“All your courses are really good, very well designed, and you have a great teaching style and a relaxed, open, while also serious, approach – which really comes across with the live lessons – thank you for being so encouraging always!”—Penny J.
“I got a lot out of it! Everyday I have a practice routine based on the summer intensive. You have helped me by leaps and bounds.”—Sandy N.
Register for Swing Mandolin 101 with Matt Flinner
See the Mandolin Chord Melody curriculum
See the Western Swing Mandolin curriculum
Explore the wonderful world of swing mandolin with Grammy-nominated mandolinist Matt Flinner. Learn a new swing tune (or two) each week and get pointers on how to play chords and backup as well as approaches to improvising. This course will be very much into chord voicings, scales, arpeggios and how they all relate to one another. It’s a great way to expand your playing and musicianship (and learn some great tunes)!
The course takes place on Monday evenings at 9 pm eastern time, with practice/review sessions on Saturdays at 10 am eastern time. The course is recommended for advanced beginner to intermediate students, and assumes some knowledge of chords and the ability to play some melodies. Rudimentary knowledge of scales and arpeggios is also helpful.
SWING AND JAZZ MANDOLIN 101 CURRICULUM:
Week 1 (April 1): The Blues
Dominant 7 Chords
Blues Scales
C Jam Blues
Bonus Tune: Route 66
Week 2 (April 15): The ii-V-I progression
Major Scales and patterns in a few keys
Two ways of playing ii-V-Is
Major 7 Arpeggios in all keys
Sweet Sue
Bonus tune: How High the Moon
Week 3 (April 22): The Blues II (adding the ii-V-I)
Dominant 7 chord inversions
Dominant 7 arpeggios
Mixolydian Scales and patterns
Blues Walk
Bonus tune: Cool Blues
Week 4 (April 29): Some more ii-V-Is
A couple of ii-V-I licks
Two more ii-V-I inversions
Minor 7 arpeggios
Dorian scales and patterns
Honeysuckle Rose
Bonus tune: Ain’t Misbehavin’
Week 5 (May 6): Going Around the Circle of 5ths
Patterns around the circle
Arpeggiating through chord progressions
Seven Come Eleven
Bonus tune: Sweet Georgia Brown
Week 6 (May 20): Target notes
Some more ii-V-I licks and patterns
Using target notes over chord changes
Scale exercises and ii-V-Is
All of Me
Bonus tune: Back Home Again in Indiana
Week 7 (May 27): The I-VI-ii-V-I progression
Two ways of playing the I-VI-ii-V-I progression
Finding smooth chord tones from chord to chord
Blue Moon
Bonus tune: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
Week 8 (June 3): Rhythm changes
Tying it all together: inversions, chord tones, arpeggios and scales
I Got Rhythm
Bonus tune: Oleo
The course fee is $225.
Register here for Swing Mandolin 101 with Matt Flinner