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– Learning a tune by hearing it
– Learning a tune by reading notation
– Learning a tune by reading tab

Depending on your preference, one of these methods may work better for you than the others....

I've been working with computers since 1985. Scott's quote illustrates why, when social media came along around 20 years ago, I gave it a long hard look and said, "No thanks." I want to preserve as...

AI is a threat to all art and artists, and I've said as much in several posts on the Acoustic Guitar Forum.

Art is human expression. If one replaces the human with AI, what is left is mere...

I play both mandolin and guitar, and I'm always on the hunt for exceptional-sounding instruments. One thing I have learned from 40-plus years of trading and 60-plus years of playing:

It is much,...

John Reischman's Loar
Matt Flinner's Gilchrist
and my favorite, my Heiden Heritage Model F-5 formerly owned by Ry Cooder.

Here's John, me & Emory Lester all holding our Heiden Heritage Models
...

Might I also humbly suggest the Swannanoa Gathering's Mando & Banjo Week, June 30 - July 6, held on the campus of Warren Wilson College, just outside of Asheville, NC. The 2024 staff includes:
...

"playing late and drinking"?

Sure it's not "drinking late and playing"?

I've owned two Monteleones, and John told me at the Artisan Guitar Show a few years back that it doesn't take that much more time to make an archtop guitar than a mandolin, and since his archtops...

Is that a type of scale? :whistling:

Other irritating and unnecessary abbreviations:

'Hog' for the beautiful and mellifluous 'mahogany'.
'Adi' for red spruce, found in a lot more places than just the Adirondacks.
'Axe' for one's...

Actually, with only four strings... it's not.

OP: You said you love everything about your Gold Tone CM-10, but you're willing to bail on it because of the tailpiece. Seriously?

If one of your E strings poked a hole in your finger, would you...

210820

I've owned two Monteleone Grand Artist mandolins, one with f-holes, and an extremely rare oval hole, and I currently own a Heiden Heritage Model F-5 once owned by Ry Cooder.

Regarding new...

One other thing to note about the old Gibson ovals. The pre-Loar ovals without a trussrod sound different from those that came after. Some prefer one or the other but they don't sound the same. I'm...

I learned to play on 'teens Gibson ovals and always loved that sound. Later I tried to get that sound with the increased playability of a 15-fret neck, so I had F-style ovals built for me by Steve...

9/3/23

Saw the news Sat. morning. A bit of a shock to me that he was 76. Always thought of him as a kid, and I suppose he was at heart.

As a former Key Wester myself, I thank him for putting...

Glad everyone had a good time, and we hope to see you all back next summer!

Time to go get ready for the first Celtic Week concert...

Jim

As I said in my post from several days ago,"If AI doesn't worry you, you are not paying attention."

Well, thankfully, those experts most responsible for developing AI seem to be plenty worried and...

"Next step, replace all of your present apps with one big app that controls, and collects the data on everything."

How very comforting.

If AI doesn't worry you, you are not paying attention.
...

AI chat and ChatGPT are not useful shortcuts or fun things to prank your friends with, but something far more insidious.

All Art is personal expression. If you remove the person, you remove the...

Regarding my post in the thread about Chris Thile's Camp, I would like to apologize to those who thought my info about our Mando & Banjo Week was self-aggrandizement.

I thought that my signature...

With Thile's Camp fees at $2499-$4699, Mando & Banjo Week at the Swannanoa Gathering is a real bargain.

Staff: Mike Marshall, Alan Bibey, John Reischman, Don Stiernberg, Matt Flinner, Radim Zenkl,...

Since Brazilian bandolim virtuoso Ian Coury was recently featured on Mandolin Monday, folks might be interested in this YouTube video of a Pixinguinha classic shot a week ago on the beach in...

Rick Bouley and I were a duo called Hot Shandy with Rick on guitar and me on mandolin. In the late ‘70s we were part of the vibrant music scene around Chapel Hill that also included Mike Cross, the...