Summer Mandolin Intensive Courses Begin Tuesday and Wednesday

These courses have concluded. To view the current list of courses offered, visit the Winter Online Course page.

Welcome to Bluegrass Mandolin 101 and 102!

The Bluegrass Mandolin 101 program continues this summer with 4-week online intensive courses focusing on technique. Each week students are invited to attend a live online class session in which they will be given seven exercises focusing on various aspects of mandolin technique: picking exercises, fingering exercises, double stops, arpeggio exercises, scale exercises, chord exercises and licks. A tune will be taught each week as well, and the exercises will be used in the tune to give them some practical context and help the student create variations.

Each week, students can join the 60-minute live sessions on Tuesday (101 level) or Wednesday (102 level) nights to learn the exercises and ask questions via chat window or audio. In addition, Matt will conduct live practice sessions on Saturday mornings to review the week’s materials and take questions. Students will also have access to recorded videos of each exercise, as well as practice mp3s and PDFs of all of the material. Students can also watch the recorded videos of all live sessions after the fact, in case they missed any of the live sessions and/or would like to review them. All videos, mp3s and PDFs can be downloaded and kept by the students after the course is finished.

The 101 course is intended for beginner to intermediate level players. A basic knowledge of chords, basic picking technique and some melodies is helpful but not absolutely necessary, as most exercises are intended to address fundamental technique issues, and should prove helpful to players of many ability levels.

The 102 course is intended for intermediate to advanced level players. A general knowledge of chords, picking technique and several tunes is recommended.

The 101 Intensive course begins June 10, and the 102 Intensive course begins June 11. Both courses will finish up on July 5 with the final practice/review sessions.

The fee for each four-week course is $100. Students need only a computer and a good internet connection (and a mandolin).

To view the curriculum for the 101 course click here.

To register for 101, visit the 101 registration page.

To register for 102, visit the 102 registration page.

If you have questions, feel free to email Matt at [email protected].