Best (and worst) YouTube mandolin "instructors?"

[...and Master of None]

I just pulled the trigger on an Eastman MD-505 from TheGuitarStore.com today. It won't be here for a week or so because I'm having them put a pickup in it and the one Brian recommended is out of stock.

I taught myself guitar in a vacuum years ago (no YouTube, no instructor, etc.). I picked up some bad habits along the way. Some I had to work hard to correct later and some I just live with even now (I've never seen anybody else make an open G chord the way I do but it works for me).

So, are there any folks with "instructional" youtube videos that you would recommend highly, or any that you would urge me to avoid? (You can reply privately for the latter if you don't want to dis somebody publicly.)

If there are some really good DVDs that get directly to the point feel free to recommend those, as well. I did see a YouTube clip that someone posted here of someone (Jim Marshall?) talking about hand position - that's the kind of direct technique information I'm looking for. I bought tons of video tapes and books when I was learning guitar and bass and most of them collected dust because they spent too much time covering theory and stuff I already know.

Thanks for your help and patience - I've only been hanging out here a couple of days but y'all seem like a decent lot!

John

[SincereCorgi]

The Homespun library should be a gold mine for you, accessible for direct download through a new snazzy feature on this very site. The two Mike Marshall DVDs from that series are very good for basics. Peter Martin, a habitue of these boards, also has a lot of solid training videos at <petimarpress.com>.

[...and Master of None]

Mike Marshall! That must have been the guy in the short clip I saw. I liked his style and downloadable is good. I'll check it out.

Thanks,
John

[...and Master of None]

Downloaded Mike's first DVD last night and watched it this morning. Very good stuff. Get's right to the point with useful information. Much better than the videos I could find back when I was learning guitar.

Having to wait for my first mandolin to arrive in the mail might have an advantage in that I'll probably watch the video several times before I have the instrument in hand to start developing bad habits!

John

[gregjones]

The best mando help on YouTube????

Jim Richter.

[gregjones]

Not on YouTube, but think about getting John McGann's "Sound Fundamentals" DVD.

[...and Master of None]

The best mando help on YouTube????

Jim Richter.

Checked him out. I suspect I'll be burnin' some bandwidth on those blues lessons.

John

[fred d]

I bought several DVDs and their OK but after see them I lost interest at that time I concered some to advanced and some well> I have learned a lot more on Utube and asking questions at local jams. After a year or so I took couple of lessons, by this time I had learned all the Major,minor,and seventh chords on the first 5 frets Best of luck fred

[Gelsenbury]

I'm finding these pages quite useful: http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/mandolin/beginner.html

[...and Master of None]

I'm finding these pages quite useful: http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/mandolin/beginner.html

Thanks, I bookmarked that, too.

John

[journeybear]

My vote for worst - at least in this clip. Study carefully, do the opposite of what he says - you'll be fine.

[Carleton Page]

My vote for worst. Study carefully, and do the opposite of what he says. You'll be fine.

What the *#!? The problem is this could set someone with no musical experience back. They would know less than nothing after this.

[HddnKat]

OMG - I could forgive the non-technical terminology, but dang - having the notes going lower as you shorten the strings???!!! That violates at least a couple of laws of Physics last I checked. Reminds me of the bit in 'You're a Good Man,Charlie Brown' where Lucy takes Linus around explaining everything to him, and all her explanations are totally wrong.

[journeybear]

I know - pretty scary. Also, this guy has a bunch more destructional videos, but I'm afeared to look at them. Might be best to concentrate on offering the OP more good videos, because this is clearly one to avoid!

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

Those "expert Village" vids are the worst out there, no matter what the topic. But that one takes the cake. Unless it's a a spoof. Would make a good item for failblog.org....

[journeybear]

No, he's dead serious. And apparently clueless. This has come up before, but it's tmeless. It's also worth noting that it's been up for years. You'd think it would have been corrected, replaced, or just removed, but nooooooo ...

[fishtownmike]

Its a joke. We discussed this before on here. It has to do with that some say a mandolin is like a guitar flipped over and played backwards.

[Gelsenbury]

Well, I'm a newbie but even I gathered from various comments that these videos aren't worth watching except for entertainment value. The guy introduces himself as a mandolin instructor, so I wonder how such poor instruction can come about?

I teach psychology, and I have also seen "Expert Village" explanations of psychological theories that have been absolute nonsense. Worse than this, in fact. I don't trust their videos much.

[...and Master of None]

BWAAA-HAAA. Oh, man, that was priceless! Mandolin instructor, huh? What was even more precious was that google was putting google ads for real music instructors and web sites over it - wonder how they feel about being associated with that video?!

You don't have to worry about my being screwed up by anything quite that obvious - I've got a reasonably sound grasp of music theory. I mostly just want to avoid developing bad habits re. technique items like hand position, etc. Mike Marshall's first DVD (recommended above) has been a tremendous help with that, specifically. Without the video I would almost certainly have applied correct guitar technique - especially since it took me years to overcome the bad technique I started with on guitar and finally develop good hand position on the guitar! In fact, before I started watching some instructional videos I was sort of planning on basically playing almost exclusively bar chords like I do on electric guitar...

Even if the guy hadn't been obviously clueless - so clueless that he was able to blithely call the wrong note at eleven of twelve frets - that's exactly the kind of video "instruction" I despise, anyway. It took the guy over two minutes to "explain" such subtle points as "the mandolin has four strings" and that the octave note is at the twelfth fret and that that holds true for, gasp, all four strings... Hello, Captain Obvious, can you fall out of love with your own voice long enough to tell me something useful?!

John

[Jim MacDaniel]

LOL -that was priceless! I'd like to see his take on the circle of fifths, or maybe some common chord progressions (although I guess that would be chord regressions in his case).

[Gelsenbury]

It's a shame that the Homespun materials depend so strongly on specialist software, which only seems to exist for Windows and the Mac. As a Linux user, I feel left out. Oh well.

[mandolirius]

I know - pretty scary. Also, this guy has a bunch more destructional videos, but I'm afeared to look at them. clearly one to avoid.

I know what you mean. I had a hard time watching the whole thing. It was painful!

[TDMpicker]

I found watching Anthony Hannigans instruction videos to be very good.
He use to have his own web site MusicMoose.org, but that is gone.
You can still find his video on youtube, the site below and a few other places.

http://www.wonderhowto.com/topic/anthony-hannigan/

Terry

[Gelsenbury]

I found watching Anthony Hannigans instruction videos to be very good.
He use to have his own web site MusicMoose.org, but that is gone.

MusicMoose, or at least the mandolin videos that used to be there, have moved to http://www.freepickin.com. Unfortunately that's not well advertised.

[OldSausage]

It's a shame that the Homespun materials depend so strongly on specialist software, which only seems to exist for Windows and the Mac. As a Linux user, I feel left out. Oh well.

You can always purchase them as DVDs, until very recently that was the only format you could get them in.