Mandolin For Dummies

Don Julin

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781119943976
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Musica per chitarra

The fun and easy way to learn to play the mandolin

The newest addition to the highly successful Dummies instrument-instruction line, Mandolin For Dummies gives you easy-to-follow, step-by-step instruction on learning to play the mandolin. Following the time-tested Dummies format, Mandolin For Dummies provides a level of content and instruction greater than anything currently available.

Mandolin For Dummies breaks down the fundamentals of this instrument and provides the resources you need to practice and improve your ability over time.

• Packed with individualized instruction on key mandolin-friendly musical styles, including Irish and Celtic, "old time" American music, blues, bluegrass, swing, and jazz
• Files available via downloadprovide audio tracks from the book and exercises so you can play along and build your skills -- almost 2 hours of music!
• Clear and useful photos and diagrams ensure you fret, strum, and pick with precision
• Includes a mandolin buying guide to help ensure you make the right purchases
• Tips on restringing mandolins and other DIY care and maintenance topics

If you're an aspiring mandolin player, don't fret! Mandolin For Dummies has you covered.

Part I

Being Bitten By the Mandolin Bug

In this part . . .

I introduce you to the family of mandolin instruments, describe the different anatomical parts of the mandolin and preview what lies ahead in this book. I show you how to tune your mandolin and how to hold it, whether you choose to stand or sit while playing.

Chapter 1

Becoming Acquainted with Your Mandolin

In This Chapter

Discovering the mandolin

Bringing the family

Exploring the mandolin’s anatomy

In March 1979, I was fresh out of high school — wondering what my future would be — when I met my first mandolin. The event changed my life and sent me on an amazing mandolin journey. Since then I’ve been playing, composing, travelling, teaching, recording and now writing about mandolins – because the mandolin is such a wonderful instrument.

In this chapter, I show you just why the mandolin is such a wonderful instrument (as if you didn’t already know), describing among other things its great sound, sexy looks (steady, Don!), friendly extended family and musical flexibility.

Riding the Mandolin Wave

In today’s world of synthesised pop music, smartphone apps and video games, the mandolin is an oasis of low-tech, organic simplicity. Made of wood and strung with steel strings, the mandolin can bring players and listeners enjoyment without the use of the Internet or even electricity. The mandolin is the perfect desert-island instrument as well as one that city-dwellers can use to (re)discover a simpler time with simpler pleasures.

Mandolins have some great advantages, not least of which is that they’re small enough to fit in an overhead compartment in a plane. What better way to unwind after a stressful business meeting than to go back to your hotel room and play some mandolin music (quietly, of course, unless you’re sure the adjoining rooms are also occupied by mandolin fans!). Try doing that with your piano or cello.

Loving the mandolin sound

For one small instrument, the mandolin can certainly create a number of different but beautiful sounds across a wealth of musical genres:

Old world: Rapid back-and-forth picking (called tremolo) is the signature sound of the mandolin. This romantic sound dates back to nineteenth-century Italy, where mandolin players serenaded wealthy Venetians as they travelled by gondola (check out Chapter 12).

Country: Some people associate the mandolin with the high lonesome sound of bluegrass. In the 1940s, Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys came out of the hills of Kentucky playing a new form of country music featuring mandolin that helped to shape the course of American music. I describe bluegrass in Chapter 10 and take you on a pre-bluegrass American mandolin adventure of old-time tunes, ragtime and blues in Chapter 9.

Rock: Many people (including me) were drawn to the amazing mandolin sound through its use in pop or rock settings via tracks by Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart or R.E.M.

But, however you got here and wherever you want to take your playing — such as to an Irish pub session (see Chapter 11) or a New York jazz club (check out Chapter 13), or deep into the hybrid style of modern-day master David Grisman and his ‘Dawg’ music (see Chapter 14) — the important thing to know is you’re welcome to hang out as long as you like in the wonderful world of mandolins.

To help you on your musical journey, you need to get to grips with the basics of mandolin playing (see Chapter 4). After all, you need to lay the foundations before you can start to build your repertoire! Mastering the essential right- and left-hand playing techniques is also a key milestone (Chapters 5 and 6 enable you to get there) to aim for before you start to tackle chording methods (see Chapter 7), scales and more advanced techniques (see Chapter 8).

Joining a vibrant community

When you begin to look around, you find that you aren’t alone and that more mandolin players are out there than you may have thought. Look around your own town or city for mandolin activity, whether it’s a local bluegrass band performance, or a mandolin club or orchestra.

If you live somewhere that has little or no mandolin activity, you can become part of the growing online mandolin community. Websites such as www.mandolincafe.com offer lessons, stories and links to just about anything to do with the mandolin. YouTube is another way to see some great performances, get some free lessons or just discover who’s who in the mandolin world. You can’t possibly feel alone amid the huge number of people posting videos of themselves playing the mandolin.

I designed Mandolin For Dummies to get you playing the instrument, so that you too can become part of a worldwide community of mandolin players. To gain some inspiration, flip to Chapter 20 to read about a few mandolin greats, and check out Chapter 21 for tips on entering the buzzing mandolin subculture.

Enjoying a great choice of mandolins

Purchasing a mandolin today is easier than ever before. Gone are the days when the only way to get a mandolin was for you to travel great distances to get to a music shop only to discover that it had only two mandolins to choose from. Along with old-school bricks and mortar shops, today you have lots of online dealers of mandolins with great selections and reputations of having many satisfied customers.

Pacific-rim manufacturing costs have made new high-quality mandolins more affordable than ever before. A quality solid-wood mandolin can cost far less today than a similar instrument did when I was looking for my first mandolin in 1979.

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