My #1 is a Nugget A-5, which is all I should ever need. However, because of mandolin polyamory, I have a great Ellis twin point, a '23 Snakehead A, and a 1917 Lyon & Healy A. All have different...
My #1 is a Nugget A-5, which is all I should ever need. However, because of mandolin polyamory, I have a great Ellis twin point, a '23 Snakehead A, and a 1917 Lyon & Healy A. All have different...
Tom:
There have been quite a few posts, and I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned getting a good set up. Often factory-built instruments have issues with high nut slots, the intonation can be...
I'm lucky enough to be the temporary (during my lifetime) custodian of a mid-90's Nugget A5 - It is my holy grail ff-hole and a '23 snakehead plain-jade A that serves as the oval-hole equivalent.
I've learned a variety of ways: Violin with a classical violin teacher; I think my parents paid her to supervise my practice once a week at times. Jamming a finger playing JV football was the...
I have played the "catch and release" with a few higher end mandolins and the most frequent cause for release has been the neck - too skinny, too wide, too deep, not deep enough, too V'd, not V'd...
Always love Doc's versions and the Rice & Skaggs version. Lotta joy in that simple song!
Brian Oberlin has the mandolin chores for Full Cord - a powerhouse of a bluegrass band from Michigan. They won the IBMA Momentum Award last year.
https://fullcord.bandzoogle.com/home
When I was 68, I placed an order for an Ellis twin point mandolin. In discussing the potential build with Tom Ellis, I expressed some reluctance about getting it made with. an Adirondack top,...
After watching the video a few times, I worry that the interview wasn't with Aaron Weinstein at all. There was no bow tie, or even a mention of it in the video ;). Great video interview, and I'll...
Since we are talking about a C6/Amin chord fingering that can function as different rootless chords, play the following sequence: 3-3-5-x --> 3-2-3-X --> 2-2-3-x.. Here is an entirely different...
Lloyd Loar pixie dust! He must have walked by the mandolin during its construction.
Seriously, I prefer the narrower neck. If you can get one with good intonation, they can cover a wide variety...
"Going back to the OPs original question, the name is typically a function of the context. For example, 223x appears to some folks as A minor, to others as CM6 and to others as F#m7b5, depending on...
This Cracker wants that Polly! Play on, Dawg!
Rootless chords are kinda like those knives in your kitchen. Are they for slicing a tomato, or murdering your spouse? Yes, it just depends on the preceding setting, the direction one is traveling,...
I played 2 at IBMA and given the crowded exhibition hall, about all that I could tell was that they were set up well, had good wood and finish. Played one at Elderly and thought it sounded better...
In my playing, I often hit a lot of "accidentals".
Matt-
I think this lesson should be very informative for the mandolin player who is starting the journey of learning movable chords. In fact, it is something I still do when encountering a...
Mark: That shape is very useful in yet another context: Emaj7-9. I often use the bottom 3 strings of this shape in a variety of ways. Move it up to 4-4-5-X and you have B Minor (Root - 5th -...
I can't find it on a quick search, but somebody posted a fair bit ago about using some kind of weighted bag attached to the butt end of the mandolin that was designed to adjust for the weight of the...
Digging 2 ft deep postholes in Carolina clay by hand over a weekend and setting the posts in concrete. It took 3 days before I could uncurl my fingers. And yeah, 85 lb bags of concrete are a lot...
Matt: This tune is one of the gateway drugs for gypsy Djazz! Nice breakdown & glad that you use Emin7b5 in the 5th measure of the A parts. Many charts have vanilla Emin7 or C9, which tripped me up...
I was going to suggest opening any Real Book for C instruments - tons of tunes in F! It is kinda fun to open a Real Book at random and sight read tunes.
A pre-owned Nugget A-5 Deluxe fell into my lap 2 months after my wife died. A very emotional acquisition, because she had OK'd a Nugget purchase and I was on the prowl for months before she became...
I've learned a lot from The Don (Stiernberg), and his chord-melody course on Soundslice is well worth the price of admission:
https://www.soundslice.com/users/DonStiernberg/courses/
Plenty of guitar transcriptions on-line. Usually played out of an A minor position, capo'd on guitar to suite the vocalist's vocal range. Here's one example in A minor:
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