Mandolin Tune Studies Curriculum (June 13-July 16)

“I’ve participated in many online learning programs, but so far, your format is the best I’ve ever seen. I am so pleased I happened upon your courses.”—Gina M.

“I’ve practiced more in two weeks than I have in months! Really enjoying how it’s going.”—Donna O.

“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 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.

See the Bluegrass Mandolin Jamming with Matt Flinner curriculum

See the Everything Mandolin Jamming with Matt Flinner curriculum

This course will get in-depth in helping students create variations and improvise on fiddle tunes and bluegrass songs—though the concepts will apply to any style of music. Upon registering, students will receive PDFs in tablature and standard notation for two tunes: Dry and Dusty and the Bluegrass Stomp, along with mp3s of each tune and links to videos of the tunes played slowly. During the four-week course, we’ll look at various ways of playing the melodies to both tunes as well as various ways of getting outside the melodies using double stops, positions up the neck, blues ideas and different rhythms and licks. Each week, we’ll explore a different approach to soloing and talk about how to use these approaches on our two tunes and relate these concepts to other tunes and songs students may already know. The goal is to create more possibilities in our soloing and to have more fun playing music with other people—and to learn two tunes REALLY well!

The course is intended for students at an intermediate to advanced level. Exercises at a variety of levels will be given each week; students will be encouraged to focus on the exercise(s) that they feel best suits their ability level and/or interest.

Class sessions will take place on Monday evenings at 9 pm eastern time from June 13 to July 11 (with the week of June 27 off due to Matt’s touring schedule), and practice/review sessions will take place on Saturdays at 10 am eastern time from June 18 to July 16 (again, with the week of June 27 off). Students are encouraged to attend the live sessions, but they can also review the recordings of any and all sessions at their convenience.

The course fee is $125.

TUNE STUDIES CURRICULUM

Dry and Dusty

Bluegrass Stomp

WEEK 1 (June 13)

Octave Variations

Blue notes

Throwing in some blues licks

Picking Exercise I

WEEK 2 (June 20)

Double stops

Double Stop Exercise I