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The ukulele craze continues to sweep the country
– and no wonder, as the humble uke is one of the most accessible and
sociable of musical instruments. Why not see if you have an undiscovered
talent by coming along to Steve and David’s 6-week taster course,
starting on Tuesday 17th April 8.00 pm till 9.15? Steve and David were
founder members of the Ukuteers and they’ll have you strumming (and
singing?) in next to no time. You haven’t got a uke? – pop in to
Core Music – you’ll find that they are surprisingly affordable too!
We are charging £30 for 6-week course. You can
register with Core Music in the shop, on 01434 601993, or e-mail steve@mandolinking.org.uk
“I’m leaning on a lamp........”
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Or is it a citterlin? Mike
Coleman at Core Music in Hexham has this very interesting instrument,
which was originally made for him, for sale. It is a cittern and mandolin
combined and has 10 strings on each of the two necks. The cittern has bass
strings as octaves and the mandolin has unison strings - both necks
currently tuned to DADAE.
Mike says that "The pick-ups are simple transducers and there is a pick-up selector switch which enables the cittern or mandolin to be prominent, but there is also a setting for both to be live at the same time. It is an experimental model and is very quirky. The tuning system is interesting in that the pairs of strings are tuned using machine heads at the the headstock and at the bridge end. So you have to work between the top and bottom of the instrument to tune. It takes a little getting used to. Interestingly it works very well as a "lap" type instrument and I often thought of mounting it on a stand and playing it horizontally would be an interesting way of using it." Give Mike a call if you would like to know more: 01434 601993. |
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The mandolin kings are my heroes on mandolin - the musicians who got
me interested in playing it and who continue to inspire me. The first
of these was Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne. Ry Cooder was another - although for years I did not even know who played the mandolin with the Rolling Stones. |
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February 2012: I am planning a further mandolin taster course at Core Music in Hexham, following the success of the 2011 sessions. This will probably start in April or May, running for 6 sessions, a fortnight apart, and will cost £30. The course is suitable for beginners to the mandolin and does not require any previous knowledge. We will learn from scratch a tune per session from my celtic folk favourites. If you would
like to join the next taster course let Mike
or Garry at Core Music (01434 601993) have your contact details, or e-mail me direct:
steve@mandolinking.org.uk I am now using Soundcloud to provide recordings of the tunes covered in my sessions and I provide music and tab for each tune. Some of the tunes we have worked on previously can be found here: Club Mando. These will be deleted soon, when this website is updated. |
 | The Song-a-Week Social Group is a wonderful group on the mandolin cafe site. What they do is choose a tune a week and then video themselves playing it. Thus you get lots of mando players giving their best shot at a tune, with close-ups of the picking and fingering. A great way to learn some new tunes. Try it today! |
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The Beatles were renowned uke fans, but here's Paulie playing a proper instrument on his single Dance Tonight.
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The Mandolin Tool is a neat little Windows app which includes chord and scale charts for guitar, banjo, ukulele and mandolin,
a tuner, a metronome with tab tempo
and a music player which plays music files
at slower speeds without altering the pitch. |
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The Andy
Statmen Trio on youtube - wow!
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Lessons with Jethro Burns? This is the closest you'll get, with recordings of his tuition sessions.
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The Bluegrass College Fakebook is a good source of tabbed tunes for mando and other instruments. |
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Scott Tichenor's mandolin
cafe has long been the top mandolin site on the
web. The content is huge, with hundred's of pages of mandolin stuff
including downloadable lessons, a chord library and lots more links. Check
out the mp3s.
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mandozine - "seeking a cure for mandolin acquisition syndrome" - a hopeless task if you ask me. Mandozine seems to be closely associated with mandolin cafe these days, but still has lots of original stuff.
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Mel Bay's mandolin sessions is a bi-monthly magazine for the mandolin, with back issues available to 2003. Features currently include building a traditional repertoire, klezmer, jazz mandology, interviews and lots of tunes. I always check out the Irish music section.
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Nigel Gatherer's scottish mandolin pages contain all sorts of things of interest to the mandolin player, from playing techniques and tunes to maintenance instructions, musician biogs and links to other mandolin sites around the web.
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Jazz mando unravels jazz theory, fretboard and picking techniques and seeks to promote the mandolin as a "legitimate voice in the jazz genre."
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Dan Beimborn's mandolin archive began by documenting Gibson mandolins. Then it grew and grew..... |
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e-mando
is billed as the electric mandolin resource page and features players and builders, plus a shop.
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There could be worse places to be stranded than Michael Reichenbach's Mando Island where he shares lots of interesting mando stuff. Also check out his blog and YouTube video of Johnny's Wedding. |
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John
Marlow made my electric mandolin and I thoroughly recommend it. He
does accoustics and fiddles too.
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The place to go in the U.K to shop for mandos is the acoustic
music company. Based in Brighton, they have a tremendous stock and I
would recommend visiting their shop. I only came away with two!
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