Mandolin
Lesson
The Value of a Mandolin Lesson
The following article covers a topic
that has recently moved to center stage--at least it seems
that way. If you've been thinking you need to know more
about learning to play mandolin, here is your opportunity.
I just got my youngest son his first
mandolin lesson the other day, and I have to say, that we're
both excited. I feel a little bit guilty, like I've been
pushing him a little hard to play music, and for a while it
seemed like it wouldn't happen. You see, the whole family
plays.
My wife is a fiddler, I play the
accordion, my older son plays harmonica and a little guitar,
and my daughter is just vicious on the banjo. So I thought,
if I could get my little one a mandolin lesson maybe he'd
take to it like the rest of us, and we could all sit around
and make music together.
But for a while, he would have none of
it. No matter how much I offered, he refused to have a
mandolin lesson.
Hopefully the information presented so
far has been applicable to your mandolin or music
experience. You might also want to consider the following:
What little interest he did have in
music, he had in rock and roll. Now, I've got no problem
with rock, I've played it before with friends, but its
simply not the kind of music that will teach you how to
really play with soul.
I remember growing up, fiddling around
with an electric guitar, being happy to just play a few
chords loudly, and not caring if I ever got good. It's all
ego and raucous noise. Mandolin teaches subtlety, but he had
no interest in even trying a guitar lesson, to say nothing
of a mandolin lesson.
That all changed one night when the
rest of us finally got together. The older one is well on
his way to being a good harmonica player and a decent
guitarist as well, but he's still a little shy of playing
with other people. He's sixteen years old and just has his
first girlfriend, and they are very much embroiled in first
love.
I've never seen him in such a good
mood as coming home that night from his first serious date,
and as soon as he got in, he picked up the harp and started
to play a tune. The rest of us sort of wondered in and
joined one by one, and before you knew it, we were all
playing together better than we had before.
All, except for the little one who
just sort of watched us, wide eyed. The next day, he asked
me for that mandolin lesson I had been talking about.
Now what could I say? I signed him up
with a music teacher I knew, but always impatient, he wanted
to start right away. I can pick a little, so I gave him his
first mandolin lesson my self.
That's the latest from one of the
mandolin authorities. Once you're familiar with these ideas,
you'll be ready to move to the next level.
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