How many learned from a book or

[LowGapBG]

How many of u learned from a book or took lessons to play the mandolin?

[glauber]

Yes. Both, and also taught myself a little.

[Tennessee Jed]

I learned the basics from a book and a DVD. After learning the basics I was pretty much self taught. I never took lessons but I have learned some valuable things in this forum.

[Repent34]

I am currently learning from a book and DVD (Bert Casey) as well as taking lessons. Just started on the lessons, this week will be #3.

I also want to play for JC.

chris

[fatt-dad]

I originally bought the Jack Tottle book then my wife gave me the mandolin fakebook. I've learned alot from both (all in tab). The best lessons that I took (Orrin Starr) were based on him playing/recording and me listening to the tapes and learning the tunes. He helped with technique, etc. The best learning that I've has was playing with other folks. When a tune was called, I'd either refer to to my fakebook or get the tab at www.mandozine.com and then learn the tune on my own. I'm still along way to play/improvise on the fly, but I've come along way with the methods that I've used.

f-d

[Ken Sager]

Books and ABC files found online 7-8 years ago. I did a few workshops over the years, too. Having come from the guitar (30 years including some serious study) and fiddle (10 years as a kid) the mandolin came fairly quickly.

All the music I've ever learned on all instruments, however, has been applied to some degree on the mandolin. It's all music, regardless of the instrument in your hands.

Love to all,
Ken

[arbarnhart]

I used a book at first. I had a lot of guitar and piano/keyboard experience. I was never all that good at either, but I understood how to read notation and to fret an instrument. I learned a lot in a short amount of time because I needed more knowledge in little tidbits with time to absorb and practice and then more knowledge. After a couple of months, I kinda plateued for close to a year. I kicked it into high gear again recently, going to a workshop and starting lessons. It's paying off. Personally, I think the optimum for me would have been to start lessons after 3 months. But again, I had the background with the other instruments. I could read for 5 minutes and understand what I needed to practice for two hours before I bothered reading any more. But after a couple of months, when I got past the basics, I got stuck in some areas, progressed in others and developed a few bad habits along the way. Now it is really easy to fill up an hour with a teacher because I have so many things to work on.

[gnelson651]

Strictly self-taught, I started with my daughter's beginning violin book and learned to read notation. I also used her "American Fiddle Method" books once I could read alittle (in about a month) to learn fiddle tunes. She has both volumes so I learned a few dozen fiddle tunes. After about 8 months, I hooked up with an old time fiddle jam.

About the same time, I also joined a mandolin ensemble group where we played Italian, Celtic, and Classical music. We also played Christmas music gigs during the season. That is where learning to read standard notation really paid off, we used sheet music for all our sets.

After 2 3/4 years, I'm still self-taught since I have not been able to find a teacher in my area. There are some mandolin teachers around but they are guitar/piano teachers who also play the mandolin. If I'm going to pay money for a teacher, I want someone who knows and plays the mandolin as their main instrument.

So lately I've been working through Greg Horne's "Mandolin Method" series and see continued improvement. I'm doing this for fun, not for professional recognition, so for me, a teacher would be nice but is not necessary.

[Hondo]

Both. I began with several books, and after I reached a certain comfort level (about six months), started taking lessons. I’m not currently taking lessons, but that’s due mostly to having to pay for weekly acupuncture treatment on my hands (not covered by insurance), which thus far is the only thing that enables me to play.

Glenn, it might be well worth your while to take lessons with someone whose primary instrument isn’t mandolin. My wife, who is a classically trained organist with no experience with fretted instruments, has been extremely helpful – she’ll watch my hands and make suggestions about position and movement, which has helped my technique immensely. For instance, with regards to speed, she said “It’s all about space and time. The space is fixed, so you have to position your fingers in such a way to cover that space in a smaller amount of time.” She’ll also make comments like “You’re just hitting notes. Make music!” when I’m sounding mechanical rather than musical. A trained musician, a good instructor who knows fretted instruments, might be able to help you out more than you think. I’d consider giving it a try, especially if there are no other options in your area.

[Bob Simmers]

Harold Streeter tab and scale exercises out of the Mel Bay Ray Valla mandolin book. Lessons from Ron Pennington much later. I wish I had the lessons first. I'd be 15 years ahead of the game.

[AlanN]

Ron is one tough picker. I have an old recording of him and Ned Luberecki, man does Ron burn it - deft, good ideas and the chops to pull them off.

[John Flynn]

On guitar, mando, harmonica and bodhran, I taught myself first and took some lessons later. I both used books, with records/tapes/CDs, got other players to show me stuff and also just taught myself by ear. I find beginning instruction tedious for both instructor and learner. More advanced instruction can be valuable once you have a little skill.

[Michael H Geimer]

I took one year of guitar lessons at age fourteen, paid for by my paper route. In that year I learned my scales, chord types, and learned to read notation.

I spent next three years learning classical guitar pieces via notation, but also through the help of friends who could play much better than I could.

On electric guitar, I would try to learn Rush songs out of books ... but the books were all WRONG! So, I had to use my ear and work off records to learn the parts I wanted to know. Again, friends were around to help. There was no (readily available) Internet back then, thus no easy to find TAB or TEF available.

At year four ... I abandonded guitar for the most part, took up keyboards and joined a band (hey, it was the 80's ... keyboards were "cool" ... but not really). Basically, I just wasn't much a guitarist and my friends needed a keyboard player.

Looking back, I got everything I needed.
a) I learned some music theory and to read notation.
b) I practiced learning by ear early on, even though it was very difficult.
c) I joined a band as soon as I could and gained the benefits of regularly playing within a group.

If I had it all back, I would certainly do some things differently, but I'm satisfied with the "work in progress" so far.

[gnelson651]

Glenn, it might be well worth your while to take lessons with someone whose primary instrument isn’t mandolin. My wife, who is a classically trained organist with no experience with fretted instruments, has been extremely helpful – she’ll watch my hands and make suggestions about position and movement, which has helped my technique immensely. For instance, with regards to speed, she said “It’s all about space and time. The space is fixed, so you have to position your fingers in such a way to cover that space in a smaller amount of time.” #She’ll also make comments like “You’re just hitting notes. Make music!” when I’m sounding mechanical rather than musical. A trained musician, a good instructor who knows fretted instruments, might be able to help you out more than you think. I’d consider giving it a try, especially if there are no other options in your area.

Hondo,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've heard these teachers play. They were briefly in the mandolin ensemble and I wasn't impressed.

My daughter is going to a new violin teacher who is interested in helping me out. She doesn't play the mandolin but she knows her music theory and can play a mean fiddle. Which is what I mostly play, fiddle music that is.

Also I just enroled in a community college class for bluegrass. I'm hoping that will be helpful in either my playing or finding the right teacher.

[Soupy1957]

Folk Of The Wood has a ton of links for materials, and I sent away for a DVD and a book/CD combo. I've learned from these tools, but I learn faster from playing with and around others.
-Soupy1957

[Bob Simmers]

AlanN,
I took about a dozen or more lessons from Ron Pennington from '92-'96. Great musician. Mandolin genius, also the acoustic guitar, telecaster, and electric bass. And he can really teach. Fortunately I taped the lessons. Someday I'll put it on CD. Ron is now with Lonesome Road Band, see lrband.com to see their 3 cd's. He's on several Gary Ferguson cd's too. Absolutely the best at playing that medium tempo bluesy stuff.

[epicentre]

Bought a book called something like 25million blue grass breaks, learned some scales from it. Most info and help came from tab sites on the net and tabedit program.

Recently started to teach myself to read music. Surprisingly easy. Wish I had done it years ago....yadda yadda yadda.

Then I found a bunch of players who didn't kick me out. That in itself is a good way to learn.........To learn humility for sure....

Epi

[Smyers]

I played sax for years and picked up a Mando last December. #Even though I played another instrument (albeit a wind instrument), I felt it best to learn the basics from someone with years of training and experience. #I am fortunate in that I live in an area where many players can be found of varied levels of experience and training, so live lessons are available to me.

IMHO, I think it's best to try to avoid learning too many bad habits by teaching yourself. #It's the little subtle things that having an instructor helps with like keeping the right wrist loose, abbreviating your strokes and other such things. #It takes a LOOOONG time to do all those subtle things correctly and I am far from there. #It's impossible to pick up that kind of stuff from a book. #Learning too many bad habits can impede you from breaking through to the next level, as it were. #You need someone of experience to watch you, point the problems out and correct them before they get imbedded. #Having an instructor also helps give you some direction in what you should be working on at certain points of your skill level. #GOOD instructors certainly help to expedite the learning process in the first years of playing any instrument. #I figure I'll continue lessons for a couple more years. #From there, I'll learn from other players. #But I will see what I think a couple of years out from here.

I do take off on my own in books and from the internet. #I then show my instructor what I am doing outside the stuff she gives me. #(Yes, a she, and can she play!) #She helps me with the direction I go off on too. #I am loving the experience and have a lot of fun in the lessons! #Sometimes I am not crazy about certain "drills", but those drills have really helped to put the muscle memory and the tendon stretching (Oh, I just LOVED the streching of tendons in the backs of my hands when I first started!) in my fingers much faster than just playing songs. #Things like position shifting and various scale drills have proved invauable. #(I remember how much I hated scale drills back in high school! #It doesn't seem so bad now. #It's all relative I suppose.) #While not really bluegrass player herself, she plays with others who are and has helped me greatly to that end as she understands what is required to play bluegrass.

While my first love in mando music is bluegrass, I want to be comfortable playing along with as many styles as I can. #Taking live lessons from an instructor with a very musically varied background I believe will help me in the long run to this end. #It certainly does help that I already understood and could read standard notation. #Now if only I can get my head around chord progression, I'd be OK. #I never had to worry about it much on the sax!

Yep, live lessons cost more money I suppose than books in the early years. #I pay $15 for 1 hour every week. #I look at it like buying a couple cups of coffee every day would cost the same amount of dough. #Except that I would just pee out the coffee where I am taking something of what I consider high value from the lessons.

Bottom Line, IMHO: #If you want to learn faster with fewer bad habits and get as complete of a music education as possible on the mando, a live professional instructor of experience is the way to go.

That's my nickel. #