, my first question is where can I get sheet music for new songs? Would I be able to use guitar sheet music? There seems to be a lot that I can find for guitar and not a lot I can find for mandolin.

Thanks,
Bryan

[DavidKOS]

If you make adaptations for the range differences, you can read off of guitar parts or piano treble clef parts. You can also adapt flute, violin and oboe music as it is all in C like mandolin music.

Music for Bb instruments like trumpet, tenor sax, etc. can be read, but it will sound a step higher as the mandolin is not a Bb instrument.

[trabb]

Depends in part what kind of music you want to play. thesession.org has kept me happy for months with basic notation for fiddle tunes and some Celtic stuff.

[DavidKOS]

Depends in part what kind of music you want to play. thesession.org has kept me happy for months with basic notation for fiddle tunes and some Celtic stuff.

Fiddle tunes - anything written for fiddle - is an easy crossover for mandolin. Great suggestion.

[mandroid]

Hello all, I'm new here and just getting started with the mandolin after years of nothing. I used to play the guitar and piano, but it's been at least 10 years since really playing either. While I am sure to have many questions in the next few months, my first question is where can I get sheet music for new songs? Would I be able to use guitar sheet music? There seems to be a lot that I can find for guitar and not a lot I can find for mandolin.

Thanks,
Bryan

+1, Yes, It's the violin/fiddle music ...that's written out
GDAE strings, those are the same notes, and tuning ..
if you read piano music, the low G is on top of the bass clef ,


but Yes, books, of pop songs, do seem to be adding guitar chord pictograms and the names..




...

[Beanzy]

I reckon once you get used to extracting the melody notes from the modern tune books the piano scores are very accessible. Sibelius scorch is worth downloading for accessing tunes from publishers, especially if you want to convert to a different key.

This is a mine of tunes and lyrics. http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/

and a big shout out for Nigel Gatherer’s tune site & tunebooks. http://www.nigelgatherer.com/tunes.html

more tunes http://www.score-on-line.com/freesco...lection=Violin

When you’re done with those give us a shout......

[Louise NM]

Check the Mel Bay website. They have enough mandolin books for three lifetimes.

[farmerjones]

Get a Fiddler's Fakebook. Get two if you have a cabin.
Farther along, download a Ryan's Mammoth Collection.

[Todd Bowman]

The cafe has a great library of tab that can be opened in a free "viewer" app that lets you view the tune in tab, standard notation, or both. Check out the following links:

https://www.mandolincafe.com/tabledit.html
and
https://www.mandolincafe.com/tabledit.html

There are 1900+ songs in the archive.

[crazybear]

Thank you all for the answers! I will look into all these sources. This is great!

I was also looking for music to songs my kids would know, they listen to a wide variety of modern music. For instance, what about something like the theme song from the cartoon Gravity Falls? I saw a YouTube video of someone playing it on the mandolin, but they may have just picked it up by ear I guess...

[farmerjones]

The cafe has a great library . . . .

Absolutely!
This site and Jazzmando.com are pretty much how I learnt.

[Mando Mort]

Elderly Instruments has a great selection of books. If you know how to read sheet music and know where the notes are on the mandolin fingerboard, you should be able to go with that. That is how I have learned many songs that I had already learned on guitar in the Bluegrass Fakebook.

[Mark Gunter]

If you do decide to try the Tabledit viewer, or Tabledit program for writing your own sheets, well, in addition to the cafe links already given, there is a very large tabledit file library available for free downloads at Mandozine.com

http://www.mandozine.com/music/tabledit_search.php

[FranklintonBill]

mandolessons.com