Mandolin For Dummies

I looked at this book as it came highly recommended from several sources. I went through the paperback preview on Amazon as it has the most content in the preview. It had some preview of the sheet music etc. As a beginner of Mandolin (just bought the Mandolin a week ago), I actually was using the book's preview on Amazon to do finger exercises and work with some basic chords and songs. Below I point out what's Good, something I didn't like, and a note about the 1 star reviews for this book.The Good:For the price, it's one of the best resources on learning Mandolin that I can think of. I believe Mike Marshall has a older book on beginner mandolin for download off their publisher's site... at $24. Which I think is probably good, but the material description doesn't seem to cover as much ground as this book.Mandolin for Dummies covers so much. It starts off with describing different types of mandolins, the different styles, the different sound holes, etc. Then it gets into tuning, how to handle it, after that it jumps into playing. It goes over tabs, chords, using a metronome, etc. Chords are introduced. Afterword the book talks about Rhythm, and gives you some sample songs.Picking is given a lot of detail and for me, I skipped to the tremolo section. This is something I was curious about. They have some great exercises on getting you doing a good tremolo. The song choices are really good. I find that unlike just picking and choosing tabs online, the choice the author gave to specific songs, works the fingers and emphasis on the chapter I'm working in.Another difference between this book and most other teaching materials - it's not focused solely on bluegrass. It also covers Blues, Irish styles, swing, etc. I thought that was pretty cool.The Bad:As some have mentioned, the print book has pretty small tabs. I opted therefore to get the kindle version - only to discover that unlike the paper book preview, the kindle version tabs are the same constrained images seen in the paperback. Therefore the tabs are small. On my laptop I can read them - it's just not as large as I'd like.The 1 star reviews:I've never seen such petty 1 stars before in my life. There's 4 1 star reviews and I replied to each of them. They complain about nebulous stuff like "poor English" - which I can't see how his grammar is bad, it looked fine to me. Another stated that the Kindle format has each page cut off on the right... not mine. Another gave a 1 star because he said the tuning instructions were bad.... that the author doesn't show you which string is which note. Um, had the reviewer turned the page, they'd have seen Figure 2-3 that shows exactly that! This guy says he opted to get the Chord book instead... and I'm like "ok that's a good book, but it's JUST CHORDS." This covers so much more ground.None of the 1 star reviews have any weight. The 3, 4 and 5 star reviews are all pretty fair. I think the biggest complaint is the sheet music / tabs is pretty difficult to play along to for some. I agree. I wish the tabs where avail in PDF for from the publisher.The alternatives to this book would be Brad Laird's online courses (which this book covers about 5 or 6 of his $5 non free courses - Brad also has some free videos as well), Mike Marshall's online school (which is $90 at the cheapest) and/or Mike Marshall's beginner book at about $24. All of these are great. But for a beginner who probably just bought a mandolin and needs to get info on the cheap - this is one of the best way to go.For me, I just bought a mandolin that hit my budget, so I wanted to get some learning material that wouldn't push that budget much further.

After I had been playing mandolin for a little over a year, I had bought a number of mandolin "how to" texts. I was looking for something beyond the basic beginner level to push me to that next step, but that was not too difficult. At the same time, I had been watching mandolin Youtube videos, and had discovered several videos by a guy named Don Julin. I liked Don's online lessons so much that I contacted him directly to buy his introductory mandolin primer, and wrote him an email suggesting I thought it would be great if he were to write a follow-up book at an intermediate level.This book appeared a few months later, and it is the book I was looking for. In my opinion, Mandolin for Dummies simply is the best overall instruction book for mandolin available today. It goes beyond the beginner level to provide a general introduction to numerous styles of mandolin playing. I love that it is not just one more bluegrass book, but introduces the player to ragtime, jazz, Irish, Brazilian, and Dawg music as well. Chapter 7 on playing "Jethro Burns"-style 3 finger chords takes the mystery (and the misery) out of learning a gazillion different chord shapes. There is also great material on rhythm, theory, scales, right hand techniques like tremolo, advice on mandolin purchase and care, etc. This is just a great book at a great price. At almost 400 pages, I have been working through it for several months now, and have still not made it to the end.Two bits of practical advice: If you're a complete novice to the mandolin, you might want to start with a very basic primer first. If you can get hold of it, I think that Don Julin's Mandolin Method Book 1 would be a great book to work through before beginning this book. This no longer seems available on Don's website, so perhaps he no longer sells it, but there are others.Like all Dummies books, this book has a perfect binding, which is not ideal for reading and playing simultaneously. I used a blow dryer on the spine to melt the glue, removed the cover, used a 3 hole punch on the pages, and put the text in a 3 ring binder. The results are not pretty, but make for easier playing.Thank you, Don Julin. I await eagerly your next book -- something along the lines of Mandolin Old Time, Ragtime, and Jazz Improvization would be great!

I have played bass and guitar for 20 years. At some point early in my playing I bought a mandolin. I never really learned how to play. I recently got it out of storage and decided to actually learn. After 20 years I now know something of music theory that I didn't in the beginning, but I still wanted some mandolin basics, chords, scales, techniques, etc so I would be learning proper and not just adapting guitar/bass technique to the mandolin .... it is NOT the same instrument, much in the same way that a guitar isn't automatically a great bassist. After hunting through amazon and some local music store I decided to go with this book as I've had Dummy books for astrology, language, etc and always been happy. Yet again, happy.If you know nothing about music this book is NOT scary. This book will give you the basics. It will also go far beyond and some things will be a bit overwhelming. I mean, you cannot go from learning how to strum to playing Irish jigs in a couple months, or most of us can't. But, when you are ready for the jig .... no need to buy another book. This book is easy to read, describes things well, is technical but written for "dummies" and I've learned a few things to help my bass playing.If you know something about music (like me), this book has parts you will skip, but if you want all the chords, different styles (including Dawg), some music theory to create context, then this is also a great book. It's that perfect middle ground as it's not too complicated and not to basic.If you want pages of sheet music and practice examples ... that's what this book is not. Its not lots of playing and lots of sheet music. If you want to dig into that you'll need another book.

Good content, easy to follow, nice practice songs and good www page to support instruction

Bom. Fácil de entender e bem objetivo. Cumpre o que divulga. Agora vou poder progredir nos estudos mesmo sem professor.

Really nice book and an excellent resource for mandolin players.I look forward to working my way through the lessons.Also enjoy the funny bits and background on this wonderful instrument!

Muy buen libro

ダミーという言葉を使うのには若干抵抗がありますが、中身は良くできている方だと思います。