That accursed tremolo...

[8 String Samurai]

Hi Mandolin-Folks, I'm in nee of some advice. I'm working on 'Moonlight Waltz' from Butch Baldassari's '30 Fiddle Tunes for Mandolin,' and the tremolo is giving me fits. I can get it going, but I feel I'm missing something fundamental, as it often sounds clicky and muted. I can't seem to get my wrist to loosen up, either. It's like I'm back in my teens playing Metallica . Can you folks share any advice or point me at a good tutorial for tremolo? Thanks a bunch!

[JeffD]

I hope this helps.

I would also recommend patience. Once you know are doing it correctly, do it often. I usually tremolo everything a quarter note or longer.

[T.D.Nydn]

When ever I find a weak point in my playing,I practice my hands off until it becomes a strong point.for tremolo,what I find helps is just sitting there when your doing nothing,like watching tv ,and practice just your tremolo,you don't even have to fret a note,just open strings even.all night long,every night,tremolo practice.you have to isolate your weaknesses and work just on that technique.vary your ryhthm, a tremolo can also be syncopated beats etc. also.like horses galloping for example.

[Ryk Loske]

A few weeks ago the Cafe ran a download special for the Caterina Lichtenberg offerings from Homespun. (Thanks Scott!) I ordered it especially for the Art of the Tremelo one. Excellent! It comes highly recommended. Mike Marshall appears on the download along with Caterina sometimes and it is interesting to see the differences between the two.

One tip i find particularly helpful is to put a paper beer coaster or other similar paper thing under the strings and practice the tremolo there. You don't get any music out of it but it certainly keeps you from digging in and you get the right idea for the depth of the pick's attack.

Patience & Practice.

Ryk

[SincereCorgi]

Developing a nice mandolin tremolo is like a developing a good snare drum roll- you can't really hurry it and it takes a year or so to get the feel and control. The exercise in the first Bickford mandolin method book is pretty classic:

https://archive.org/details/bickfordmandolin01bick

[DavidKOS]

Developing a nice mandolin tremolo is like a developing a good snare drum roll- you can't really hurry it and it takes a year or so to get the feel and control. The exercise in the first Bickford mandolin method book is pretty classic:

page 33 - and yes it is well prepared for by the alternate stroke pick work that preceded the tremolo section.

[Denny Gies]

JeffD got it right, patience, patience and then some more patience. Doing is slowly at first will be helpful. You will gradually increase your speed. Good luck.

[Manfred Hacker]

Samurai, lots of great advice here.
The Moonlight Waltz requires a lot of getting into and out of tremolo quickly, which is of course harder than sustained tremolo on longer passages. So, get down the longer tremolo first and then the in and out.
I have found that a more rounded pick like my Wegen M150 works better for smooth tremolo than a more pointed one. I also have a Blue Chip pick, which has two pointed and one rounded corners. I turn it to rounded when I know a tune is coming up where I want to tremolo. YMMV.

[8 String Samurai]

Thanks, guys! That's a lot of good info. Time to take a step back and re-approach this a bit more slowly

[Alex Orr]

I'll just echo the previous sentiment about taking it slow. It really does a take a long time to get a solid tremolo...a LOOOONG time. Practice it a little every day and be very, very, VERY patient with yourself. Personally speaking I'd say it takes longer than a year, maybe 2-3, to get really comfortable and confident with it. Even once you have a solid grasp of the technique, variations, and tone, the timing can take even longer, for example, it can be very easy to not hear the chord changes if you're using tremolo in a solo. I've been playing nearly seven years, have a pretty solid tremolo, and yet I frequently undercount how long I'm holding my tremolo during one particular break I take in one of the tunes my band regularly does.

I also play that version of Moonlight Waltz, and as I recall, you don't really need the tremolo to play the tune, furthermore, it has short bursts of tremolo in between regular picking, which I think is more difficult to do. Try playing something like Amazing Grace with all tremolo for the melody as a practice tune, then gradually toss in some single notes between your tremolo lines. Over time you'll feel more confident using it in short and quick applications in a song. But, once again, it just takes a really long time, requires patient daily practice, and the mastery eventually comes in stages. Hell, once you feel comfortable playing tremolo by yourself, you still have to get up the confidence to do it in a jam! That took me a looong time.

Oh, one more thing. Try to practice a lot of double stop tremolo. Not only is a valuable skill, but it makes single string tremolo feel much easier.

And, again, lots of patience.