Octave mandlin video/book lessons

[Gkar66]

Finally got an OM and I am looking for a good home video/book to learn from. I am trying to maintain GDAE tuning and it looks like a lot of zouk videos do GDAD. Any recommendations? Thanks for any help.

Doug

[foldedpath]

Congrats on entering the OM world. Unfortunately, unless there's something new on the market that I've missed, there isn't a comprehensive and well-presented Octave Mandolin method book or DVD on the market. Here are the three I bought when I got my OM, and two of the three might still be worth picking up, depending on what you're looking for:

A Guide to Octave Mandolin and Bouzouki by John McGann (book and audio CD). John wrote a brief introduction to the instrument, followed by some great examples of his playing in different genres -- mostly Irish trad, but there are some blues and jazz tracks. One stereo channel is OM melody, the other is OM backing, with tabs in the book for all the tracks. It's more a demo of "here's what an OM can do" than an actual guide into learning how to do this yourself, but in that context it's still valuable.

The Mandolin and Bouzouki of Tim O'Brien (DVD). In spite of the name, it's octave mandolin in GDAE and not really bouzouki technique. Again, this isn't really a method for OM. It's one of those "Here's how I play my songs" videos, based on his album "The Crossing." It's about half OM and half mandolin. Worth getting if you like watching Tim play (I do!), and discuss a little about his approach to both instruments for backing songs and soloing.

Introduction to the Octave Mandolin by Mickey Cochran (DVD). This one I don't recommend, and I think it might be out of print anyway. Mickey plays a bunch of tunes on the OM, but doesn't really discuss how to approach it as a unique instrument. Not worth the money (IMO).

We could use a more general introduction and method book for OM, as distinct from the 'Zouk (at least as far as Zouk methods tend to focus on backing and GDAD). But meanwhile, I think most of us have just experimented and found our own path into making music on the OM.

[luthierseye]

Welcome to the OM world! I have both of the first two books mentioned above; and the John McGann book is pretty advanced but a great resource. I really like the Tim O'Brien book & DVD. It is very helpful. I highly recommend it.