Gypsy Swing Mandolin Jamming Curriculum (July 9-August 4)

“After buying six mandolins and umpteen books…I am convinced your course is best $100 I have invested in my mandolin journey to date. Finally, I’m getting the discpline I need with your exercises to learn scales, arpeggios, double stops, fingering techniques, learn the fretboard (the essential tools I need)…and most importantly to learn how those things fit into playing tunes.”—Rick D., Bluegrass Mandolin 101 student

“I have to say that making everything available online is a great convenience for me. Being able to stop and return to a more challenging exercise or a newer phrase is a great for learning. I also really appreciate your availability to answer questions offline. This is a great course, and I feel as though I’m improving daily because of it.”—Joe C., Bluegrass Mandolin 101 student

This course is intended to help the aspiring mandolinist build up repertoire and find ways of creating new solos over Django Reinhardt-style Gypsy swing tunes; it’s also designed in the hope that it will encourage students to get out and jam with other players!

Each week, we’ll look at four Gypsy swing standard tunes with a particular concept in mind—Dominant 7 chords, ii/V/Is etc. Students will be given lead sheets (in standard notation and tablature) for each song, as well as a few exercises to help them learn more about the fretboard and start incorporating new ideas into their solos. Concepts and tunes will be taught during the class session, and all tunes will be revisited during Saturday practice sessions in a “jam session” format, where each song is played several times though, and students have the opportunity to try out some of the week’s concepts on the tunes (with guidance from Matt). Ways of playing the chord progressions will also be suggested, so students will have a guide for playing backup as well as lead and improv on all four tunes.

Classes meet Monday evenings from July 9 to July 30 at 9 pm eastern time. There will also be 45-minute review sessions every Saturday morning from July 14 to August 4 at 10 am eastern time.

Get info about other Summer 2018 courses

GYPSY SWING MANDOLIN JAMMING CURRICULUM:

Week 1 (July 9)

Simple chord progressions

Major and dominant 7 arpeggios

A few chord inversions

Playing Django-style rhythm

Louise

My Sweet

Dinah

Tiger Rag

Week 2 (July 16)