Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This book is a short but sweet introduction to techniques both universal to music and specific to mandolin. Not a page of the book is wasted; the book is aimed at people with no previous experience, and I think its greatest strength is the pace and the very logical order of lessons and techniques that are taught.
Like many novice musicians, I am eager to "dive right in" and start sounding like a pro, but that takes time, hard work, and practice. Many books focus too much on theory or basic drills for reading standard notation, practicing rhythm, etc. I find myself skipping through those books trying to find "the good stuff" so I can actually play a song.
On the other hand, many beginner books ONLY include simple songs and melodies, knowing that most of us just want to play some music. However, the flaw with those books are that they skip over important drills and basics required for learning or composing new music once you are done with the songs in the book.
Horne's Beginning Mandolin book includes a little bit of both -- basics and composition interspersed with short rhythms and traditional melodies for practice. In this way you are exposed both to the songs and fun licks to make you feel good and enjoy the music you are making even as a novice, as well as the core concepts and techniques that will be required for composing your own music, jamming, or taking it to the next level of difficulty. I find that this variety makes it very easy to pick up the book and start playing -- you won't want to miss a drill or lesson in the book, so it's very useful to just go through the book in the order it is presented. On the other hand, I just got finished with another session of practice using this book -- I have played through it once and "learned" all of the basics, but it's also great as a tool to refine those basics and master them. I have owned the book for a year and although I am 100 times better than when I started, I am still mastering some of the book's skills before I move into the Intermediate level (which I have also purchased)
Another nice feature of the book is that it logically progresses through different musical styles to build your repertoire and introduce a variety of scales, licks, and progressions that build on previous styles from folk music and fiddle tunes to blues, bluegrass, and finally into rock.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I only wish there were more books with such a simple, logical, yet robust sequence and variety of drills for other instruments. (I have yet to find a guitar book as well-paced and comprehensive for beginners as this book is)
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Comprehensive instruction for the serious mandolinist. One of America's leading schools for contemporary music teaches you the concepts, techniques and theory you need to become a virtuoso performer.
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