Fingering Mastery by Brent & Barkley ???

[Pete Doc]

I just ordered my copy of Fingering Mastery in the hope of finding more interesting ways of scale practice beyond first position, two octave basics. On receiving and opening it I find myself in complete bewilderment. I can only guess at what I am looking at.

Can anyone give me some hints at how to interpret the (undoubtedly valuable) diagrams.
I am primarily a 'black dot' player. I set a piece of music in front of myself, figure out how to play it and practice , practice, practice until I hear the music forming. My preference is for Baroque era pieces (currently working on my own transcription of Handel's Entrace of the Queen of Sheeba) I'm not into improvisation, Jazz, Rock or Bluegrass.

If anyone out there is familiar with Brent & Barkley's theoretical investigations could you let me know how to read the diagrams and whether a study of modal forms is useful to me.

Thanks in anticipation
Peter Docherty

P.S. I live near Sydney Australia if that's relevant

[Beanzy]

not sure you'll get too far judging by this thread: https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...Schell-Barkley

If you're after good solid up & down the fretboard exercises then I can recommend The Mandolin Companion
It's very useful for a whole stack of exercises that get the logic & shifts under your fingers..

Also for internalising the relationships of chords across the fingerboard I found this helpful (free download) https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/a...hmentid=167483
Explanations are fairly clear & logical, with no waffle.

[Simon DS]

You could post a photo of one page?

[Sue Rieter]

That (The Mandolin Companion) sounds like a pretty interesting book, but doesn't seem too widely available. I'd be interested in other' comments on it.

[Jim Garber]

So strange that the authors of these books didn’t realize that players would not be able to understand their method by actually explaining it. The thread linked above and their Amazon reviews back this up.

I think the OP should check out Marilynn Mair’s two excellent volumes or get a hold of some of the classic method books by Bickford and Pettine since he knows how to read standard notation.