Reply #6: I bought myself one for my last birthday too! [View All]

It was a natural progression since I've played the fiddle for about 20 years. All the fiddle tunes in my brain translated easily to the mandolin, some even came back that I had forgotten about. The only difficulty was getting my picking synced up with my left hand. You can do runs of notes on a violin with one stroke of the bow. Not so on the mando.

The best advice I've heard is to try to play along with everything you hear, like TV commercials. It's hard to learn by copying recorded bluegrass because they usually play too fast.

That, and of course SCALES SCALES SCALES! You have to know some basic scales to be able to play well. I believe there are some on Mandolin Cafe.

On Edit: I'm out of the 700 club!!! Praise Jeebus! :)