I was in Sounds Instrumental this afternoon, which is always a pleasure. I was ostensibly there to buy a tuner for my mandolin, but took the opportunity to try out a Bouzouki (need longer fingers!) and browse through the music books.
This collection of Scottish tunes caught my eye:
There is really no need for me to buy this book. One website alone – www.thesession.org – has more tunes than I could ever learn, and probably has many of the tunes in this book, but that doesn’t stop me wanting it! It feels great, and the pages of musical score look fabulous. I didn’t buy it, but as I type this I’m beginning to regret it.
(I have hotlinked to the image on the Highland Music Trust site, which is in general a bad thing to do, but I’m guessing they’ll forgive me since I’m giving their beautiful book a free plug).
Stumble it!
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Heard your hornpipe playing on the sound lantern page and was very impressed with your tone. I thought I'd see a lot of blog posts about your practice and mandolin sessions but no luck. Oh well, perhaps I'll find some mandolin posts or videos, as I'm keen to find out how you got so good!
Cheers!
Thanks Sean. I guess it's just practice. I've definitely practised for at least 10 minutes, sometimes a lot more, every day for the last 15 months. I'm still just a beginner though really. I haven't yet mustered up the courage to go along to an open sesson.
just a year? wow! your tone is perfect. I really admire the clarity of your playing. I have been playing about 2 1/2 years now [certainly not every day though] and have gone to open sessions geared towards beginners. I find that they're a nice balance to the solitary pursuit of solo practice.
looking forward to more mandolin posts from you. inspiring!
To be fair, I have been playing guitar for many years. I am just a strummer, but I'm sure that the experience of fingers on fretboard and plectrum on strings must have helped.
As regards sessions, I guess I should bite the bullet and get out there!