Mandolin Tune Studies II Curriculum (8/15-9/10)

“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 Curriculum (August 16-September 10)
See the Everything Mandolin Jamming II Curriculum (August 17-September 10)

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: Cotton Eyed Joe and the Road to Columbus, 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 August 15 to September 5, and practice/review sessions will take place on Saturdays at 10 am eastern time from August 20 to September 10. Students are encouraged to attend the live sessions, but they can also review the recordings of any and all sessions at their convenience.

This course is a continuation of the Mandolin Tune Studies I course which concludes on July 16, but students do not to have taken that course in order to take the Everything Mandolin Jamming II course.

The course fee is $125. Register here.

TUNE STUDIES CURRICULUM

Tunes (sent in advance):

Cotton Eyed Joe

Road to Columbus

WEEK 1 (August 15)

Octave Variations

Picking Exercise II

Finding scale tones

Melodic patterns

Throwing in some added licks

WEEK 2 (August 22)