Mandolin Tune Studies II Curriculum (8/20-9/21)

“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 II Curriculum (August 19-September 21)
See the Mandolin Chord & Rhythm Intensive Curriculum (August 21-September 21)

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.

This course is offered at Europe-friendly times! Class sessions take place on Tuesdays at 2 pm eastern time (7 or 8 pm in most of Europe) and 9 pm eastern time. Students are welcome to join whichever session is more convenient for them…or they can join both! Students who cannot make it to the live sessions are able to view the sessions afterwards on the class website—generally by the following day. Tuesday class sessions will run from August 20 to September 17 (with the week of August 27 off due to Matt’s tour schedule), and practice/review sessions will take place on Saturdays at 10 am eastern time from August 24 to September 21 (with August 31 off).

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 Mandolin Tune Studies II course.

The course fee is $125.

TUNE STUDIES CURRICULUM

Tunes (sent in advance):

Forked Deer

Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine

WEEK 1 (August 20)

Octave Variations

Picking Exercise II

Finding scale tones

Melodic patterns

Throwing in some added licks

WEEK 2 (September 3)