AlistairMusic Tuition

Pretty excited about doing some mandolin teaching tonight, I’ve been working on some bluegrass classics like ‘Cripple Creek’ and ‘Old Joe Clark’ with one of my students. She can already play the fiddle, which is pretty much the same tuning as a mandolin, so she knows where all the notes are, it’s just a question of developing the right hand picking technique and getting used to fretting with the left hand.

Today we’re going to work on getting some bounce in the right hand and loosening it up up to get some good tremolo action going.  Then we’re going to look at some scales going all the way up the fret board - these are good little warm up exercises to do and also a good way of getting sharp and getting to know your way up and down the fret board.

I do enjoy teaching beginners, although I do also love teaching more advanced students - as we can get stuck into technique and more complex tunes and some improvising.

Yes, lots of fun!

Maybe I’ll post a little tuition video up on here some time soon.

When it comes to Mandolin - Bill Monroe is THE daddy!!! He’s widely known as the father of bluegrass, as he basically started off bluegrass music, There’s also a brilliant film about him called ‘BIll Monroe - The Father of Bluegrass’ - click on the link to watch it, sooo good!

When you watch Bill Monroe play, it’s amazing seeing his right hand move so quickly whilst his arm hardly moves at all. This is a perfect example of good right hand picking technique!

Nowadays, I reckon Chris Thile is the best mandolin player around. Check out this little gig he did at NPR.

I’m teaching a lot of Mandolin these days, with a range of levels, from total beginners to more advanced stuff. One of my students is mainly a Mandola player, but we’re working on some bluegrass classics (like old joe clark, cripple creek etc…) and some celtic tunes as well. But we’re mainly working the right picking technique and improvisation.

For the improvisation stuff, we’re just working on learning some of the main major scales and then looking at ways to make it sound bluegrassy (i.e. flattening the 3rd and the 7th’s). I’ll elaborate more on this soon.

Anyways, if you into mandolin, you should definitely watch the videos above!!!!

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Right, now then! Here’s a new blog I’ve set up - for me to ramble on about music stuff, especially related to the kind of stuff that I teach…. I’m a poor starving musician who likes to play gigs, sleep, eat and teach a mixture of stringed instruments.

I teach Guitar/Banjo/Mandolin/Ukulele/Bouzouki/Mandola and songwriting…. Mostly covering all things folk and bluegrass. I make sure that all of my students learn how to improvise and make their own music, not just playing other peoples music. 

I’m obsessed with acquiring new instruments (as you will find out as you read more of this blog), I’m also addicted to tea and coffee…. and i love talking about Bob Dylan.

Here’s a little introductory video promo thingy about me as a music teacher.

More to follow soon!

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