Article: New in Print - Fiddle Tunes for Mandolin by Dick Sheridan

[Scott Tichenor]

You can view the page at http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/co...-Dick-Sheridan

[Mark Miller]

Anybody have any idea how these will be? I've seen some mando fiddle tune books that were pretty lame (that is not mandolinistic, no double stops or tremolo or anything). But I'd love to get one that was really geared to the instrument.

[Mark Wilson]

Check out 'look inside' feature on the amazon link. It shows some of the tunes including Angeline the Baker and Arkansas Traveler. If you know those you will have a sense of his book.

Looks like base melodies. I actually prefer starting there, getting that well ingrained, then listening to recordings and adding in double stops and tremolo bits that catch your ear. Easier to borrow from a recording if you know the basic melody.

[Scott Tichenor]

The author is prolific, lots of titles authored so you can't say he's not experienced. I looked through the tune examples on the Hal Leonard site and they're reasonably basic. I think that's a good thing. If you're just learning these tunes you don't want to send someone down the path heading towards competition style arrangements or things that are overly ornamental. That's a real good cross-section of well known favorites for the bluegrass/fiddle tune/old-time crowd. Basic fiddle tunes are great for learning your scales when you're new and from what I see this appears to be a good one. Just my opinion, I haven't seen the entire book but I'd think it'd be hard to go wrong.