Fretboard roadmaps book

[Rakes94]

Is this is a good book?Thinking about buying it.Thanks

[recon]

I've got it. I've been playing, or rather dabbling with, the mandolin for a little over two years. In my opinion it is a good beginners book that shows you scales, chord shapes, and several songs. I revisit it frequently. If your skill level is anything beyond beginner, I think you will find this book not so useful.

[Rakes94]

well i have been messing with it for over a year now,i'm still a rookie!

[Rakes94]

anyone else?

[Phil Goodson]

I was disappointed with it.
I think Niles Hokkanen's books have more substance.

[mandroid]

theres an error that the printer and every one missed ,
so its on one the chord-arpeggio blocks of every copy.

Interesting E maj. chord inversion.

[latentaudio]

Amazon Reviews

[Aran]

The book didn't do it for me either.... I second Niles H. books too..

Also the mandolin fake book is the book I have used the most as it just has loads of easy tunes.

[Manfred Hacker]

Hi there, recon,
I beg to disagree. This is not a beginner's book, IMHO. I started as a false beginner about 1 1/2 years ago (played the violin for many years a life time ago) and ordered the Fretboard Roadmap book. I like the material but I dislike the CD for several reasons:
1. Tunes are not counted in! How are you supposed to play along if you don't know when to start.
2. There is only one speed and that is sometimes pretty fast and would definitely scare away a beginner.
3. I am not an expert but the playing on the CD sounds very sloppy to me. If you want to hear the difference, listen to Rick Williams Jam Tunes (different concept, I know).

By the way, sloppy playing on CDs seems to be an epidemic. Maybe they want to encourage beginners by sounding so poor?
Another example for that is 'Great Mandolin Picking Tunes' from Mel Bay.
I love many of the tunes contained there, but the playing on the CD sounds often unprofessional and they too don't count in the tunes.
Just my two cents worth.
Manfred

[Rick Schmidlin]

Mine is buried on the shelf. I lost interest in it very quickly.

[Mandolusional]

It might be fine but there are a lot of other great materials out there. You'll end up with so many over the course of your playing I would recommend starting with something that's better rated. I haven't heard many good reviews of this one, and a former instructor once told me there are better materials available. I know a couple people who bought it, one who didn't like it and tried to return it, and the other just had a lot of other materials she thought were more useful.

In addition to Nile's books, Marilynn Mair's also got great feedback here. I like Brad Laird's books, and if you're into a really awesome tune book and can read standard notation, Lou Martin's Opus 3 is an excellent resource in my opinion.

[M Hollen]

I found I got more out of Niles and Brad Laird's books than I did out of the Fretboard Roadmaps one.

[Max Girouard]

Hey Rakes94,

Why do you have a picture of my beagle playing my mandolin as your avitar! That should be illbeagle.

[minnedolin]

Not so great of a resource, I mean its okay if you want ideas but nothing that really stuck for me. My copy also happens to be buried on my shelf beneath scattered literature. I think it may even be under Faulkner's "Go Down Moses" Egads!

[Laurence Firth]

I like it - I thought the section on double stops was worth the purchase price. But if your budget is tight you might want to get one of the other books mentioned in this thread as they might offer more learning for the buck.

[Onesound]

I agree with several otheres, my copy is buried in the stack. Occasionally, I dig it out but just can't seem to find a good place to start. I also picked-up the Ukulele Roadmaps and came away with the same disatisfaction. I just can't seem to get with the program. I think that their flaw is that they intermix basic and advanced technique without indicating such to the reader. To me, there is little point jumping from basic major/minor chords to agumented 6ths and other esoteric advanced chords all on the same page, for example.

[John Flynn]

Another non-fan here. I am an intermediate player of 15 years, I really tried to get into it, but in the end, I did not find it at all useful.

[Rakes94]

what about bluegrass manddolin for the complete ignaramus?

[gallusallus]

I started working through this book. The CD has failed and is completely unplayable. Finding it quite useful because it has a few tips to get me out of some predictable playing habits. Can anyone get me a copy of the CD? Can't find anything on the web. Bought it ages ago on sale (hmm, think I know why) so can't take it back to the store. Thanks.

[electric bassist]

theres an error that the printer and every one missed ,
so its on one the chord-arpeggio blocks of every copy.

Interesting E maj. chord inversion.

Hi
please can you explain some more. I looked at the section on chop chords and arpeggios and could not see an error (starting on page 29, then 30-33). I have the audio download version. It suffers from the same problem that others already mentioned: no count intro. Very surprising given Bob Applebaum's CV
Warm regards/gary