Despite the age of my account, I am a pretty new to the mandolin and my previous music experience has been voice and high school band (which is a LONG time ago now). I have signed up with and am using Peghead Nation and I have started taking private lessons (second one is this afternoon).
I am looking for some advice on a good practice regimen that is more than just noodling around on the instrument. So far, my practice sessions, which tend to be about 30 to 45 minutes at a go (all my fingers can take) look something like this:
Picking exercises--down stroke/up stroke across the various strings. Something like G D G D G D G D G A G A G A G A G E G E G E G E, then back up, then D G D G D G D G D A D A D A D A D E D E D E D E, then back up, progressing across all the strings a few times.
Scales. Running scales in G, D, A, E, and C a bunch of times. One or two octaves, depending. I'm not getting out of first position much.
Tunes. Working on a new fiddle/other tune (Nine Pound Hammer at the moment) and running back through the others I know (a whopping 3 at this point).
I am looking for what more I can add. I am especially interested in the silver bullet that will turn my sausage shaped fingers into needles that touch only the string I intend to fret and doesn't mute the adjacent strings. Is there a pill for that?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
Charles
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