Originally Posted by
Medley12
I started playing mandolin a little over a month ago, and I am pretty excited about where I am at. Hoping to keep the train moving...
I recently posted how I need to take a step back, and “re-learn” because I didn’t discipline myself in down up picking. So, I basically relearned all of my tunes, by slowing way down, and focusing on down up picking. My current tune list is:
Wildwood Flower, Cripple Creek, Galopede, Golden Slippers, Red Haired Boy, Cherokee Shuffle, Liberty, and Whiskey Before Breakfast.
I have all of these nailed, using down up picking, with the metronome at 100, most with the metronome at 120.
DISCLAIMER- these are my metronome setting that sound right. If I play along with Bert Casey and the Mandolin Primer, he notes the metronome setting at half of these, 50 bpm and 60 bpm. Just being totally honest with anybody, everybody, and especially myself.
Over the next few nights, I am going to have bulk amount of time available with just me and the mandolin. We are talking 5-6 hours each night. So, I want to make the best use of this time. What do you think I should do?
Work on speed of these tunes?
Learn some more?
I have Mike Marshall’s Mandolin Fundamentals for all players DVD, work with that?
Work hard on learning standard notation?
My ultimate goal: just play beautifully. Not going out to jams, gigs, just want to bring out the beauty in the mandolin, for my own enjoyment at home. My daughters are learning some instruments, I enjoy picking with them a little. I envision getting into Celtic, Irish, and Classical, just haven’t even dipped my toe in those waters yet.
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