# Music by Genre > Orchestral, Classical, Italian, Medieval, Renaissance >  pieces to practice, etudes

## Margriet

When you practice, you play a piece hundreds, maybe thousands times. Which ones are still nice, time after time ?

I enjoy the pieces that Alison Stephens made and edited. Every piece has a certain technique to practice. There are different books, for different level and challenges.

I thought today will be a good day to post this, as it would have been her 41th birthday.

Margriet

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Beanzy

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## Richard Walz

You should study Munier (all of his studies, especially those in all keys). If you want to develop 'tremolo' endurance, then you need to work on Aubrey Stauffer. His stuff will challenge the left hand as well. Once every few years I like to go through systematically Pettine's "Plectrum Mechanism" volume. From what I see as the greatest weakness amoung the modern players today concerns the tremolo and attention to accents within the musical phrase. Basically, the tendancy is to adapt the music to ones strengths and weaknesses in technique. Should be the other way around (the music directing the technique).

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## Margriet

> Should be the other way around (the music directing the technique).


Richard: Are the pieces that you mention also interesting in a musical way ? 
Let me try to explain: I agree with you, that the music itself motivates to get skilled, that I can play the piece as meant(?) or in any case I think it should be, as I would like, as I hear it inside.
If there are two many steps far from the result, it can demotivate, it needs to have that challenge that you can reach the purpose by practising.
Only playing a technical exercise to practise, is not as motivating as a piece of music.

I mentioned Alison Stephens before. I like also very much the pieces of Victor Kioulaphides. They motivate. Example: there are chords, hard to make. But they should sound. I will study over and over, trying not to mute a string where it should sound. Until I make it, because I want to have that chord sounding clearly, because of the music. As I need to practice over and over, x times ( more often because of age), they still must be interesting in a musical way. They are. 

Margriet

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## Richard Walz

Do you know the studies of Munier? I find them very musical. I also like the challenge of making scale practise musically satisfying. I believe that anyone (everyone) can develope this but you have to be, as you say, motivated and this comes from within. I have no idea what level you are technically but Stauffer can be very challenging. When I was a young student, we studied the 4 Bickford volumes, Munier and, of course, Pettine. That was the foundation and I must say I enjoyed immensely the Bickford method since it was well thought out, covered most techniques and inspiring (motivating by the musical content) as well.

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## margora

With all due respect to Richard whose work I greatly admire, I agree largely with Magriet.  I am familiar with the etudes of Munier, Pettine, Stauffer, and so on and, in my opinion, they are musically unsatisfying.   This is largely because the music of the period itself, which these etudes are certainly inspired by and are, for the most part, directed at (in terms of mastery) is musically unsatisfying -- the mandolin music of the early 20th century was arguably 50-100 years out of date when it was written and poorly at that.  (I think it was Paul Sparks who, in commenting on Stauffer, described his concert works as "lamentably misguided".  That has been my personal experience with his music).  Like Richard, I too, try to play through Pettine once a year and always find it a huge bore, albeit one that does pay technical dividends.

I make an exception in the above to Calace because, in my opinion, some of Calace's concert works, specifically some of the Preludes, are musically satisfying to me in the same way, say, that some of Augustin Barrios' guitar works are satisfying.  Both are "out of period" but neverthless are exquisitely constructed and, important to me, authentic in voice (Munier and Ranieri are certainly authentic in voice but I do not find their music interesting enough to master).  Barrious and Calace speak beyond their period.   Calace's method -- now conveniently available in the excellent new English translation -- is a fine way to approach the Calace preludes, but one can also do so successfully via the modern Germans.  One should also recognize that there are contemporary virtuosos on mandolin who think Calace is a waste of time, and I respect that opinion, too.

All the above said, I certainly agree with Richard that one can, and should, play scales musically every day and if one does so, there will be huge technical benefits in the long run.    Many mandolinists, in my personal experience, do not do this and therefore never really master the fingerboard.  I also agree that historical etudes are part of the learning experience of every instrument.   To this day classical guitarists include Sor, etc. in their musical training.  But no one bent on mastering the classical guitar would stop there.

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## margora

One additional thought: at a very high musical level, an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT skill is being able to make a mediocre piece of music sound far better than it is.  The lute being (by far) the major exception, not much music for plucked strings rises above the mediocre, in comparison with, say, the literature for violin or piano. On modern guitar, Segovia was a great master of this, as were (are) Bream and John Williams.  One can make a similar case for mandolin.  There are not many ways to do master this skill, except by playing scales (and etudes) as musically as possible, day in and day out, for a very long time.

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## JeffD

This is a very interesting topic. The motivation for the end result is often not enough to get through the seeming drudgery of the exercises. How to keep going how to keep going how to....

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## Margriet

One can do scale exercises, every day, in order to master the fingerboard. This is left hand stuff. One can practice them with right hand techniques, or focus on sound. If you are studying a piece, you can start with the scale of your piece. If you do *Some* and keep time for music, you can keep motivated. The benefits of the exercises you can experience in the piece that you are playing. 
This is the way I do with viola.
But I started late with viola; with mandolin even later, 3 years ago. A method that brings you from A- Z (*IF* you might reach Z  :Wink: , will not fit. On one point you have trouble, other things are easy for you.

If my study would content only or mostly exercises, dry technical things, I would not be so motivated to start. If I have a nice piece, that I want to master, I am more. To be able to play the music as I would like to, I am motivated to do the exercises. They are related to the piece and the benefits are there directly. I found it quite discovering that I could play De Grote Markt of Victor over and over, never boring me and motivating me to get the chords sound well.

So I will welcome pieces that are musically interesting, ask a certain skill from you, (so challenging), but not too difficult that it demotivates. When by practicing the piece i meet a problem, of course , I will find ( or my teacher gives) exercises to practice that.
I like to share this and hear experiences of others, so I posted this. Thanks Richard, Rob and Jeff !

Hope I could explain it clearly in English....
Margriet

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## Richard Walz

> With all due respect to Richard whose work I greatly admire, I agree largely with Magriet.  I am familiar with the etudes of Munier, Pettine, Stauffer, and so on and, in my opinion, they are musically unsatisfying. ...


Oh my, and I was thinking about recording all of them (Munier)  :Smile: ! Well, I really don't agree but I do believe that these studies demand some invention from the player and quite a solid technique. I was brought up with this period and style of music, I feel quite comfortable and enjoy playing them but you can say the same for the Kreutzer and Rode studies for violin. The point is to challenge the player technically and musically, the motivation has to be a given. From what I see and hear in today's world, I am not suprised by your comments. The modern way of playing has also strayed from that which fit this period or, as you put it, 'out of period' music. Munier I find every bit as masterful as Calace, Ranieri was more aligned with the 'mainstream' classical world and his music reflects all the conventions of the late 19th century. Pettine was much the same but with a bit more sentiment. All of these player composers where brought up in the world of Sarasate, Kreisler, Paderewski, Elman, Caruso, etc... this style was based on operatic traditions (voice) and required an absolutely expressive tremolo technique which, helas, is rare these days.

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## margora

Hi Richard, go ahead and make the CD, I'll buy a copy.   My comments reflect my personal taste.  I do agree that the motivation has to mainly come from within.   What I mean by "out of period" is that early 20th century mandolin music was already out of date at the time it was written.  Certainly if an absolutely expressive tremolo is one's goal, it can be achieved by playing Munier, and so forth.  If one's goal is to play contemporary music for mandolin, though, skills not covered in Munier are absolutely critical.

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## mandobuzz

Richard and Robert,

Highly intelligent and insightful posts. +1.

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## Markus

> Highly intelligent and insightful posts. +1.


Very useful posts, thank you!

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## vkioulaphides

Once again, the Café proves itself to be the Rolls Royce of internet forums, excelling in both insight _and_ civility, whether opinions converge or differ.

And I, in proverbial rabbinical wisdom, agree with _both_ Richard and Robert.  :Grin: 

Cheers,

Victor

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## margora

Re: the original question about etudes, I personally like the two books by Gertrud Weyhofen (formerly Troster) and also the method by her teacher, Marga Wilden-Husgen. In particular, I keep Gertrud's books handy for warmup purposes.  All are available from www.trekel.de.   I also try to fit in regular practice on the Bach sonatas and partitas, at slow to moderately slow tempos, emphasizing quality of sound, legato, and -- my personal bane -- absolutely strict rhythm.

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## Mark Levesque

Hello Margriet,

Marlo Strauss has composed etude-ish pieces that are silmilar in approach to Ali's books.
The compositions are fun to play and work on specific right or left hand techniques.

Here is Marlo's composition page.
The books are listed under *Mandoline solo*
His variations on "La Follia" are very nice also. Here are mp3s of the "Folias variations" that he has as a free download on his website.

Also, he has other free mp3s of compositions from his books that you can download on this page.

and here's an mp3 example from one of his books as played by Caterina Lichtenberg.

Best wishes,

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## Margriet

Thanks Mark, 
at the moment I cannot check and watch them, as I will leave within some hours for a trip to New York and Carlo Aonzo's workshop.

After the workshop a new start with pieces to study !

Anyway this thread will be interesting for more people.

Margriet

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## Mark Levesque

Wow, from The Netherlands to NYC!
I am only 2 & 1/2 hours away but I can't make Carlo's workshop this year.

Have fun and a safe journey!

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## Margriet

Thank you, Mark! 

It is also nice to see faces and persons live, cafemembers....and it is still greater to make music together !

Pity you cannot come.

Margriet

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## JonZ

I am curious as to where Marylin Mayer's "Complete Mandolinist" fits in here.

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## JeffD

I think the Complete Manodlinist is a fantastic source of pieces to practice. It spends months at a time on my stand.

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## Jim Garber

Marilynn Mair's book is a valuable edition to our literature for the instrument, but please be aware that, like much of the method literature for other instruments (like violin and many of the earlier mandolin methods) it does draw from previous methods and compositions.

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## crisscross

I dug out this old thread because I Idid a search for "Marlo Strauss" and this was one of the few threads that mention him.



> Marlo Strauss has composed etude-ish pieces that are silmilar in approach to Ali's books.
> The compositions are fun to play and work on specific right or left hand techniques.


I bought the "Burlesken", which contains eight little studies for beginners/intermediate players.
He seems to treat the mandolin more like a classical guitar than like a tremoloed melody instrument.
Lots of chords and polyphonic parts.
The oiece I recorded is called "Der kleine Clown" (The little clown)
Difficulties are to play constant eighth notes through various changing meters in part one, and accentuating a melody on the d-string while keeping the accompiment on the a-string in the backround.
The 5/8 in part one is picked U-D-D-D-U, so it's the ideal practice material for someone who wants to unlearn alternate picking. :Wink:

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## crisscross

Once you get the weird 5/8 crosspicking pattern rolling, this piece is a lot of fun, so I tried to become a little bit better at it, and recorded it with one of my Suzukis:


It probably wouldn't hurt to play it a little bit faster yet, maybe as fast as this nice Milonga from Strauss' "Aphorismen":


I had alook at the sheet music today, it has arpeggiated chords in the typical 3-3-2 milonga groove.
But measures 3 and 4 start with an arpeggio of the open d-string, b flat on the a-string and open e-string.
No matter how perpendicular I try to put my first finger on the first fret of the a-string, it mutes either e-string or d-string, or in the worst case both of them. I tried it on my mando-tuned soprano ukulele, and there the notes ring cleanly into each other, but on my bowlback...No Way!
Any hints how I could solve this problem?

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## Rtnrlfy

> I dug out this old thread because I Idid a search for "Marlo Strauss" and this was one of the few threads that mention him.
> 
> I bought the "Burlesken", which contains eight little studies for beginners/intermediate players.
> He seems to treat the mandolin more like a classical guitar than like a tremoloed melody instrument.
> Lots of chords and polyphonic parts.
> The oiece I recorded is called "Der kleine Clown" (The little clown)
> Difficulties are to play constant eighth notes through various changing meters in part one, and accentuating a melody on the d-string while keeping the accompiment on the a-string in the backround.
> The 5/8 in part one is picked U-D-D-D-U, so it's the ideal practice material for someone who wants to unlearn alternate picking.


Just curious, where did you find the Burlesken?  I did a quick search and could only find it in a Belgian shop (where the shipping cost to the US was nearly 22 euros, about three times the cost of the book).

Thanks, 
Lesley

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## crisscross

https://www.alle-noten.de/Gitarre-E-...Burlesken.html charges 7,50 Euros shipping fees to the US.
http://trekel.de/de/7576-burlesken8studien.html takes 6,50 for shipping to the US.
With both of them, it's "lieferbar", that is, they probably have to order themselves before shipping.

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## JeffD

I was recently in a work shop given by one of my heros, Jacob Reuven. He recommended Carl Flesch's Scale System and some Fiorillo etudes. A little of each every practice, plus his own unique warm up drill. Its a real work out if done conscientiously. Oh yea, and he also emphasized play beautifully.

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crisscross, 

derbex

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## crisscross

Another nice (e-)book from Astute Music is "Signposts" by Hugh Boyde. It's designed for the advanced beginner/lower intermediate player. Boyde, similar to Marlo Strauss treats the mandolin a bit more like a standalone solo instrument than like a  purely melodical one, with chords and different voice lines. http://www.astute-music.com/shop/man...ner-p-147.html
Here's his arrangement of Jeremiah Clarkes "Trumpet Voluntary" and Boyde's original "Calypso".

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derbex

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