9 Valuable Tips to Help Improve your Mandolin Playing Skills
Find some mandolin music – Get a hold of some classic mandolin music to study from. It is a really good idea to have something to draw knowledge from.
Keep it close at hand at all times – You never know when the urge to play a few chords may hit you and if you always keep your mandolin close by, you will be able to satisfy the urge. You can also use the time to get that much better.
Set aside time to play every day – Carve out a little practice time every day to be able to pick up your instrument. The more consistent time that you can dedicate to your craft will go along ways to improve your playing experience.
Make good use of a metronome – Timing is a very big part if play instruments like the mandolin. A metronome is the best way to learn about timing when playing a musical instrument. While it might be a bit of a challenge to learn to use one, in the long run, it will pay off.
Look for local mandolin workshops – To help improve your playing skills there local groups forming all over the country. They often set up workshops and even some have opened up week-long music camps for the mandolin.
Don’t rush it, going slow is a much better way – Do not rush yourself, be sure to leave plenty of time to set a slow enough pace. Just don’t be in such a hurry that you end up sounding sloppy. As they, patience is a virtue, just take it really slow.
Develop your musical ear – In order to be a really good musician and mandolin player you need to develop a musical ear. This will you to be a much better player by being able to listen to music from other mandolin players. By being able to decipher what you are listening to and to be able to recreate the same sound is a powerful skill.
Be a bit of a book worm – Learn to read and appreciate sheet music, it will serve you well to be able to read sheet music. There are many books on the topic of understanding how to read music.
Invest in a good recording device – Having a high-quality recording device is a really good idea, by recording all of your sessions you can go back and listen to them. This also means that you can tell the areas that you need to improve on.
Steps to Self-Taught Mandolin
The mandolin is a unique instrument with an equally unique sound, which is probably what draws some people to want to play it. For years the only way a person could learn the play such an instrument they had to search the yellow pages in their area to find a professional music teacher that would be able to teach them to play.
Fortunately, today, there are several ways that a person can take advantage of the technology available to learn to play the mandolin online. Whether you are into one on one live tutoring using Skype, paid video-based training courses, lessons or free “How To” videos on Youtube. In this article, we included several methods for self-teaching of the mandolin and we also wanted to offer our reader some of the tips that we came across during our research. These tips are designed to help the reader to improve their playing skills.
