Mandolin Music Notation

[Pittsburgh Bill]

I have been visiting this site for a year now and still quite green in this world of mandolin musicians.
I have a question that may seem trite to those with much more experience than me.
Why, is it that, on this site I can find music written for a mandolin in tab, which I lack the patience to even try, and not in notation?
The vast majority of music I have been able to find anywhere written for a mandolin is bluegrass in nature with very little written for rock or even country music. I ultimately use music written for a guitar which needs some massaging to sound good on a mandolin.
Someone please tell me I'm looking in the wrong place for music and lead me to rock and country in notation written for a mandolin.
I really wish I had a talented ear and didn't need sheet music to learn new material, but I don't.

[belbein]

Contact me on Sunday by PM and I'll give you a whole list of places you can find standard-notation roots music.

[JeffD]

The answer is that anything written in notation you can play on the mandolin. In the whole universe of music, not much has been written specifically for mandolin. But if you can read notation, you can read any music that is written down.

Anything written for violin fits perfectly on the mandolin. Every fiddle tune book written, from any genre, any culture, anywhere, can be played on the mandolin.

Just about any fakebook anywhere, in standard notation, can be played on the mandolin. I have a general Country music fakebook, a Patsy Cline tunebook and a Hank Williams tunebook, all written with the melody, guitar chords, and words. I play out of them quite a bit actually.

[Polecat]

Someone please tell me I'm looking in the wrong place for music and lead me to rock and country in notation written for a mandolin.
I really wish I had a talented ear and didn't need sheet music to learn new material, but I don't.

I can't tell you why there is so much tablature and so little dots - it's a cause of frustration to me, too.

As regards the "talented ear", it's less a question of talent and more a question of practice - I notate pieces I want to learn as a learning aid, and find it helps a lot. If you can read standard notation, you can write it. If the music goes by too quickly for your ears (it often does for mine), there is a useful programme you can download for free called Audacity (google will help you find it) - you can import any music as an mp3 and using the "tempo" control slow it down without altering the pitch, which makes it possible to hear what is going on even at the most fearsome tempos. With a little dedication, writing your own lead sheets is not hard.

[Martin Jonas]

I'm a little bit confused by this thread -- there is a vast amount of mandolin music in either standard notation or ABC notation (and therefore convertible into standard notation) in all genres out there, some of it specifically written for mandolin some of it non-instrument-specific. Except for the (rather rudimentary) "tablature" section here on the Cafe, even the music in mandolin tab almost always also has a standard notation staff above it. Equally, if you've only been finding bluegrass mandolin music you haven't been looking hard enough.

Three starting points for tunes in all genres:

Mandozine Practice Tunes (all in TablEdit format, for display in either standard notation or tab)

Song-A-Week social group (a vast number of tunes recorded by members, mostly with links to notation in either standard or ABC)

ABC tune finder (a search engine for tunes in ABC format, which you can display in standard notation on the site)

Martin

[Pittsburgh Bill]

I'm a little bit confused by this thread -- there is a vast amount of mandolin music in either standard notation or ABC notation (and therefore convertible into standard notation) in all genres out there, some of it specifically written for mandolin some of it non-instrument-specific. Except for the (rather rudimentary) "tablature" section here on the Cafe, even the music in mandolin tab almost always also has a standard notation staff above it. Equally, if you've only been finding bluegrass mandolin music you haven't been looking hard enough.

Three starting points for tunes in all genres:

Mandozine Practice Tunes (all in TablEdit format, for display in either standard notation or tab)

Song-A-Week social group (a vast number of tunes recorded by members, mostly with links to notation in either standard or ABC)

ABC tune finder (a search engine for tunes in ABC format, which you can display in standard notation on the site)

Martin

T Y as this is not something I have been able to find. I will be checking out your suggestions.

[JeffD]

The vast majority of music I have been able to find anywhere written for a mandolin is bluegrass in nature with very little written for rock or even country music..

I can't tell you why there is so much tablature and so little dots - it's a cause of frustration to me, too.
.

I am not understanding.

You can walk into just about any music store anywhere, and get a fake book of country music hits and rock and roll hits, blues or easy listening or classical or just about anything, from any decade, or artist, and just read the dots off the page.

If it was written for the mandolin it would look exactly the same. Hardly anything is written for the mandolin for two reasons: one is that almost nobody plays the mandolin. And second, there is nothing special about how a piece of music is written that makes it mandolin music.

Or... what am I not understanding?

[Jim Garber]

Here is a huge sheet music site (IMSLP.org) and I have linked to the mandolin scores there. Lots of classical, some folk, some mandolin methods, etc.

[Bruce Clausen]

Someone please tell me I'm looking in the wrong place for music and lead me to rock and country in notation written for a mandolin..

As JeffD says, it's out there. But one comment to add, in case you're unaware. What you'll find are lead sheets-- the vocal melody with lyrics and chord symbols. Nothing like the kind of instrumental score where each player's part is fully written out. In pop, rock, jazz and country bands the actual instrumental parts played are usually made up by each individual player, and therefore never notated. So if you want to play mandolin on a rock or country tune, learn the tune from the lead sheet, then make up a mandolin part that fits. Hope this helps.

[Adam Sweet]

That's because "mandolin music" other than classical, is a fairly new concept. David Grisman composed a number of pieces in the 1970s and 80s. You can find many of his compositions online and from his Acoustic Disc website. Otherwise, just get yourself a copy of the Fiddler's Fakebook, the Portland Collection (vos 1 and 2) for starters - learning all of those should take you a few years.

[mandolinlee]

Take a trip to the nearest Public Library, sign-up for a Library Card, go to the Music section and find the Reader's Digest series of books: i.e. Country, Show Tunes, Music by Decades, (20's, 30's, 40's, etc), Rock and Roll, Blues, Ragtime, Standards. Again, enough to keep you busy after you get through Adam Sweet's listing. LOL

These are written as Piano music with Right hand melody, Left hand Bass Clef rhythm, Lyrics and Guitar Chord names and symbols.

Lee