David Surette offering new online mandolin class, lessons too!

Hi folks,

The Mandolin Almanac is a new, online, participatory class being offered this fall at the Concord Community Music School in Concord, NH. The Mandolin Almanac is based on last year's extremely successful String Band Symposium class, developed and taught by yours truly, David Surette. Unlike the Symposium, in which we worked to accommodate mandolins, guitars, fiddles and even ukuleles, the Almanac will focus specifically on the mandolin. However, so many players double on the mandolin and guitar, or the mandolin and fiddle, that you will most likely find this class to be extremely useful, even if mandolin is your second instrument.

Like the Symposium, the Almanac is a 60-minute every-other-week interactive Zoom class presenting different aspects of the basic elements of music as they pertain to the mandolin. Each lesson will focus on a single topic and a single musical selection, and will provide exercises and tunes/accompaniments to which the concept can be applied. The Zoom chat format allows for interactive questions and discussion, and lessons will be recorded and archived for use by registered students.

In the Symposium, we used a lot of time presenting the same material to three different instruments: the mandolin, guitar, and uke. By focusing exclusively on the mandolin, we will be able to be a good bit more efficient with time. This will allow us to go a bit more into detail as the topic, the tune, and the exercises are presented. This is not a beginner class, and the Almanac format should allow for more variety as well as more high-level examples and ideas.

It is also in the nature of an almanac to present a variety of interesting tidbits, sidebars, obscure and lesser-known topics, forgotten heroes, and any number of tunes that may be languishing off the beaten path. We were able to pursue that to a certain degree with the Symposium, and the feedback received was that this was a particularly interesting and enjoyable part of the class. The mandolin focus of the new Almanac format will allow us to dig deeper, and to present it in a format linked to the cycle of the seasons.

Another strength of the Symposium was the range and variety of subjects explored, and this will absolutely be continued with the Almanac. Last year we tackled Breton An Dros, 12-bar blues, Irish jigs, Italian tarantellas, folk songs old and new, bluegrass and old-time, tunes from Quebec, New England, Olde England, and the Balkans, and a wide variety of scales, modes, styles, rhythms, grooves, and musical traditions. If the mandolin is there, we wanna take a look at it, too!

So if you enjoyed the Symposium last year, you should love the Almanac this year. If you didn't get the word about it, or missed the opportunity to try it last year, then this is your chance! Please come on out, and help us build on the success of last year's offering, and make this year’s even better! I am also offering private lessons on Zoom, so if you are interested in getting more info on either of these options, PM me!

The Mandolin Almanac starts on Wednesday, September 29, from 5:45-6:45pm, and will run for 8 sessions on the following dates:
Sept. 29, Oct. 13, Oct. 27, Nov. 10, Dec. 1, Dec. 15, 2021, Jan. 5, and Jan. 19, 2022. Link at https://ccmusicschool.org/index.php/...in-almanac-f21

Just signed up. Looking forward to the Almanac!

Looksvery interesting. What time zone will this be in?

5:45-6:45 EST, but we might run over til 7 or so.