I have been reading and surfing all over this great forum for advice and technique to learn. I haven't even received my Mandolin yet, but have a back ground in guitar. Reading Johns and Tims as well as many others I have learned so much that will help me as I learn the Mandolin. I see and understand about the movements of flying fingers being a waste in a sense. So I understand that hovering over the strings will be helpful in gaining speed as long as the tone is being achieved first so keeping the fingers down holds true in sound quality and speed until the next note is on a different string. This has been very helpful and I have book marked your page of Technique to refer back too. Thank you for this thread I have learned from it. Hope others have as well.