Name the top three things that have made you a better Mandolinist

[Cosmic Graffiti]

Hi,
What would you consider the top three things that have made you better mandolin player ?

Then next what are the top three things that have made you a better musician?

Everybody learns and takes in information so differently and there are so many diverse musical back grounds here I am curious what people have noticed really improved the above two questions.

I know that mine change every few months and this is what I feel is making the biggest difference at this time of my study:

Here are mine:
Mandolin
1. Getting a teacher
2. Moveable scale patterns
3. Fiddle tunes

Musician
1. Learning to play by ear
2. Learning a little music theory
3. Listening to a very diverse selection of music.

Steve

[Mark Wilson]

I agree with your list(s).

For myself - I might change musician #3 to 'obtaining the best sounding/playing instrument I could afford at the time'

Once I had a better sounding and playing instrument - I was inspired to play more and that pushed me to towards the rest

[Denny Gies]

1. Listening to others in jams
2. Fiddle tunes
3. Stretching my abilities to play in different keys
I must add that I'm still no Dawg.

[Nate Lee]

Great topic! It's hard for me to choose which are the three most important, so I'll just choose three that come to mind.

Mandolin:
1) The realization that practicing with a metronome is about more than just not speeding up or slowing down. When I started practicing making every note land in time, I started getting the results I was looking for.

2) Letting go of the idea that some people naturally make good tone. For years I thought that there were the "tone players" and the "everyone else". When I realized that I could make good tone through practice it opened up a whole new world for me. This may seem obvious, but we all have blind spots, and that was one of mine.

3) Like Mark said, getting a better sounding and playing instrument. For me it wasn't just getting a good mandolin, but getting the right good mandolin, that matches my playing style. My Pava mandolin has evolved my playing style in ways that wouldn't have happened with a mandolin that has a different type of tone. For me, this turned out to be a great thing.

As a musician:
1) The realization that others are not as concerned with my solo as much as I am, and that the quality of my solo doesn't determine how good the entire song sounds.

2) Learning to play with others instead of just being a "mando chop bully" and expecting others to fall in with the way I hear the groove. I'm still working on this one.

3) Learning to listen to the other musicians instead of just focusing on what I'm playing the entire song. Also still working on this one.

[T.D.Nydn]

Mandolin: 1. The right mandolin, strings and pick 2. Building a strong right forearm 3. Understanding and using the entire fingerboard.
Musician: 1. Getting inspired by others 2. Keeping up with contemporary sounds,styles and bands,never date yourself 3.my attitude, dedication and natural drive.

[Steve Ostrander]

1) Practice
2) Practice
3) Practice

[Relio]

1) learning to play by ear
2) focusing on the tone I'm producing
3) listening to how my mandolin blends with the other instruments
4) realized that vocals are the most important part of vocal songs, so began vocal lessons.
5) Playing with people better than myself
6) when building a break for a vocal tune, learn the melody so it's burned in brain, simplify it and then slowly use different techniques to make it more interesting. The key for me has been building the breaks very slowly and really listening to what I'm playing to see if I like it.
7) realizing that you can play rhythm more than one way, and that there are different methods to chop
8) the Flatpicking Essentials (guitar book series) was a turning point for me on how I understood playing rhythm and lead.
9) joining a band as a mandolin player has forced me to stop focusing so much on just what I'm doing with my mandolin and more on how good we can make a song sound.

[farmerjones]

Mandolin/Musician, the whole point (personally) is to play with other folks. So that's what I do, as often as I can.
It sounds contrary to logic, but I've gotten better by playing with others, and not waiting until I got better.

2. Drill scales
3. Drill chord changes
4. Make the nome your friend

[Barry Wilson]

As a musician I'd add learning to read the crowd and playing the appropriate music to suit them

[Beanzy]

Mandolin
1. Practice
2. Research
3. Asking 'why?' & not just accepting consensus views.

Musician
1. Listening
2. Playing with others
3. Studying

[Freddyfingers]

1. Realize it's not a frustrating backwards little guitar
2. Give into the instrument, don't force my ways on it, do what it leads me to
3. Play play play, with a bit of practice in between

Better musician, that's all in perception

1. Open mind
2 it's not a competition
3. All music is good music, dont close doors to other types or styles, you never know what you missed out on.

[BrianWilliam]

1) Practice
2) Practice
3) Practice

Steve beat me to it

[Nate Lee]

It sounds contrary to logic, but I've gotten better by playing with others, and not waiting until I got better.

This!

Also, I have a list of books I've read that helped me a lot. Here's a link: http://thenatelee.com/books.html

I'll be adding more as I discover them.

[Cosmic Graffiti]

Practice, practice, practice does not count for an answer I feel because if you are practicing wrong or the wrong materiel for where you are in your musical journey the all the practice in the world will not help you much. I feel that is the easy answer and would ask that you re consider and give us some more feedback. Steve are you by any chance from Richmond Michigan?

Great responses. A lot of them I can see in my future. Specifically the playing with other people! Very interesting that the metronome and scales come up a few times in this. I love both and use both.

Steve

[Mark Wilson]

It sounds contrary to logic, but I've gotten better by playing with others, and not waiting until I got better.

Ya know, that might be the thing that has made the most difference in my playing and progress. Thanks for listing it!

[Tom Sanderson]

Mandolinist:
1. A divorce
2. A great mandolin (My first Nugget)
3. studying/practice

Musician:
1. A divorce
2. Finding a great group of local musicians to play with
3. Playing in a contra dance band

[Mandobart]

For mandolin:
1. Joining several local acoustic music associations and attending weekly (or more often) jams.
2. Getting some great instruments to play
3. Learning from and participation in this forum

General musician:
1. Started young with classical training (violin), learning to read and playing in orchestra and jazz band. Ok maybe that's three things but there's more
2. Started playing out in public with a lots of different players/genres
3. Getting into music theory. Turns out you need it a lot more for improv than for classcal read-notes-off-the-page.

When I started playing mandolin and worked toward specific goals, my fiddle and guitar playing also improved. So really, playing mandolin helped me improve as a musician overall.

[Bertram Henze]

Mando:
1. discovering doublestops
2. playing OM, TB, TG in between
3. exploring right hand attitude

Music:
1.getting a metronome
2. recording myself
3. accepting mistakes as music

[Ivan Kelsall]

From Beanzy - "Asking 'why?' & not just accepting consensus views". It takes nerve to do that Eoin. Maybe you're gettin' to be a grumpy old Git like me ?? (not really)

Re. the actual question :- I have a 'certain amount' of talent to play mandolin & it will never increase. However,practice enables me to make the most of the talent that i have & i've made a lot of progress in close to 11 years & in 15,000 + hours of practice.

Playing a variety of what could be called 'sub-genres' of Bluegrass music has helped me extend my profficiency & kept my interest up,& it's helped me to realise why such bands as The Infamous Stringdusters / Greensky Bluegrass & Punch Bros. arose in the first place.

The other thing which has helped me, is making the most of my mandolins. Ensuring that they're set up correctly 'for me'. Trying different string sets & picks in order to achieve the 'sound' that i want in my playing,which gives me great satisfaction every time i play - i sound like i want to sound,i'm not still 'searching'.

I've also come to understand how much effort other players put into their playing & it really is nice to know that ''you're not alone'' & that if others can do it,with the same effort maybe i can as well,
Ivan

[Ausdoerrt]

1) Practice
2) Practice
3) Practice

Beat me to it


For the musician part I'd probably say learning 1) music theory 2) music history 3) listening to a lot of music.

[jshane]

3. Asking 'why?' & not just accepting consensus views.

Really true.

[JeffD]

It sounds contrary to logic, but I've gotten better by playing with others, and not waiting until I got better.

This! .

Ya know, that might be the thing that has made the most difference in my playing and progress. Thanks for listing it!

Playing regularly with others. IMO the single most important, impactful, thing I have done. All the other learning activities, practice, instruction, books, listening to recordings, are given a context. It is gigantic the number of things I worked on in order to be ready for next Tuesday night. And the Tuesday after that. ... It adds gasoline to the fire of your desire. And it adds retention, it keeps the desire burning.

[Steve Ostrander]

[QUOTEI feel that is the easy answer and would ask that you re consider and give us some more feedback. ][/QUOTE]

As a mandolinist: (not necessarily in order of importance)
1) Not playing the mandolin like guitar, and not using a guitar pick.
2) Listening to the best players and teachers on Youtube.
3) Owning a quality instrument and having it set up correctly

As a musician:
1) Having music instruction in school.
2) Having exposure to music through friends, family and mentors.
3) Practicing and gigging with other musicians.

[REH1966]

I am to new and green to give a "personal" answer as I haven't really improved yet. Any way here are my thoughts as to what will help me improve over time based on feedback from my instructor.

Mandolin:
1. Learn first, practice second. Makes sense to me.
2. Come with an empty cup. No preconceived notions and willing to take it all in.
3. Have fun and enjoy what your doing.

AS to the musician component I have nothing to add.

Rex

[DavidKOS]

Well for me, I'd have been able to get along musically with most other mandolinists better if I'd have spent more time learning Bluegrass and Old-time music rather than playing the stuff I played.

For example, I subbed at a gig the other day, English Country Dance and some contras and Irish tunes.

I had no idea in the contra world "4 potatoes" is the term used for the beats counting the band in!

Also, I would have focused on mandolin as my "classical instrument" a lot earlier in life.